For a nice guy like Riley, coming home was the right thing to do.

Byline: Bob Rodman The Register-Guard

CORVALLIS - The elderly gentleman kept his eyes glued on the practicing football players as he lifted the black cap from atop his head, turning the bill upward.

"There," he said, the pride spilling from every pore, "see who signed my cap? See what he wrote?"

Penned in black ink on the underside of the Oregon State cap's bill was "Chris, To my favorite coach. Mike Riley."

Chris Christianson, a retired Corvallis High School teacher and coach, has long been a card-carrying member of the Mike Riley fan club. Which seems to include virtually everyone who has met the Oregon State football coach.

"If there is someone out there who does not like Mike Riley, I don't know who it is," said Gary Beck, the former Corvallis High football coach and Riley's pal since their schoolboy days. "And you're going to be hard pressed to find that person."

Riley is 50 years old now, though he looks much younger - tanned, smiling, trim from his daily 30-minute jogs and refusal to take in too much of his beloved pizza.

"I have no concept of being 50," he said. "I feel like a kid."

Riley insists that his driver's license lists him at 6 feet tall and that he weighs about 175 pounds. He likes to read, favors most music "except the twangy country stuff" and doesn't mind mowing the lawn.

Riley also is Oregon State's football coach, for the second time in five years. He has toiled at his seemingly destined profession at such places as Linfield College, Winnipeg of the Canadian Football League, the University of Southern California, and San Diego of the National Football League.

Riley, whose college head coaching record (two years at OSU) is just 8-14, has won championships - as a player at Alabama and as a coach at Winnipeg. He also has been fired - as coach of the Chargers.

And if you met Mike Riley 30 years ago and met him again today, you'd say he was the same guy - save for the thinning hair atop his head. Faith, family and football reside atop his priority list, in that order.

"He's ever much the same today as he was when he was at Linfield," Beck said.

Riley is having quite a life. Despite the fishbowl in which he often must reside because of his job, Riley has a way of dimming the bright lights.

"He doesn't like the glitter," said Ad Rutschman, the famed Linfield football coach who hired Riley in 1977 as an assistant. "He's not into fancy cars, the expensive things. I think he'd be happy driving a 1950 vehicle as long as it got him to and from work."

Riley did that one better, riding his bicycle to and from work as an assistant coach for the New Orleans Saints last year.

"It was great," Riley said. "I rode my bike to the Superdome on game days and people just thought I was another fan."

Now, Riley has come home to his beloved Corvallis, succeeding Dennis Erickson, now the coach of the San Francisco 49ers.

Riley is one of the three sons of Bud and Mary Riley. Bud Riley was an assistant on the staff of former OSU coach Dee Andros and later became a head coach at Winnipeg, Hamilton and Calgary in the CFL.

Mike Riley lived in the Benton County city from 1965 until 1971, when he left to play his college football at Alabama under the late and legendary coach Paul "Bear" Bryant.

He's come a long way from his days as a kid when, decked out in his thick-lensed eyeglasses, he was labeled "Frog," a tag that later gave way to "Rumbles," apparently referring to his gait. Those nicknames faded quickly as Riley became an impressive athlete, one who would quarterback Corvallis High to the 1970 state football championship.

Destined to coach

Born into a coach's family and with a deeply imbedded love for athletics, Riley moved quickly down an occupational path that had few detours. He was going to be a coach.

"My wife would tell you I'm not qualified to do anything else," Riley said, smiling. "I can't fix anything. I guess if you could make a living reading a book while laying on the beach ... ."

The man possesses the football knowledge from his days with the likes of Bryant and former USC, Los Angeles Rams and current UNLV coach John Robinson and the heart of a warrior. And his world extends beyond football.

Riley had been in San Diego for all of one year when he orchestrated an auction of Charger helmets and jerseys to help fund research on Huntington's disease, a disorder of the nervous system. The wife of Bill Johnston, director of public relations for the Chargers, has the disease.

"They made a lot of money, and that probably would not have happened if Mike had not cared so much about seeing outside his football world," Johnston said. "He really cares about what happens in the lives of all the people around him."

Riley's reputation is larger than even he dares to imagine.

"You could live a thousand years and never meet a better person," said Rocky Bigbie, a businessman from Overland Park, Kan., who first met Riley when Riley was coaching the San Antonio Riders of the World League of American Football in the early 1990s.

"Mike treats everyone the same," Johnston said. "He's the most respectful person I've ever met. It does not matter to him whether you own the team or happen to be the janitor."

Added Bigbie: "Mike is one of the most charming and pathologically humble people I've ever met."

Bigbie loves to tell the story of Riley's biggest victory at Oregon State, a double-overtime win over Oregon in 1998.

"Everyone is going nuts in the locker room," Bigbie remembered, "and Mike asks everyone to take it easy. He said `There's another team of players close by whose hearts are broken, and we need to be respectful of that.' '

Rutschman understood the moment.

"Mike is a person who believes winning is important but winning with class is even more important."

Riley, who has a six-figure, seven-year contract with OSU, doesn't smoke or chew and does his darndest to avoid profanity. Even when the coach in Mike Riley surfaces and a player needs a little extra direction, there usually is a smile mixed with the concern during the conversation.

"I do get mad sometimes," Riley said, "and a lot of times I feel badly afterward."

He seems unable to lie. Even when he and friends scheme to pull a prank on his wife, Riley breaks down and spills the beans.

"Dee sent us to the store to get a certain grocery item for a party or something," Bigbie said. "We got it, but I also got something other than what she wanted. Before we could get her going, Mike told Dee the whole story.

"The guy is brutally honest. He just cannot tell a lie. Most of us mere mortals gossip, use profanity and try to cut down other people. Everybody you know engages in those things, but Mike Riley doesn't."

Back to the future

Riley dearly wants to continue the success OSU's football program has experienced the last four years - three of them winning seasons that included three bowl appearances under Erickson, who replaced Riley after the 1998 season when the Beavers recorded five wins in a single year for the first time since 1971.

Then, Riley opted to become coach of the Chargers, to the chagrin of some OSU loyalists. Two years later Erickson guided OSU to a milestone season - an 11-1 record, a share of the Pac-10 Conference championship, a No. 4 national ranking and a win over Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl.

"I credit Mike with getting the foundation in place for Oregon State," Rutschman said. "Mike put the block in place."

Players think the world of Mike Riley.

"I love the guy," said James Newson, a senior this season and record-setting split end for the Beavers who was recruited to Oregon State by Riley. "I like the way he coaches, and I love to play for him."

Coaches think the world of Mike Riley.

"Some guys come into your life and really have a positive influence," said Robinson, USC's head coach when Riley was his offensive coordinator (1992-96). "Other guys just come and go.

"Everyone who has ever known Mike thinks he's the world's greatest guy."

Even his administrative assistant has followed Riley up and down the West Coast.

"I can't imagine Mike Riley coming in the door to recruit my kids, if I had any, and not pushing them out the door with him when he left," said Maureen Murphy, who was his assistant at OSU in 1998, went with him to the Chargers and returned when Riley was hired by OSU last winter.

Dee Riley, who met Mike when he was attending the University of Alabama, appears to have been a major influence in her husband's life,

"Dee absolutely is the best person I've ever met in my life," Mike Riley said. "Her values and principles are forthright to the point of being blunt."

Riley's legacy? With a why-did-you-have-to-ask-that-question look on his face, Riley said, "I would hope that Dee would say I was a good husband, that my kids would say I'm a good father and that people would look back and say I treated them right."

CAPTION(S):

Mike Riley is admired by players, coaches and fans alike. The straight-arrow life of Riley hasn't changed since his last stint at OSU