Just Two of the Guys

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JUST
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THE
One-artned cornerbacks
blend in, yet stand out
By CARL DUBOIS
cornerbacks,
not everyone
practices political correctness.
Boise
it comes
State tocoaches
one-armed
call
DaWuan Miller "Slot Machine." Trey
Woods' Sam Houston State teammates have
dubbed him "One-Armed Bandit."
Those seem like cruel and unsympathetic
monikers for two players who were born
with just one hand. Miller's left arm ends at
the elbow. Woods' right
arm ends just below the
elbow. But both players
seem to have an energy
supply that has no endand both say the jokes and
nicknames they hear from.
teammates and coaches
confirm they are part of the
team. That's how they like
it.
"If you're going to have
one-and-a-haIf arms," Miller said, "you'd better have
a sense of humor."
The urge to be accepted,
to be treated like everybody else, has driven both
players. Now they stand
out, not because they're
missing
a hand,
but
because they excel.
The two seniors have
known about each other for
only a few months, yet
When
the title game.
"If he had two arms, he wouldn't be playing
for Boise State," Boise State secondary coach
Ron Gould said. "He'd be in the Pac-10."
Woods, whose motto is carpe diem, Latin
for "seize the day," has a T-shirt that reads:
"Second place is the first loser." Indeed,
Woods, 21, is second to none when it comes
to blocking kicks. Despite missing three
games in 1994 with a broken thumb, he still
blocked two kicks and ranks as Sam
Houston State's career leader in blocked
Trey Woods, a noted bully, hits his Sam Houston
State teammates with his nub on occasion.
Miller and Woods are two sides of the
same rare coin. This fall, their paths will
cross: On September 16, Sam Houston
State plays the Broncos on the bright blue
turf in Boise, Idaho.
"I guess it will be like watching myseIf out
there," Woods said.
magnify the negative a bit and you
might see DaWuan Miller.
snapshot and
of Trey
Woods,
At a5-foot-10
163 pounds,
Woods would be considered small on many
high school football teams in Texas, his
home state. Miller is 6-2 and 184 pounds,
ideal proportions for an NFL defensive
back.
"He looks more like a football player than
Woods does," said Sam Goodwin, coach at
Northwestern State, a Southland Conference rival of Sam Houston State. Goodwin,
whose team plays September 30 at Boise
State, saw Miller in the I-M finals. "His
build is much more physical than Trey's,"
he said.
That hasn't kept Woods from blocking
three kicks against Goodwin's teams.
"I don't know that I've seen anybody
quicker on the takeoff," Goodwin said. "His
get-off time on kicks is amazing. His reaction to the snap is the best I've seen. You
have to plan for him on every kick. We plan
for him and he still blocks them."
Woods may be small, but he's the closest
thing to a bully there is in the Southland.
No one cheats him out of his quota of personal fouls.
"He's kind of a cheap-shot artist,"
Goodwin said. "He's going to get his licks
in. But I don't begrudge him that. I admire
his toughness."
Woods says you can't seize the day with a
soft grip.
"I try to pretend like every play's going to
be my last play," he said. "If I have to run
out there like a wild man to get my teammates fired up, I'll do that.
"It's not that you're trying to hurt the other
Take
each knows the. other's
Boise State coaches call DaWuan Miller "Slot Machine," but he
story because,. Ill. many thinks you need a sense of humor if you have one-and-a-half arms.
ways, each has hved It.
kicks with 10 (six punts, two field goals, two
Both rejected using a prosthesis at a
extra points).
young age. Both were three-sport stars in
Mer a blocked kick or any big play,
high school. Both bench press more than
Miller's Boise State teammates give each
300 pounds. Fueled by challenges and the
other "dap" or high-fives. "Give me some
doubts of others, both deflect sympathy or
special treatment as they would a lazy pass
nub," they tell him. Miller might dap them
to the flat.
or rub their heads with his nub. "You're my
left-hand man," they say.
