1/20/2021 football Edit

Peeler: Personal reflections of covering Philip Rivers

Tim Peeler

The Wolfpacker Contributor

There are so many stories to tell about Philip Rivers’ time at NC State, so many things he said that in retrospect clearly defined the player and person he became long before he was a well-known NFL quarterback competing a full continent away in Southern California and then in Indianapolis for a one-year stint.

If you ever went to a NC State football practice when he was here, back when that was allowed for more than just a few minutes a week, you could hear the incessant taunts and chatter — punctuated with actual sincere “Gollees,” “Dadgummits” and “Dangits” — the brash passer would hurl at his own teammates.

During goal-line practice, he would point at defensive back Greg Golden, tell him exactly what he was about to do, then do it.

And laugh afterwards.

NC State Wolfpack football quarterback Philip Rivers — Rivers answered questions from the NC State press beat (Tim Peeler included) after his career debut in 2000, an overtime win over Arkansas State.

He was that way until Golden switched sides of the ball to become a running back, and then they would taunt the defense together.

Those were among the immediate memories I had Wednesday morning when Rivers announced his NFL retirement after 17 seasons.

Not long ago, I was listening to a tape of the first interview Rivers ever did with the media while at NC State, a mass huddle on Media Day 2000. It was the fall, so Rivers had already been on campus for a semester and essentially won the starting job as the Wolfpack’s quarterback.

There were probably 20 reporters standing around his chair outside the old Finley Fieldhouse where we would typically do interviews. The group was shouting questions to this 18-year-old kid who had graduated early from high school, began working out with the Wolfpack in spring practice and went to every class that he was scheduled to attend.

Back then, first-year coach Chuck Amato’s favorite thing to say about Rivers was that the young player should have been worrying about going to the prom, not learning offensive coordinator Norm Chow’s complicated schemes.

Naturally, that’s one of the things the gaggle of reporters asked Rivers about. He looked quizzically at the question, then sounded about 10 times more mature than the veteran reporters who were curious about it.

If you ever just sat down with him in an interview, Rivers would take a different kind of interest than most players. He would open up like few others without too much thought.

One time, he told me there was a point in his young life that he wasn’t sure he wanted to play football. He was about 4, and he liked hearing the pep band play at the high school basketball games his parents took him to.

He dreamed of being the drum major in the marching band.

His mom told him he could play quarterback in the game, change uniforms late in the second quarter and then lead the band onto the field at halftime. I doubt very seriously that he thought that was impossible.

For those of us who covered him and were around during his time at NC State, there are so many memories of the player and person he became. Not all of them had to do with his performance on the football field.

NC State Wolfpack football Philip Rivers — Philip Rivers holds up his retired No. 17 jersey on Senior Day in 2003. (Ken Martin, The Wolfpacker)

I remember how I personally saved his football career after his freshman season — at least that’s what I’ve always told myself. My wife and I had just welcomed our first son into the world in February 2002, and Philip and his wife Tiffany were expecting their first child, a daughter they named Halle, a few months later.

“Philip, there are two things you need to remember when you are in the birthing room,” I told him with all my worldly knowledge. “First, only let her squeeze your left hand. It gets pretty intense in there, and she can crush those bones like a Goldfish cracker.

“And, if you forget rule No. 1, only let her squeeze two fingers on your right hand. It will be much harder to break them if she only holds the fingers in pairs.”

He never missed a game to illness or injury in the 20 years that followed.

I remember the time he told us when Tiffany was expecting their second child that they had decided, as a couple, to have 12 kids — an even dozen.

“We’re going to have six and adopt six,” Rivers said, the way he did everything else, with certainty. As it turns out, they have a total of nine. So far, anyway, because they have yet to adopt.

I remember the old golden 1996 Ford Taurus he drove around campus and out to San Diego, even after he was signed and sealed to the Chargers.

It had Notre Dame floor mats and, in high school, he would drive it while wearing a Notre Dame letterman’s jacket, because he was such a fan of the Fighting Irish while he was growing up. He even offered to wear it to a press conference before the Wolfpack played Notre Dame in the 2003 Gator Bowl — but Chuck Amato threatened to leave him at home if he did. Good thing he didn’t.

No one was happier about beating college football’s most famous team after that game in Jacksonville, Florida. The only time I saw Rivers with a bigger smile was the following year when he had his jersey No. 17 retired by the school, he received his college diploma and when he and Jerricho Cotchery played enough catch in the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando that they became the all-time passing and pass-receiving players in ACC history.

I remember talking to him midway through his pro career for a GoPack.com story and asking what he missed about NC State, a place he said “would always be home.” Everything he came up with, besides talking about listening to “John Boy and Billy” on local radio, was about food: walking to the Western Boulevard Dairy Queen every other night with defensive back Adrian Wilson for a hot dog and a banana split; using all his meal points at the Chick-Fil-A in D.H. Hill Jr. Library; meeting his mom, dad and siblings at the Fat Daddy’s on Glenwood Avenue for family meals.

I remember him sharing kind remembrances of teammates Corey Smith, who died in a boating accident, and Chris Colmer, who died unexpectedly after they all left school. As you would expect, Rivers remembered them both glowingly and with emotion.

I recall asking about what activities he liked besides football. He had just spent a summer working on the grounds crew at Prestonwood Country Club and thinking about investing in some clubs.

“I like to play golf and I can be pretty good, but it’s awfully expensive,” Rivers said. “I’ll have to get a good job if I want to keep playing.”

That was some $240 million ago for the 17-year NFL veteran.

At the 2003 ACC Kickoff before his senior season, Rivers won a closest-to-the-hole contest during a media-coach-player golf tournament. As a student-athlete, he could not take the prize, a nice cotton golf shirt for Reynolds Plantation Golf Course in Greensboro, Georgia. That meant the person who finished second in the contest was awarded his prize.

That shirt has been in my regular golf-attire rotation ever since.

Rivers is a once-in-a-generation athlete. Besides the two years he waited on Drew Brees to leave the Chargers for the New Orleans Saints, he did not miss a game because of injury. That streak started when he was in the eighth grade, 25 years ago, and lasted through 51 starts at NC State and 240 games in the NFL. And he did it without the weird Tom Brady diet.

There are so many more memories of Rivers’ time at State, which coincided with the fun environment created by Amato, the sustained excellence of players like Cotchery and the rest of that first recruiting class, and the advent of a bigger brand of football in expanded and renovated Carter-Finley Stadium.

But there was never really anybody who amazed NC State’s passionate fan base more than the mature son of a high school football coach from Athens, Alabama.

Even if he did have a funny throwing motion.

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.