COLLEGE FOOTBALL ’92 : By Goshen, by Golly : Notre Dame Quarterback Rick Mirer Is a Big Star, but He Is Also Very Small-Town

GOSHEN, Ind. — Custard-filled pastries the size of bricks cost a measly 36 cents at the downtown bakery.

On the front page of the day’s Goshen News, which has been serving this little town for 155 years, is this four-column headline: “City Sewer Rate Increase Expected This Fall.”

At a nearby drugstore, the cashier interrupts a sale so she can chat with some neighborhood kids. Returning to the register, she apologizes for the delay, saying, “Aren’t they cute?”

Welcome to Goshen, population 22,000--and in no hurry to get any bigger. Or as local hero and Notre Dame quarterback Rick Mirer says of his hometown, “The more places I go, the smaller it seems to get.”

Goshen isn’t perfect. After all, who can forget the crime wave that swept through the halls of Goshen High about a year ago? In a heist that still hasn’t been solved, someone stole a framed photograph of Mirer from the school’s wall of fame, which featured all-state athletes of years past. No other picture was disturbed. In fact, the plastic clasps that held the frame in place are still on the wall.

“Hey, somebody probably swiped it thinking it might be worth something in 20 years,” said Ken Mirer, Rick’s father and a former Goshen football coach who led the Redskins to a state title in 1978, won 81 of 117 games and then became a vice president at one of the local banks.

Such is the legacy of Mirer, the kid who, when asked to describe this single-digit stoplight town, could think of no better answer than to say that the roads were paved.

From those roads came Mirer to Notre Dame, a 35-mile trip that almost never happened. Bo Schembechler’s Michigan Wolverines, Mirer’s boyhood favorites, had him and then lost him. UCLA was a candidate, but it didn’t last long. Indiana tugged at his heart, but not hard enough.

Then one day, Irish Coach Lou Holtz visited Mirer at Goshen High. It was a cold, ugly January day. As Holtz made his way up the steps, he slipped on a patch of ice, sailed into the frosty air and landed flat on his back. A Notre Dame assistant coach helped the stunned Holtz to his feet, led him to an office for his visit with Mirer and hoped for the best.

Once there, Holtz told Mirer that he would sue him and the high school for the accident unless the quarterback decided to attend Notre Dame. Then he smiled.

Mirer, the most honored prep quarterback in 1988 and the only player from Goshen’s state championship team recruited by a Division I-A program, eventually said yes. It was the “safe” choice, he said.

But safety guarantees nothing at Notre Dame. Mirer sat on the bench for much of his freshman year. He started all 11 games as a sophomore, but the reviews were mixed.

“Two years ago at this time, there was a question mark if he was going to be a good college quarterback,” Holtz said.

The questions ceased last season when Mirer more than doubled his touchdown passing total, from eight in 1990 to 18 in 1991, increased his passing yardage, upped his rushing numbers and then led the Irish, who were cast as the underdogs in the Sugar Bowl, to a convincing victory over Florida.

That done, he flew to Mexico for what was left of Christmas break. As it turned out, it was a vacation more in name than in reality.

Mirer had a decision to make and this time the safe choice wasn’t going to be Notre Dame. Simply put, he could remain at the South Bend campus for his senior season or make himself immediately available for the NFL draft where, by all accounts, he would be one of the top five players chosen.

Holtz met three times with Mirer, but remained clueless as to which way his quarterback was leaning. Ken Mirer was also reduced to guessing his son’s intentions. So were the guys at Goshen’s Sports Den, a pizza place where Mirer likes to hang out while at home.

If he left, Mirer would become an instant millionaire and, depending on the circumstances, a starter in his NFL rookie season.

If he stayed, Mirer could possibly win a national title and with it, a Heisman Trophy. Then again, he could have a mediocre year or tear a knee ligament.

Notre Dame, Goshen and NFL general managers held their breath. Meanwhile, Mirer waffled. On Jan. 24, he finally announced his decision.

He was staying. Staying because he wanted to win a national championship. Staying because of a bit of advice given to him by Holtz: “I thought it was important that Rick Mirer not run from something, but run to something.”

Staying because money isn’t everything--although he did take out a $2-million insurance policy. And staying because, frankly, he wasn’t through being a college kid just yet.

“I’d have been foolish to leave what’s going on now,” Mirer said.

So here he is, the absolute favorite son of a town known for its love-hate relationship with Notre Dame. Indiana, which years ago received Goshen’s own basketball star John Ritter, is considered the sentimental choice. But with Mirer at Notre Dame, it isn’t unusual for townspeople to approach Ken Mirer at the bank and express their allegiance to the Irish . . . as long as Rick is playing for them.

With Mirer in uniform, the drugstore will keep stocking Notre Dame calendars and trinkets. Nor should it come as any surprise that in the lobby of Ken Mirer’s bank, right next to the deposit and withdrawal slips, there is a stack of Notre Dame pocket schedules available for the taking. Fatherly pride and all that.

“He made the right decision, no doubt in my mind,” Ken Mirer said. “He’ll be forever

embraced in the Notre Dame family.”

It didn’t start out that way. Ken Mirer was a Michigan man. His sons grew up hearing about the great Bo Schembechler, about the maize and blue and about the need to hail conquering heroes.

After a Michigan victory against Purdue years ago, Ken Mirer took Rick into the Wolverine locker room and introduced him to Schembechler. Rick was about 13, but already he had a knack for the dramatic.

“Stick around,” he told Schembechler, “because I’ll be back.”