Miller; 22, can dunk a basketball, bowls in
the 200s and drives a stick shift. He had 49
Woods says his Sam Houston State teammates are afraid of his nub. "I give 'em a
regular-season tackles last season plus two
good shot with it every once in awhile,"
pivotal interceptions during Boise State's
Woods said. "It's quite hard. They don't like
run in the I-M playoffs, which ended with
the nub."
the Broncos losing to Youngstown State in
The Sporting News 1995 College Football Yearbook
Continued
147
guy. You're just trying to do as much as you
can within the whistle and sometimes it goes
over the whistle just a little bit."
Some people might be offended by
Woods' overzealous tactics. But he can't
help it. After all, he learned to be tough at
an early age. His parents divorced when
Woods was 7. Miller's parents divorced
when he was 4. But their mothers came
from large families, and their stepfathers'
families embraced them.
'Trey had a lot of love as a child," said
Tammey Freeman, who was 16 when she
gave birth to Woods. "I think that's why
he's so giving. He works with children who
have far more debilitating circumstances
than he does."
But Woods experienced some rough
times as a youth growing up in Saginaw,
Texas, just north of Fort Worth. "Children
can be crue!," Freeman said. 'They strive
so hard to be like everyone else that when
they can point out someone who isn't, it
helps their confidence."
But the only signals Woods got at home
were of unlimited potential.
"Being young and naive," Freeman said,
"I never thought about Trey's limitations.
The only thing I thought was, 'I'm not letting anybody take him from me.' That's
how you think when you're 16 and you have
so many fears.
"Now, when I look back, I wonder sometimes how we made it. We've come so far.
We've learned so much together. Trey has
kept me in sync with believing nothing's
impossible."
Freeman learned fast that her son was not
handicapped. When he began to walk, she
got him a plastic prosthesis. He'd take it off
and play with it.
When Woods was old enough to play footbaIl, his mother caIled a YMCA coach to
sign him up. She thought it was only fair to
tell the coach about his arm. Woods was
dispatched to a weak team. His first game
was against the league powerhouse, which
was coached by the man who'd pawned off
Woods to the weak squad.
'The first time he touched the ball, Trey
ran for a touchdown," Freeman said. "He
ran up and down the field, and they won the
game. After the game, the coach came to me
and said, 'I made a mistake. He should be on
my team.' I told him, 'No, he shouldn't.'"
Woods continued to dominate as a youth
and later as a teen. But no coIlege offered
him a scholarship after high school, despite
a senior year at Boswell High that saw him
rush for more than 1,000 yards, compile an
11-1 pitching record and record a triple
jump that sent him to the Texas state cham- .
pionship meet.
"He got letters from all over the country
based on his stats," Freeman said. "When a
scout would come and see him, the letters
would stop."
Woods chose to walk on at Sam Houston
State. On the first day of freshman practice,
he introduced himself. An assistant coach firing baIls at players from 10 yards away in
what is known as "the machine-gun drill" took
something off a throw intended for Woods.
Woods caught the ball and zipped it back
to the coach. 'Throw it harderI" he yelled.
Carpe diem.
148
In his first game, Woods made the tackle
on the opening kickoff. Before the season
was over, he'd blocked three field goals,
was starting at cornerback and was on full
scholarship. He even served on the "hands
team" that covers onside kicks ..
"I used to look at Trey and be amazed by
what he does with one hand," Sam Houston
Coach Ron Randleman said. "Now he's just
one of the guys. I don't give (his arm) a second thought."
D
Woods' reputation for late hits,
but off the field he has struggled
aWuan
Millerthe whistle.
doesn't "Ihave
to
stay within
suspended him for one game in '93 and
benched him for another in '94," Boise
State Coach Pokey Allen said. "He was a
bother. He had some problems-nothing
Woods has seized the day at Sam Houston
State, where he's a renowned kick-blocker.
major, but they kept getting in the way of
him being a good player.
"He had some parking tickets, he'd miss
study haIl, he wasn't concentrating. There Was
always something hanging over his head."
But MiIIer didn't let the benching dampen
his enthusiasm.
"He led the cheers for the guy who took
his place," Gould said. "When he came to
us and said he was ready, we knew he was."
