THE OPENING LINE

Monday, Dec. 10, 2007 | 7:09 a.m.

My memories of the game are hazy. I was just a kid.

It was one of the many games I saw at Stockton's Memorial Stadium. I'm sure Dick Bass was gone and Pete Carroll hadn't yet arrived at Pacific. Maybe it was the high school game when a quarterback named Mark Marquess sneaked through the line and ran 99 yards for a touchdown.

What I remember most was my dad dragging me across an empty stadium after the game so he could introduce me to a tiny, white-haired man. Bundled against the fall chill, the man took my hand with the bony grip of someone who'd lived almost 100 years.

"This is the man who invented football," my dad said.

Amos Alonzo Stagg smiled.

I'm sure I thought my dad was crazy. I'm sure I went home and looked it up, ready to invoke the name of Walter Camp.

Stagg may not have turned rugby into American football, but he was certainly a legend and an inventor who helped shaped the game.

He was an end on the first All-America team in 1889. He won 314 games as a college coach at Springfield, Chicago and Pacific. He was in the charter class of the College Football Hall of Fame, and for 40 years was the only person honored as both a player and a coach.

He invented the lateral, the man in motion, the Statue of Liberty, the end around, the hidden-ball trick, the fake punt, the quick kick, the double reverse and the backfield shift. He also invented huddles, helmets, padded goal posts and the tackling dummy. He organized the first football rules committee and helped found what is now the Big Ten Conference.

"All football comes from Stagg," said Knute Rockne, who would have known.

If that weren't enough, Stagg and his buddy James Naismith played in the first public game of basketball at the Springfield, Mass., YMCA in 1892. Stagg is credited with coming up with the 5-on-5 game. He's also a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.

He was a five-sport athlete at Yale. He turned down a pro baseball contract with the New York Nationals, but invented the batting cage. He was even an assistant coach for the U.S. track team during the 1924 Olympics in Paris.

And he invented those overflow troughs that run around the edges of pools - his solution to the choppy waves that built up when swimmers were competing.

I was so impressed I wrote my next school report on him.

Lots of stuff has been named after the "Grand Old Man of Football." Enrico Fermi split the atom under the stands of Stagg Stadium in Chicago. The Stagg Bowl determines the Division III champ.

Pacific finally named that stadium after Stagg, although the school dropped football and plays only soccer there now. Oh yeah, and that kid Marquess, who's now the baseball coach at Stanford, played for the Stagg High Delta Kings.

THIS WEEK'S BEST BET

Bishop Gorman vs. Western High girls basketball

5 p.m. Tuesday, Western High School

Catch one of Nevada's best teams. Bishop Gorman has won the last two state titles and is again ranked No. 1. Its only loss this year is to one of the nation's top teams, Bolingbrook of Illinois. The Lady Gaels are led by Dannielle Diamant, Aaryn Ellenberg, Darriel Gaynor and Ashley Gayle.

TICKETS: at the door

ON THE WEB: www.htosports.com/gorman/

ALSO WORTH A LOOK

National Finals Rodeo

Today through Saturday, Thomas & Mack Center

The championship always sells out, but you can still get "mad dash" tickets that allow you to take unused balcony seats if the ticket holder decides to stay on the casino floor or check out one of the shows. If you can't find an empty seat, you get a refund.

TICKETS: $39.50

ON THE WEB: unlvtickets.com

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