Tagoai hopes to make best of classroom mixup

Steve Guiremand

Friday, Aug. 8, 2003 | 9:37 a.m.

Willie Tagoai believes there's one word that can sum up why he's battling for the starting free safety job at UNLV.

"I guess you could call it fate," said Tagoai, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound J.C. All-American defensive back from Palomar College in San Marcos, Calif.

Tagoai, the co-defensive player of the year in the Mission Conference after intercepting six passes and helping lead the Comets to a 10-1 record, was on track to graduate in January in time to enroll for spring practice at his future college. Michigan and USC were among the big-time programs hot on his trail.

But Tagoai came up one class short of graduating at midyear.

"It was an English class," Tagoai said. "I was all enrolled and ready to go but they ended up canceling it. They needed 12 people to keep the class and only eight people showed up."

Unable to make it in time for valuable spring practice drills, Michigan and USC decided to back off. However, schools like UNLV, Hawaii and Colorado still brought Tagoai in for recruiting trips and were willing to wait until the summer for him to arrive on campus.

"I probably would have gone to Michigan if that hadn't have happened," he said.

Michigan's loss would appear to be UNLV's gain.

"He's big and he's rangy," defensive coordinator Mike Bradeson said. "He looks like a physical type of player who will come up and tackle real well. We're definitely looking for good things from him. I think he can come in and make an immediate impact on our team."

Tagoai and redshirt sophomore Joe Miklos were listed as co-No. 1s on the depth chart entering fall practice. Bradeson said both will see plenty of action no matter which one earns the starting job.

Despite the fact Michigan and USC dropped out of the picture in January, it still was not a slam-dunk that the Rebels would land Tagoai. Not with Big 12 power Colorado and preseason WAC favorite Hawaii, where cousin and St. Louis Rams rookie Pisa Tinoisamoa starred, still in the picture.

"UNLV was my first trip and it also was my best trip," Tagoai said. "I had never been to Las Vegas before. My trip to Hawaii was way unorganized when I was there. It wasn't as good as UNLV's. Plus I liked the coaching staff here. And there's an opportunity for me to come in and play."

Tagoai said no promises were made about possibly starting if he came to UNLV.

"I know I have to come in here and put in the work and nothing is going to be given to me," he said. "I also liked the fact that this is still a young team. We're going to have a lot of people back on defense again next year."

Rebels starting wide receiver Michael Johnson, who played high school football with Tagoai at San Diego County power Vista High School, believes Tagoai will be a key performer on defense before he's done.

"He's not just an average player," Johnson said. "He's a really good player out there. He can make a lot of plays. He played linebacker in high school, so he knows how to come up and make the tackle. I'm excited he decided to come here."

Assistant head coach John Jackson learned that he eventually will have to undergo surgery on his neck after tests determined that he has two herniated discs. Jackson, who believes he suffered the injury to his fifth and sixth vertebrea when he slipped on the team bus at Air Force back in 2001, will wear a special neck brace the rest of the season. "The doctor said it's possible that if something happened where I got hit in the neck that I could get paralyzed," Jackson, who has made the decision to wait until after the season to have the delicate surgery. "He thought (the neck brace) could reduce the chance of that happening." ...

Strength and conditioning coach Mark Phillippi left Thursday morning to fly to St. Louis to take part in the United States finals of the World's Strongest Man competition. The top five finishers advance to the world championships. Phillippi is scheduled to return on Sunday.