MiIIer appreciates the lesson. "I needed to
grow up a bit," he said. "I learned a lot
about becoming a man. They don't just
teach footbaIl here."
As a youth, the last thing MiIIer needed
any help learning was how to play football.
He was so good, in fact, his mother,
RocheIle Morrison, recaIls being uncomfortable at games-but not for reasons you
might think.
"DaWuan ran the baIl, played defense, .
kicked the baIl and returned kickoffs," she
said. "I'd be sitting near parents whose children had two good arms but never got to
play. It was a little embarrassing."
MiIIer did it all in basebaIl too. At Battle
Ground (Wash.) High, he pitched, played
center field and led the team in steals and
The Sporting News 1995 College Football Yearbook
hitting. He even was a switch-hitter.
Allen was the coach at nearby Portland
State but didn't recruit MiIIer because of
high out-of-state tuition costs. After Miller's
freshman season at Boise State, Allen
became the Broncos' coach and brought
Gould with him to tutor the ddensive backs.
"DaWuan was kind of defiant at first," said
Gould, who tried to teach Miller to
backpedal. "He was taught another way. It
took him a long time to believe in what we
were doing."
The story does not surprise Miller's
mother. When others saw that her son was
missing a hand, she instead saw the chip on
his shoulder.
"He had quite a temper:' she said. "No
fuse at all. He would just explode. He would
be teased and he would fight. When kids
saw he wasn't going to let himself be picked
on, they became his friends."
MiIIer's mother knows nothing is impossible to a 4-year-old boy who wants to be
like his older brother.
"I'd always assumed DaWuan would wear
shoes with Velcro straps," Morrison said.
"But that's not the kind his brother had. He
wanted whatever his brother had. That's
siblings."
Morrison had no way to teach her son how
to tie his shoes with one hand. So at age 4, he
taught himself. She was the first of many
stunned by watching him do it. Fifteen years
later, Miller's girlfriend, Alice Hoalst, saw
him tie the knot at a bowling alley."I was like,
'Wow, do that again: " she said.
MiIIer's childhood was one episode after
another of keeping up with his brother, one
fistful at a time.
"If I gave a cookie to his brother:'
Morrison said, "his brother would hold out
the other hand and ask for another. If I gave
a cookie to DaWuan, he would automaticaIly
put it under his nub and reach for another."
MiIIer's hand is larger than most, and
when he reaches with it, he usuaIly doesn't
miss. As Gould says, in unblinking coachspeak, "He's got great hands."
In
school base baIl coach took him to see
the Texas Rangers play the California
the spring
1992,
high
Angels.
Woods ofwas
told Woods'
a pro scout
wanted to meet him. Instead, pitcher Jim
Abbott, then with the Angels, greeted
Woods in the stands.
Abbott, whose right arm does not extend
much past the elbow because of a birth
defect, told Woods to keep up the good
work. "I was speechless," Woods said.
"Later, I was kind of mad there wasn't a
scout there to see me."
Woods' mother said meeting Abbott, who
now pitches for the Chicago White Sox, was
important for her son.
'That day is a priceless memory:' she said.
'The look they had-they looked each other
up and down. It was an instant recognition of
what it took to get where they were."
It's a look her son might wear again this
faIl when he meets the other one-armed
bandit of I-AA.•
Carl Dubois covers the Southland
Conference and I-AA football for the Lake
Charles (La.) American Press.
••
DEFFENSE
I ,il~ALL-AMERICA
~
RB
Arnold
Mickens
9.Lewis
Luke
Hake
(C)
7.
Dave
Fiore
(T) Apgar
5.
Bob5.
Aylsworth
KKR
9. Matt
Wells
3.BACKS
Tim
Hall
2.C
Jeff
6.
Brian
Klingerman
Todd
Cleveland
TIGHT
ENDS
RUNNING
4.
2.
Chris
Miles
BACKS
Macik
Parker
Bobby
HtJWt.
HtJWI.
LINEMEN
PUNTERS
Class
School
HIJW!.