Mirer, who even attended a Michigan football camp between his junior and senior years of high school, winces when reminded of the story.

“I can’t believe after all that, I told Bo no,” he said.

Schembechler stuck around, but it didn’t matter. Mirer picked Notre Dame, but only after Michigan botched its recruiting efforts.

The mistake that mattered most occurred during Mirer’s official visit to the Ann Arbor campus. Mirer had already seen the Wolverines lose to the Irish at Notre Dame Stadium and now he was watching them blow a 16-point lead to Miami.

Worse yet, the Michigan people stuck Mirer in the press box for his recruiting visit and then, at game’s end, took him to the basketball arena, where he waited and waited and waited some more until finally a Wolverine official arrived and said, “Sorry. We hope you come back.”

Mirer turned to his dad as they walked away. “Why would I want to come back?” he said.

Michigan eventually saw the error of its ways. In fact, Schembechler himself made a pitch, but by then it was too late.

“I think Michigan did kind of take it for granted,” Ken Mirer said.

Mirer left Goshen as, depending on what scouting service you believed, the best high school quarterback in the country and the No. 2-ranked recruit overall. He never missed a practice at Goshen High. He played quarterback, free safety and also did the kicking. He passed for more yards than any other player in high school history, with the exception of Tallahassee’s Jimmy Jordan, who later went to Florida State.

After Mirer’s junior season at Goshen, Redskin Coach Randy Robertson put together a videotape of highlights and sent it to UCLA recruiting coordinator Bill Rees.

“What do you think?” asked Robertson, who keeps an autographed photo of Bronko Nagurski on his office wall.

“He could play for anybody,” Rees answered.

A wish list was made. In the end, Notre Dame was the lone standing entry.

“He was more of a legend when he left here,” Robertson said. “To him, it was no big deal.”

Mirer has never been fond of attention. In high school, whenever anyone mentioned one of his many awards or passing records, he quickly changed the subject. But in a town where the social calendar was often set according to the schedule of the high school football team, it was no easy task.

At Notre Dame, Mirer says he would rather slip a championship ring onto his finger than place a Heisman statue on the family mantle. He still can’t understand why there had to be a news conference when he announced his return for his senior season.

Here’s why: Earlier this summer, Mirer was in Europe for a Notre Dame-sponsored class in international marketing. At the end of the term, Mirer visited a tiny London pub and, much to his amazement, was approached by a football fan who recognized him from a meeting two years ago.

No Irish player receives more autograph, photo or interview requests. Mirer does what he can, but there is a limit to his hospitality.

“It gets old,” he said. “I can’t be in a good mood every day.”

Still, he is no Raghib Ismail, the former Notre Dame star who would have rather have eaten green flies than conduct a postgame interview or pose for a snapshot. So wary was Ismail of the spotlight that he once hid at the bottom of a towel cart after a game and ordered a team manager to whisk him out of the locker room.

“If he was in his hometown, he wouldn’t have done that, maybe,” Mirer said. “But Rocket was a totally different situation. In this community, he was under a lot more pressure than I was.”

Mirer is no recluse, but he chooses his social functions carefully. The clincher came when he was arrested a year ago for public intoxication and disorderly conduct at a South Bend street party. In fact, the officer who made the arrest was a former employee of Ken Mirer’s bank.

Mirer was cleared of all charges, but that didn’t make him any less angry. He wanted to file a lawsuit but later relented.

“That was as bad as it gets,” he said of the incident.

Said Holtz: “When you’re quarterback at Notre Dame, you’re a national figure. It isn’t all peaches and cream.”

No longer does Mirer make appearances at large gatherings or bars. Instead, he occasionally gets into his 4 x 4 all-purpose vehicle, drives 45 minutes to Goshen and savors the simple life. His perfect day: golf in the morning, water skiing in the afternoon, a barbecue with friends and family in the early evening and a rock concert after dinner.

Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers . . . Mirer saw them all this summer. In a crowd of thousands, he becomes just another head banger risking permanent hearing loss.

“There, people don’t care (who I am),” he said. “That’s kind of my escape. That’s kind of a dream of mine. When I see Axl Rose, or any of those guys, up on the stage . . . I play in front of a lot of people. But they’re on a mike in front of 40,000 people and all the eyes are on them. That just takes my breath away.”

Mirer does the same for people who know football. New Stanford Coach Bill Walsh, who broadcast Notre Dame games for NBC last year, has to be checked for drool marks when discussing Mirer.

“I think when it’s all finally packaged together . . . he can be one of the great quarterbacks of our time,” Walsh said recently.

Holtz makes no secret of his team’s reliance on Mirer and has hinted that the Irish offense might include a few more passes. After the Sugar Bowl, when Mirer asked for and received permission to call more audibles, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

And in a move to make Mirer even more productive, Holtz hired Tom Clements as quarterback coach. Clements is a former Irish quarterback who finished fourth in the 1974 Heisman balloting and played 12 seasons in the Canadian Football League.

“From a physical standpoint, I don’t think he has any weaknesses,” Clements said. “He’s at the zenith of his maturity as a college player.”

Pressures. Expectations. Demands. This is what Mirer faces this season. He has gambled he will be worth the wait to the NFL, that Notre Dame will be as good as he thinks and that he won’t get hurt. And anyway, said Robertson, “You only get to be a kid once.”

So a kid Mirer will be. He vows to have fun, to do his best and to never second-guess himself. If it doesn’t work out, not to worry. There is always Goshen, the little town that will love him no matter what. The little town that stole his picture and stole his heart.