| Philip Rivers at Carter-Finley Stadium in 2002. [Photo from NC State Athletics.] |
NOTE: This story was originally published in the Greensboro News & Record during Philip Rivers' freshman year at NC State, when he was still new on the scene. He and his family spent a few hours over a handful of days getting to know them and learning what made him so competitive. He never changed one bit during his four years at NC State or his 17 seasons in the NFL. I dug this story up when he announced his retirement on Wednesday and revealed that he immediately will begin his high school coaching career back in Alabama, where, like his father, he will coach his sons.
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BY TIM PEELER
When Philip Rivers arrived at halftime of his father's junior varsity football game at Wakefield High School on Thursday night, he went right to the end zone where Steve Rivers was dissecting the Wolverines' first-half performance.
When the third quarter began, Philip followed his dad to the sideline, where his 6-foot-5 frame was a head taller than the ninth- and 10th-grade players in their cleats and helmets. He gave the officials what-for every now and again and tried to will Wakefield back from a 13-point deficit, just as he has rallied the undefeated Wolfpack in three of its first four games.
It didn't happen.
Millbrook's junior varsity whipped Raleigh's newest school, which has no seniors and only a handful of juniors among its student body, 27-0. It was the first loss this season for Steve or Philip, who had been a combined 6-0 before Thursday night.
It was a little bit hard to take, because nobody in this family likes to lose. At anything.
Philip, the 18-year-old freshman quarterback who has led N.C. State to a 4-0 record, remembers marathon video games against his maternal grandfather, a man 56 years his senior. They would play so long that Bob Gunner's fingers would turn black from the metal disk and keypad used in the primitive Mattel Intellivision NFL game.
"Even though I was little, he wasn't easing up on me," Philip says. "He probably did at first, but it got to him."
Joan Rivers, 40, usually is a little bit shy, but that doesn't mask the competitive fire she shows at football games or family competitions.
"I would tell them, no matter what you do, you have to make a game out of it and compete," she says. "I think he got his skills and his talents from his dad's side of the family and his competitiveness from my side."
Philip still hears echoes of his mother's sweet voice from weekend outings. She would stand quietly on the sideline -- until he dropped a pass.
"Come on, Philip, I could have caught that one," his demure mother would yell.
Joan always has been that way.
"If I am watching football -- Oregon against Wisconsin or somebody like that -- I will pick the team I want to pull for, then I will be screaming at the TV.
"That's awful, isn't it?"
Not really. One of the reasons N.C. State coach Chuck Amato knew he wanted Rivers to be his first recruit was that sons of coaches usually have the competitive fire and a knowledge of the game that other players lack.
"He grew up at his father's knee, learning about the game," Amato says. "That is an intangible, and those are things that you can't measure, you can't weigh and you can't count. Those are those things that make some players special."
Call it a mother's intuition, but Joan Rivers always knew her son would be a star. She thought so when he was 2, as she watched him dribble a basketball all over the house. By the time he was 9 or 10, she didn't even feel guilty about not putting money into a college fund.
"I told everybody then that Philip was going to get a scholarship," she says. "They looked at me like I was crazy."
Starting at age 6, Philip spent most of his youth at Decatur (Ala.) High School football practices, standing in the huddle for almost every offensive play, breaking with the team and asking his dad, a former Mississippi State linebacker, what was about to happen.
"He didn't go home and play hide-and-go-seek," Steve Rivers said. "He came to football practice."
Despite that background, Steve Rivers didn't let his oldest son play organized football until he was in the seventh grade because he thought what Philip was learning at practice was far more valuable than what he might learn in Pop Warner leagues.
By the time Philip was ready to play, Steve Rivers was ready to move. In 1996, he hauled the family 12 miles up the road to Athens, Ala., a one-school town that was Decatur's biggest rival.
As a sophomore, Philip was a starter for his father, but not at quarterback. Athens had a senior, Grant Lauderdale, who might not have had as much ability as Philip (already 6-2, 175 pounds), but who had seniority. So Philip started all 10 games at linebacker and occasionally ran the offense.
"It kind of helped me being a linebacker," Philip says. "It made me tougher and made me understand the other side of the ball a little more."
When it was Rivers' turn, he stepped in and became a star. As a senior, he was named the Alabama high school player of the year. But he didn't want to go to Auburn or Alabama, where he would likely would have been moved to another position, so he chose N.C. State.
After graduating in January, Philip enrolled at State and struggled to adjust to college life. That struggle got easier when his father decided to leave Athens to become the head coach at Wakefield. With 28 years of experience in the Alabama school system, Steve Rivers, 51, could draw retirement and go to another state to coach. He had already made inquiries in Georgia before the Wakefield job opened.
"This sort of just landed in our lap," Steve Rivers said.
Philip visits the family's apartment once or twice a week. After leading the Wolfpack to a win at Indiana with three fourth-quarter touchdown passes in a noon game, Philip was at his parents' place by 9 p.m. to go over game tapes with his father, do some laundry and hang out with his little brother, Stephen, 7, and sister, Anna, 2.
Mom and dad haven't been to his dorm room since they moved him in, but they love being so close.
"We told him that we are here to support him, not to bother him in any way," Steve Rivers says.
Joan figures that those frequent visits might end next year when Philip's longtime girlfriend from Alabama, Tiffany Goodwin, enrolls at N.C. State, but so far the whole family is enjoying their unusual transition year together.
Maybe that is why Philip has shown so much poise and maturity in his first four college football games. He's simply relied on his football knowledge and competitive spirit to stay calm, whether facing a 13-point deficit in a nationally televised game against Georgia Tech or a five-touchdown deficit in a Dreamcast NFL2K video game with his new teammates.
"It's funny," Rivers says. "Those games are just as real for me. I hate to lose."
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