HtJW!.
LINEBACKERS
1.
Arnold
Mickens
P
Kavika
Pittman
E
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DEFENSIVE
10.
Clarence
Matthews
Class
School
HIJWt.
HtJWt.
KtCKERS
Southwest
Northwestem
Canisius
Missouri
State
5-81160
5-11/180
6-2/275
5-11/180
6·2/235
State
Sr.
Idaho
Hofstra
6-5/266
5-9/170
6-4/275
6·1/282
5-9/180
Westem
Carolina
6-5/290
6-2/219
5.
Allen
Guinn
Southwest
6-4/320
5·101190
Missouri
4.
Chris
State
Hurst
Marshall
6·1/270
6-4/306
Southem
Illinois
6-4/195
Nicholls
Samford
Furman
Illinois
State
State
6·1/285
6-2/240
6-4/204
6-3/275
6-31170
6-3/203
4.
5.
Todd
Adam
Scott
Kurz
Holmes
Diel
5.
Michael
Warren
Montana
Boise
State
5-11/175
5-8/180
6-5/235
5-11/205
Southern
Bucknell
6-0/223
5-11/220
5-8/161
5-11/215
5-11/175
Sr.
Zack
McNeese
Bronson
Jr.
Sr
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State
Marshall
6-1/200
5-111198
5-9/170
SMissouri
Northern
Arizona
6-0/230
6-3/210
6-31256
6-1/205
Villanova
James
Butler
South
lona
Indiana
Boise
Idaho
Southern
State
Carolina
Madison
State
Utah
6-4/320
State
Pos.
6-0/220
6·0/222
6·2/233
6-1/185
6-0/248
6-2/245
5-11/278
6-1/180
6-0/180
6-2/250
6-2/200
6-21225
6-4/237
6-4/210
6-2/225
1.
New
Leon
schooVFormer
Jones
school
Kendrick
8. Tom
Nord
Proudian
LEON
JONES
Jim
Wes
Scott
Western
Furman
Buffalo
Furman
Montana
James
Central
Richter
Greenwell
Holmes
Sr.
Madison
Carolina
Florida
Western
.State/LSU
6-5/290
6-41205
6-31203
6-5/225
6-1/222
6-1/170
6-0/195
5-61165
6-4/205
5-7/160
6-6/259
5·10/175
5-11/180
6-1/208
Illinois
CB
2.
3.
1.
Charlie
Jose
Jim
Matt
Richter
Stevens
Larios
Pierce
2.
3.
Chris
Matt
Harken
Behan
William
James
Bob
Alabama
James
Northern
Hall
Sr.
Hand
Pannell
Madison
State
Iowa
6-1/2B5
6-31256
6-5/235
6-4/306
6-1/270
6-0/1B8
5-9/172
6-5/225
6-0/222
6-2/235
T
LB
LB
Vincent
Leon
Jones
Landrum
Brian
Butler
Hofstra
Northwestem
McNeese
Boise
Eastern
Tennessee
Jr.
Clark
State
Illinois
State
Marshall
Montana
Massachusetts6.
State
State
6-31205
5·111198
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6·4/200
5-8/180
6-0/205
5-10/197
5·10/202
6-31235
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5-101230
5-8/160
6-0/220
State
10.
2.
Tim
Chris
Vincent
Sr.
Carver
Stevens
Landrum
Alabama
Robert
Villanova
Hotstra
Northern
Morris
Iowa
Northern
Boise
State
6-0/188
5·9/170
5-11/195
5-10/178
6·1/208
5·7/165
6-0/215
5-11/205
5·11/183
6-2/225
5-9/172
5-7/195
6-3/205
Arizona
Sr.
Jr.
Cal
Sr.
State
Sacramento
Rhode
6·0/180
5-11/185
Island
Arizona
QUARTERBACKS
Parker
Elliott
Womack
9.
Michael
Hicks
Samford
Sr.
Marshall
Jr.
Illinois
State
Central
Florida
2.
Dedric
Ward
Eastem
Kentucky
2.
Kevin
O'Leary
DT
4.
