ROSE BOWL: SOME PAIN, MUCH GAIN WSU'S GESSER PLAYS QB WITH `THAT LINEBACKER MENTALITY'.

Byline: Gabe Lacques Staff Writer

Usually, it takes longer for news to reach Honolulu.

Information doesn't just blow in with the trade winds, and with the Hawaiian Islands several hours behind the rest of the United States, inhabitants often get their sports news on tape delay.

But while the entire Pacific-10 Conference was in suspense over the condition of Washington State quarterback Jason Gesser's right ankle, wondering whether he'd play in the Rose Bowl-deciding finale Dec. 7 against UCLA, Cal Lee already had the scoop.

Sure, he was a few thousand miles away from Pullman, Wash., and hadn't so much as talked to Gesser that week. But Lee, Gesser's old coach at St. Louis School in Honolulu, knew there was only one option for his old quarterback.

``I knew there was no way he was going to get left out,'' Lee said. ``An ankle, a knee, that kind of stuff, if he can hobble in, he'll play. That's nothing new to us over here. When it's play-ball time, he's the guy that's going to run in there. And he's the guy you want.''

Sure enough, despite ankle, knee and calf injuries, a limp any mother would fret over, and a pair of braces that made his right leg look as mobile as a dump truck, Gesser wobbled onto the field with the conference title on the line. Somehow, he seemed to get stronger as the day went on, throwing for 247 yards and two touchdowns to spearhead the Cougars' 48-27 victory, ensuring them their fourth Rose Bowl appearance.

To the uninitiated, Gesser was lauded for his grit. To Gesser, it was business as usual.

``If it was for the Rose Bowl or not for the Rose Bowl, I was still going to play in that game,'' Gesser said. ``You have to at least try to see how productive you can be.

``Being able to go down there in my last regular-season college game, and be able to contribute, play and have that win, the celebration with the fans and everybody in the locker room, it was all worth it for the pain, the suffering you do to get that in.''

Gesser has had no shortage of aches and pains in Pullman. A thumb injury his redshirt freshman year, a broken fibula his sophomore year and a concussion his junior year caused him to miss all or part of nine games his first three seasons.

Lee thinks he knows why.

``He's got that linebacker mentality,'' he said. ``It is that fierce competitiveness that he has. He wants the ball if it's basketball, to take the shot. You need to be a fierce competitor. You don't see that very often. In quarterbacks? No, you see that in linebackers. Quarterbacks, they're kind of ... you know.''

Not Gesser. He typically plays bigger than his generous program listing of 6-foot-1, 200 pounds, so injuries will happen.

When they don't, victories almost always follow.

Gesser was 24-0 as a starter at St. Louis, where Lee has coached 40 Division I players. Two other Division I quarterbacks - Utah's Darnell Arceneaux and Hawaii's Timmy Chang - were high school teammates of Gesser.

Though the Cougars went to the Rose Bowl the season before Gesser signed with them, they went 3-8 during his redshirt season and 3-9 the next season.

``It was real hard to swallow that pill of, this is a different story and you have to give even more,'' Gesser said, ``give extra to where you're used to winning every time.''

But eventually, Gesser stayed healthy and won big. The Cougars went 10-2 in 2001, winning the Sun Bowl, and 10-2 this season. Now, the Cougars are 24-10 in games Gesser has started.

What's more, the Hawaiian has carved out his own niche in the Northwest.

Gesser traded in the palm trees of Honolulu for the wheat fields of the Palouse. While gripping a cold, heavy football felt foreign, everything else seemed strangely familiar in the tiny college town.

``Everybody knows each other, everybody respects each other, helps each other out,'' he said. ``That's how it is in Hawaii.''

Well, everybody knows Gesser, anyway. At a school that has produced three quarterbacks who played on Super Bowl teams (Drew Bledsoe, Jack Thompson and Mark Rypien) and two more that were high NFL draft picks (Timm Rosenbach and Ryan Leaf), Gesser might be remembered as its best ever. Gesser is the school's career leader in passing yards (8,591), total offense (8,815) and touchdown passes (69).

But statistics alone don't make for a legacy. There are intangibles like leadership. And charisma. And clutch, gritty performances in championship-deciding games.

Right now, Gesser is up there with his predecessors, Washington State coach Mike Price said.

Come New Year's Day against Oklahoma, Gesser can make another impression that won't soon be forgotten, and vault him into his own place in Cougars lore.

``No one has done what he's done,'' Price said. ``We'll see if he wins the Rose Bowl. Then, he's got to be (the best in school history). The way he does it, coming back from injuries, it's just remarkable.''

ROSE BOWL GAME

Washington State (10-2) vs. Oklahoma (11-2)

Jan. 1 at 2 p.m., TV: Ch. 7

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) JASON GESSER

Associated Press

(2) Washington State quarterback Jason Gesser (17) has made a career out of playing hurt.

Nick Ut/Associated Press

Box:

JASON GESSER GAME BY GAME