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Volume 38 Issue 8
January 23, 2001

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So you want to be a superstar?

MESA LEGEND
Submitted January 23, 2001

Even though sometimes it may seem like you’re at the most insignificant school in the country, and all your goals of making it to the top of the mountain are out of your reach, you may need to reconsider that notion and take a look at what a former junior college student was able to accomplish.

Josh Huepel was a shy kid from South Dakota who was raised to play football.

He attended Weber State in Ogden, Utah, but got injured and spent a year on the sidelines recouperating.

Huepel used his red shirt year at Weber State, and then transferred to nearby Snow College, which is a member of the Western States Football League along with MCC.

The 6-2 southpaw quarterback had two impressive seasons in Ephraim, Utah, and in his sophomore season, Huepel came one game short for competing for a junior college national championship.

The fleet-footed, strong-armed quarterback left Utah in 1998 in search of a Division I school that could give him another chance at playing for a National Championship.

Huepel met with Bob Stoops, the newly hired head coach for Oklahoma University, and Stoops convinced Huepel that the Sooners would give him that chance.

In his junior season, the Sooners had a respectable 7-4 season as Huepel was named team captain in just his second week on campus.

Huepel rewrote the Sooner record book during his junior year, setting five passing records including 3,460 yards passing and 30 touchdowns scored.

In his senior season at OU, Huepel raised the bar for his team even higher as he led the Sooners to a perfect 13-0 season, and winning the national championship in the Orange Bowl against perennial power Florida State.

Huepel was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, and outplayed Chris Weinke, the winner of the award, in the biggest game of the season.

Huepel excelled when he had the spotlight on him, and that surprised a lot of the national media because he came from a junior college.

"Division I football is everything I dreamed it would be and a lot more," said Huepel in Josh’s Journal on Soonersports.com.

"The game doesn’t change once you step inside the white lines. You step on the field and everything is the same as when you played Pee Wee."

Although the perception might be that a junior college athlete has almost zero chance of becoming a top professional prospect, even MCC has recently produced a number of athletes to the professional ranks.

Just last year, Albie Lopez was the number one pitcher for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Vance Wilson got called up by the New York Mets when Mike Piazza was hurt.

Earnest Brown was the second round pick by the Miami Heat and Daniel Jones bounced around from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the St. Louis Rams.

So, if the climb to the top of the mountain seems to be too long of a journey, all you need to know is that people from the recent past have proven it not to be.

Chris Bowman is the sports editor for the Mesa Legend and journalism major at MCC.

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