Ken Margerum throws to receivers during yesterday's open day of spring practice at Cooke Field. Photo by Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Ken Margerum throws to receivers during yesterday's open day of spring practice at Cooke Field. Photo by Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Barely.
"Guy Benjamin threw me my first pass and got me knocked out cold - completely knocked out," said the University of Hawaii receivers coach with a smile. "He hung me out to dry and a guy laid me out.
"My first catch ever. I was a freshman and he was a senior. It was in a big game against (Cal) Berkeley."
Benjamin, now the UH offensive coordinator, went on to be a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.
Margerum was a receiver for the Chicago Bears - including the 1985 Super Bowl team - and also joined the 49ers later in his career.
Ironically, it was a knee injury that sent Margerum to the Big Island.
"I blew out my ACL in 1984 at mini-camp with the Bears, so they sent me to the Big Island for rehab, since the weather was so good," said the 37-year-old Atlantic City native, who moved to Fountain Valley, Calif., when he was 9.
"I trained on the Big Island and fell in love with it and I came back the next three or four off-seasons to train while I was playing ball," he said. "I ended up buying a home there, getting married there and having a kid at Kona Hospital."
Margerum has lived in Kamuela for the past eight years. He and his wife, Joy, have a 3-year-old daughter, Sunny. He was the offensive coordinator for Hawaii Preparatory Academy the past three seasons, while Joy is the school's trainer and track coach.
The Margerums will keep their home on the Big Island, but will also live in Manoa.
So now he has made the jump from the Big Island to Oahu - and from high school to his first collegiate coaching job.
"When you're 37 years old, it's a time in your life when you're still in your prime," Margerum reflected. "You can't just retire when you're 37. You need challenges in your life.
"I enjoyed coaching high school ball. Plus this is Hawaii, so I couldn't think of a better spot to try it and see if I like it."
So far, Margerum is enjoying his new career under head coach Fred vonAppen - and he likes the staff.
"It's a bunch of looney-tunes - great guys, fun people," Margerum said, again smiling. "It's the Magical Mystery Staff. Everyone has their own personality and Coach vonAppen brought together guys he knew would get along on and off the field.
"He's really a believer in group mentality. They may have a different lifestyle out of the work environment and off the field, but we all have common goals, the same feel for the game. It's good - you stay refreshed that way."
Margerum added: "I always thought `I never want to coach, all my coaches are so burned out all the time.' It seemed like they never saw their families, they never got to have fun.
"It's not that way with Coach vonAppen. He's a strong believer in you get your work done and do what you want to do on your own free time."
Margerum has spent some of his time recruiting since being named to the staff in early January.
"I thought we had an excellent recruiting year," he said. "We're trying to be fairly reserved
about it, but I think we did better than a lot of people would expect, being so new and being hired periodically over two or three months.
"We landed a couple of good receivers and a couple of good quarterbacks. But it's going to take two or three years to find out."
Margerum said he is optimistic about the team itself, which is coming off a 4-8 season under former head coach Bob Wagner. The Rainbows started spring practice yesterday after three months of conditioning drills.
"They're still in a state of shock from being out of shape to getting in shape. I've never seen a program that has worked as hard and as ambitiously in 12 weeks, especially at 6:15 in the morning."
Margerum starred in football and track at Stanford from 1977-80 and was inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995. He was a first team Pac-10 receiver for three seasons and a first-team All-American as a junior and senior. He also was a second-team academic All-American in 1980 and still holds the school record for touchdown receptions with 32.
Margerum, small by NFL standards, wasn't drafted until the third round, as the 61st overall pick in 1981. But Bears head coach Mike Ditka liked the gutsy receiver - and he earned a Super Bowl ring along the way.
Now he is putting a lot of that pro football experience to work.
"In different situations, you use different things that you've learned from different people. I learned certain things from Mike Ditka and from Bill Walsh, so it's kind of a conglomerate from a lot of different people. You throw out the bad and keep the good. Every coach has their good points and a lot of coaches have some not-so-good points. So I just take the good from all the ones I had."
The Bears' easy 46-10 Super Bowl victory over New England was the ultimate, Margerum recalled.
"Other than seeing my daughter getting born, it was the most intense time of my life.
Walking into the locker room at halftime, when we already knew we had it won, was such a feeling of ecstasy. Usually you have to wait until after the game, but we were celebrating for 30 minutes of football. The whole second half was a party."
Still, there was another lesson he learned with the controversial Chicago team.
"You could see the way Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan were at each others' throats and the offense was against the defense all the time. If the Bears had got along, they would have had a lot more success for a lot more years."
Margerum applied it to the UHsituation, where there is a wide range in age and background on the new coaching staff.
"You can see maybe Guy Benjamin and (defensive coordinator) Don Lindsey having that type of mentality, but we're going to make ourselves aware of that and guard against it.
"That's what hurt the Bears, a division among the coaches that distracted the players."
Margerum pointed out the keys to being a good receiver.
"Composure, hand-eye coordination - being able to relax in tense moments."
A few more completions:
- Best quarterback: "That's a tossup between (John) Elway in college, (Jim) McMahon, Joe Montana and Steve Young. Jim McMahon was an incredible competitor and gamer, but Montana obviously goes down in history as the best. Athletic ability and arm, John Elway. McMahon for game instinct. Montana for technique and progression reads."
- Best defensive backs: "Ronnie Lott, Dennis Smith and Kenny Easley."
- Best receiver: "No doubt. Jerry Rice."
- Best all-around player: "Walter Payton."
But now Margerum must focus on the college game. And he has set some goals.
"The short-term goal is to see the skill development of the players evolve into self-confidence and preparing themselves to win - and the rest will take care of itself.
"The long term is do what the (UH men's) volleyball team is doing. Sell out Aloha Stadium. Play the Michigans, Notre Dames and Boston Colleges and get ranked and go for a national championship.
"I know that sounds like dreaming, but when you win a Super Bowl, when you've been there and know what it tastes like, that's why you want to do it.
"That's why we're Division I. If they don't want to go for it here and make the changes to go for it, then just go to Division II."
Finally, Margerum reflected on the team once more.
"I'm surprised at the athletic ability - and if we harness it correctly and they don't succumb to outside influences and pressures. ...
"After all, it's just a game, just a simple game and people tend to make it more complicated than it is. It's blocking, catching, throwing.
"There are enough good athletes here so if they can come together and build up the chemistry amongst themselves and carry over these last 12 weeks into the summer workouts on their own - and have discipline where we don't have to work them out or kill them to get into shape during fall ball - then we'll be OK. But the kids have to take it upon themselves, because you can't baby-sit them all summer.
"They've got great chemistry building day to day, they're becoming friends. I don't see cliques or groups. I see people coming together."