Luther
Broughton
Jermaine
Hopkins
(E)
6-0/230
CB
Rashid
Gayle
Appalachian
State
LB
3.
Kavika
Dexter
Pittman
Coakley
(E)
Liberty
TB
Tennessee
SW
8.
Kenya
Stacey
Texas
Rounds
Ellis
State/Houston
State/Auburn
JJOFFENSIVE
LB,
Youngstown
SI.
Jermaine
Hopkins
2.
Chip
Miller
(T)
SE
Grambling
Alabama-Birmingham
Liberty
Missouri
State
St./Tennessee
DL
S
SE
9.
6.
David
Robert
7.
Long
Jeff
Leslie
Galyean
WIDE
State/USC
(E)
RECEIVERS
(E)
9.
Richard
Young
1.Chris
Ed
Perry
Chip
Troy
North
Miller
State
Carolina
DE
RB
A&T/Clemson
5.
Michael
Holcey
3.
Eric
Hopkins
Soph.
Central
DB
Florida
4.
1.
Tyrone
Brian
Zack
Clark
Bronson
Frazier
(FS)
(FS)
6-1/200
Soph.
Southwest
Central
Florida
Texas
State
Mark
Gagliano
Soph.
Central
Florida
Grambling
State
LB
Ryan
Dan
Tyrone
Brandenburg
Frazier
(E)
(E)
6-2/248
Youngstown
Liberty
Idaho
St.
State
Mary's
State
Josh
Domingo
Hays
Ruiz
(E)
(T)
Appalachian
State
State
Buck
Phillips
(CB)
Youngstown
Troy
Pennsylvania
San
Diego
State
State
OB
10.
Western
MontanaState/Fresno
Rashid
Doug
Pratt
Lyons
Popovich
Gayle
lIIinoisllllinois
(T)
(SS)
6·1/185
State
Marshall/Ohio
McNeese
Appalachian
Lehigh
Appalachian
State
OB
State
7.
6.
3.
State
Rayna
Matt
Dexter
Stevens
Stewart
Coakley
(CB)
(CB)
5.
Frank
8.
Spraggins
Marvin
Brown
(FS)
(CB)
5-11/170
Soph.
Western
Illinois
8.
J.T.
Morris
G
Eastem
Kentucky
OFFENSIVE
LINEMEN
7.
Rich
Lemon
1. RB
Dave
Dickenson
Eastern
Kentucky/Kentucky
4.
Tony
Hilde
OB
Wagner/Cincinnati
OB
Boston
University/Ma~
1.
Reggie
Barlow
SE
Missouri
SliWashington
State
Troy
State/Utah
State
Murray
State/Arkansas
DEFENSIVE
OT
Troy
Stephen
F.
Austin/Minnesota
8.
Todd
1.
Cleveland
OB
Dave
Dickenson
5.
Wes
Greenwell
(C)
DAVE
DICKENSON
6.Cleveland
Rene
Ingoglia
3. Todd
BuckState/LSU
Phillips
6.
Jim
4. Bob
ElliottMills(T)
Womack
3.
2.
James
William
Hand
Pannell
(T)
1.
Hall
(T) (G)(G)
5.
Marquette
Smith
PLAYER
OF
DELAWARE
McNEESE
MARSHALL
MONTANA
IDAHO
LIBERTY
STATE
BOISE
YOUNGSTOWN
JAMES
APPALACHIAN
EASTERN
CENTRAL
TROY
NEW HAMPSHIRE
STEPHEN
SOUTHERN
GEORGIA
NORTHERN
WESTERN
STATE
STATE
MADISON
KENTUCKY
SOUTHERN
FLORIDA
F.ILLINOIS
ARIZONA
IOWA
AUSTIN
STATE
*19951-AA
STATE
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10.
7.
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9.
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Yearbook
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!
THE
YEAROF
PLAYER
OB, Montana
THE 149
YEAR
OFFENSE
RANKINGS
KICK
RETURNERS
4.
5.
Clarence
Fix
Matthews
2. Aaron
Claude
Mathis