SOONER OR LATER ... HALZLE'S BREAK MAY HAPPEN AT OKLAHOMA.

Byline: RAMONA SHELBURNE  LOCAL

It would've been easy to quit. It would've been even easier to settle. Nobody would've blamed him.

But when Joey Halzle closed his eyes and tried to picture himself doing something other than playing football, all he saw was a lifetime of regret and disappointment.

``It didn't make sense to not play any more. That's just what I do,'' he said.

``I figure, you only have one shot at it now, you might as well take it when you get it.''

The thing is, coming out of high school, Halzle's shot at playing big-time Division I football was more like a half-court prayer.

Frankly, the shot didn't look good at first. It was off-line, off-course ... off-road even. But Halzle never lost sight of his dream and two weeks ago, his shot finally swished through the net.

Halzle's name flashed across the national headlines as the de facto starter for preseason national title contender Oklahoma after starting quarterback Rhett Bomar was dismissed from the team for accepting extra benefits from a car dealership.

Halzle has since been named the back-up to senior Paul Thompson, but that's only because Thompson has more experience running the Sooners' offense.

You might remember Halzle from somewhere else, though. As a junior, he was an All-Southern Section quarterback at Oaks Christian of Westlake Village. Led the Lions to the Div. XIII semifinals in 2002.

But the next year, a strong-armed freshman named Jimmy came along and pushed him for playing time.

Yeah, that Jimmy. Today he goes by nicknames like ``LeBron'' or ``The Kid with the Golden Arm.''

There's no shame in losing your job to a kid who turned into the No. 1 prospect in the country.

But as Halzle says, ``If you show me someone who likes getting pulled off the field, they're not a real football player.''

Oaks Christian coach Bill Redell doesn't blame him. It wasn't easy for him to sit Halzle in favor of the kid, even if the kid was Jimmy Clausen.

``Joey's a very competitive guy,'' Redell said. ``He didn't like it, and I don't blame him. But it was one of those decisions we just had to make.''

For most of the year, Halzle played about two-thirds of every game, and Clausen the rest.

But in the Southern Section championship game, the roles reversed. Halzle started and played the first quarter. Clausen came in for the second quarter.

Before the game, Redell and his offensive coordinator, Mark Bates, decided to stick with whoever had looked sharper in the first half.

At halftime, they decided it was Clausen and he finished out the game while Halzle watched from the sidelines.

That would've been a hard pill for anyone to swallow. The next year, life tossed him an even bigger one.

He broke his ankle during fall practice in his freshman year at Golden West College in Huntington Beach.

It had been a little risky to pass on the few scholarship offers he had out of high school in favor of playing at a junior college. Now, with a broken ankle, he'd lost another season.

``I was kind of lost for a few days after that,'' Halzle said. ``I went to JC just to play football and I couldn't play. But I just had to flip it around and use it to my advantage, use the time to get better and stronger.''

After gray-shirting for one year, Halzle got back on track. He threw for 2,077 yards and 13 touchdowns in 10 games in 2005.

His mom, Teresa, started up the marketing campaign, sending out tapes and letters to programs all over the country. His private coach, former CFL a Rams quarterback Rick Johnson, followed up with a call.

This time, the schools came to Halzle. Letters arrived from places like Michigan, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Halzle scheduled recruiting visits. The first one was to Norman, Okla.

``Once he went to Oklahoma, he cancelled all his other trips,'' Teresa Halzle said. ``He knew that's where he wanted to go.''

The Sooners wined and dined him, took him to the football stadium for dinner and turned on all the lights. It's hard to say for sure, but this was what every little boy's dreams look like.

They told him he would get the same chance anyone else had to play.

The highly-regarded Bomar was the incumbent starter, but Sooners coach Bob Stoops has never been afraid to open a position up for competition.

It took a while for Halzle to believe he'd really made it to the big time.

For awhile, he half-expected someone to pull the rug out from under him and have it all go away, because it had happened that way so many times before.

``You finally get what you want and it's like, `Huh, I can't believe this actually happened.'''

Still, he admits that it felt a little good to be able to silence those who might've doubted him in high school.

``There was a chip on my shoulder for a while,'' he said. ``Not in terms of harboring bad feelings. More like, `If that's what you think, I'll have to prove people wrong.'

``But that all seems like a different lifetime. It's all in the past.''

Nowadays, he's too busy worrying about learning the playbook and avoiding the rush. Thompson might officially be the starter, but the job is still up for grabs.

And as long as Halzle has a dream, you have to figure he's got a shot.

This time he's got a much better look at the basket.

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CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Patience has paid off for former Oaks Christian standout Joey Halzle, who could be running Oklahoma's offense.

Courtesy of the University of Oklahoma 

(2) Paul Thompson, left, is listed as the Oklahoma starting quarterback, but former OaksChristian standout Joey Halzle, right finds himself a candidate with Rhett Bomar gone.

Nate Billings/The Oklahoman