Sun Devil star stands out on and off football field

Tim Graham

Thursday, Oct. 22, 1998 | 10:24 a.m.

TEMPE, Ariz. -- It was less than three days before the big Notre Dame game, and Grey Ruegamer was at Long Wong's, perched on a bar stool.

Arizona State's All-American center already had polished off a bucket of chicken wings, a hamburger, a plate of fries. He was working on his third pitcher of Budweiser.

"Nothing tastes better after practice than a cold beer," Ruegamer said.

Outsiders might find it peculiar that a collegiate athlete of Ruegamer's stature would be hanging out at a bar on a school night. But then again, outsiders think a lot of things Ruegamer does are odd -- very odd.

"He's goofy," Sun Devil head coach Bruce Snyder said. "He's really complex. He's smart; he's mean. He's tender; he's obnoxious. He's 14; he's 44.

"Sometimes I could absolutely hit him."

Ruegamer had a few brews after the Notre Dame game, too. The Sun Devils lost 28-9 on Oct. 10.

After a week off, 2-4 ASU hosts Stanford tonight at 7 in a game televised by Fox Sports West.

Shock jock

The fun-loving Ruegamer started raising eyebrows before he graduated from Bishop Gorman High in 1994.

He enjoys shocking family and friends with gifts like a satchel and a putter made out of a bull's private parts.

He wears messages like "Maggotfest" taped to his helmet in practice.

When people ask him about being from Las Vegas, he tells them he lived in a hotel and used to steal slot machines for the quarters.

He and some friends castrated around 1,200 goats last summer -- with their teeth. More on that later.

His nickname is "Crazyhog," and he's an elementary education major.

"If you don't like me for who I am," Ruegamer said, "that's fine. You're entitled to your opinion. I'm not going to spill any beer over it.

"My grandfather once said 'Life should be lived like a cavalry charge.' I try to do that."

Ruegamer is his own man, and not many will argue with him. He stands 6-foot-5 and weights 304 pounds. Factor in Ruegamer's fearlessness, and he becomes the type of player opponents dread.

He was named one of 12 finalists for the Lombardi Award and is a candidate for the Outland Trophy.

"I just don't think they make guys like that anymore, that tough, that hard-nosed, that free-spirited," ASU offensive coordinator Dan Cozzetto said.

"You could cut off his hand and he'll still play. Right now his hands are all busted up, but he still snaps the ball and practices every day."

Cozzetto unearthed Ruegamer while scouting Gorman guard Cassidy Cotten. The Gaels were a 3-6 team that year, which only made Ruegamer's fire that much more impressive. Montana State was the only other college actively pursuing him.

"You could just tell by his demeanor," Cozzetto said. "He played hard the whole time. He was always running to the ball. He would hit guys, was knocking people down, hit with his face and never fell down.

"He was somebody who just jumped out at you on film."

Little did Cozzetto know, Ruegamer had extra motivation to play that way.

Grin and beer it

As Gorman's long season wore on, Ruegamer and Cotten created a diversion with their own weekly competition. The player with more "kill shots" received a case of beer from the other. Ruegamer and Cotten kept score at postgame film sessions.

"Kill shots," Ruegamer explained, "are running down the field and knocking somebody on their (butt) -- defensive backs, linebackers, whomever. And we realized we had a better shot of getting more kill shots if we were by the ballcarrier.

"You had to find where the ball was and hope to get the shot in before the camera cut off, so you could get official credit for it."

Ruegamer laughed when asked if kill shots and beer fit the image of Bishop Gorman, the Valley's only Catholic prep school.

"You got your Irish priests drinking their (butts) off after Mass," he replied. "It's not like it's a taboo thing. A beer's a beer, anywhere you pour it."

The wagers with Cotten, who went on to play at Columbia, contributed to the style Ruegamer uses today.

"It got to be a habit to run down the field and be around the ball, be aggressive, hit people," Ruegamer said. "That's how I got to be recruited. It's how I got a scholarship."

Sniffing the Roses

Ruegamer redshirted for ASU in 1994, but the next season he was named the Sun Devils' starting center. He garnered all-Pac 10 honors as a sophomore, starting every game at right tackle on the road to the Rose Bowl.

As a junior, he replaced All-American Juan Roque at left tackle, and NFL draft expert Mel Kiper ranked him one of the top underclassmen in the nation.

"He reminds me of Conrad Dobler," Snyder said. "He may not be the smoothest player out there, but he'll find a way to get the job done, whether it means grabbing somebody by the facemask or whatever. He's nasty and he loves playing the game."

As quickly as word got out about Ruegamer's talent, word got out about his eccentricities.

"It's always an experience," said ASU linebacker and Ruegamer's roommate, Joe Cesta. "You never know what's going to happen with him.

"He comes from a good family. I don't know what happened to Grey."

Sock it to 'em

Ruegamer's mother, Lynne, is a former UNLV professor. She is a principal in Ely and enjoys hunting mountain lions. His father, Alan, is a former veterinarian from Henderson.

Living with Ruegamer turned Cesta into a storyteller.

"Sometimes he'll do some off-the-wall stuff," Cesta said. "He'll come out of his room with a sock on, nothing else. And you can imagine where the sock is. He's got a fish head in the freezer.

"I think he does it for his own enjoyment. He does it just to have people look at him say 'This guy is a weirdo.' I think he really likes that."

One tale in particular gained national attention. In the same Sports Illustrated that trumpeted Mark McGwire's record-breaking 62nd home run, a story recounted how Ruegamer spent his summer.

As a favor to some farming friends in his native state of Montana, Ruegamer agreed to help castrate a herd of sheep. What he didn't know was the surgery was to be performed in the Basque tradition, in which the teeth are used instead of a scalpel, because it is less painful for the animal.

"I was a little leery at first but then I figured the only way to do it was to suck it up and get down in there," he said. "It felt like trying to fish peeled grapes out of a bowl of Jell-O."

His girlfriend, Laurie Kilcoyne, wasn't sure what to think. But then she realized thinking in this situation wouldn't do her much good.

"The first thing he did when he got off the plane was stick his tongue down my throat," said Kilcoyne, who also attends ASU.

Kilcoyne has come to accept Ruegamer's behavior. ASU, for the most part, has too.

Picking his spots

"Some of the coaches here are like 'Dude, how old are you? Are you still 13?' " Ruegamer said.

"But I'm not going to show up to the president's dinner with his daughter dressed in lingerie on my arm. There are times when you screw off and times when you buckle down."

Ruegamer has proven he can get serious when he needs to. Because he can play virtually every interior position, he is projected as one of the top few offensive lineman in next year's NFL draft.

When he stops to think about how far he's come since his days at Bishop Gorman, Ruegamer is amazed.

"I had no clue," he said. "I was just going to college to play football. I'm really fortunate to get to where I am right now."

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