Weber returns home to success at UCLA

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 1998 | 10:27 a.m.

LOS ANGELES -- Jeff Horton and his wife, Teri, were in the midst of a short cruise to Catalina Island two years ago when the UNLV head football coach decided to check his voice mail for messages.

One was from UCLA head coach Bob Toledo, asking for permission to speak with offensive line coach Mark Weber about an opening on the Bruin staff.

"I knew right then that Mark was gone," Horton said. "I knew that if they offered him (the job) there was no way he'd turn it down. It was a chance for him to go home."

Horton was right. For Weber, who was Horton's offensive line coach at Nevada-Reno in 1992 and then followed him to UNLV the following year and became Horton's assistant head coach, the chance to return to Southern California to coach the college team he rooted for as a youngster was a no-brainer.

"This is a dream," the 41-year-old Weber said while surveying UCLA's Spauling Field after a recent practice. "This is what I've worked for. Everybody has different goals and different expectation levels. But this is what I worked for."

Weber attended nearby Van Nuys High School before attending Los Angeles Valley College and Cal Lutheran.

"I grew up a Bruin fan," he said. "I grew up 20 minutes from here. My family lives here. I remember when I was a young coach walking out on to this field and thinking, 'Gosh, I'd love to coach here.' It was a dream. Now I'm doing it. And it's great."

Why wouldn't it be? Since he arrived in Westwood two years ago, UCLA has amassed an 18-2 record and is vying for the second football national championship in school history while compiling a school-record 18-game winning streak.

Meanwhile, the school he left, UNLV, has gone just 3-17 since his departure and is involved in a school-record 14-game losing streak.

Weber knows all about the Rebels' woes. He still talks to Horton once a week on the phone.

"That was probably the toughest thing about leaving," Weber said. "We're such good friends. Jeff and I were together in Reno and then we went together to Vegas. We went through a lot."

Among the players Weber recruited to UNLV were offensive lineman Jerald Pierucci, wide receiver Carlos Baker and running back James Wofford.

"When we came down there (in 1993 to replace Jim Strong) we had 28 seniors and only 52 guys on scholarship (33 below the NCAA maximum of 85)," Weber recalled. "You lose 28 right away and the most you can sign in a year is 25 ... it takes a long time to build those numbers up. It was almost like building a program from scratch.

"It's a difficult, difficult task and sometimes it takes longer than people think it takes. It's hard to build a solid program from the ground up. ... Jeff is a great head coach and a great person. He gives stability to the program. He'll get things going."

Meanwhile, Weber finds himself coaching one of the nation's premier offensive lines anchored by junior All-American left tackle Kris Farris (6-9, 310), a sure-fire NFL first-round pick.

"He's a different kind of coach," Farris said. "There's a lot of motivator-type coaches out there who get in your face and yell at you and stuff. Coach Weber is great because he's like a thesaurus of blocking skills.

"You can go up to him and say, 'This isn't working, I can't block this guy this way.' A lot of coaches would say, 'No, you just need to do it better.' But Coach Weber will say, 'OK, well, why don't you try this step.'"

"And I feel I can go up and talk to him about anything."

UCLA had five different offensive line coaches in five years before Weber's arrival. So he was met with a little skepticism at first from veteran players who were tired of the coaching carousel.

"He came in and took command," Farris said. "He gave us his oath right away. He said, 'I'm not going anywhere. As long as they want to keep me here, I'm going to do as good a job as I possibly can.' I think it's the first time we actually believed it."

"We were turning over our offensive line coaches a lot," Toledo said. "For some of these kids, Mark was their fifth line coach here. But he really wanted to be here and had a love for UCLA. He gives us some stability at the position now. And I think the world of him."

So does Horton.

"Mark has worked hard to get where he is now," he said. "He certainly deserves all the success he's had. I couldn't be happier for him."