When Steve Emtman went No. 1: Spokane soared in 1992 behind John Stockton, Mark Rypien and Ryne Sandberg, but it was a defensive tackle from Cheney who reached another pinnacle

In July 1992, Sports Illustrated published a story headlined “City of Stars.” It was a down-home feature about two future Hall of Famers and a Super Bowl MVP who graduated from Spokane high schools. Ryne Sandberg, John Stockton and Mark Rypien were all making headlines as prominent professional athletes.

It was in January ‘92 that Rypien was named MVP of Super Bowl XXVI. Sandberg had recently signed one of the most lucrative contracts in baseball history, and Stockton was about to join the Dream Team at the Barcelona Olympics.

Spokane was hot.

A fourth prominent local athlete at the time, though from Cheney and not Spokane proper, was Steve Emtman, the No. 1 overall choice in that year’s NFL draft.

Several months earlier, the Cheney High alum led the Washington Huskies to a share of the 1991 national championship. His was a season in which he won the Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award and finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy vote.

Emtman was not available to comment for this story, but his quotes from a 2016 article on foxsports.com reveal some of the thought processes that go along with being an elite athlete.

“I think everybody who gets to that level has a certain amount of expectations for themselves,” Emtman said regarding the expectations of being the top draft choice. “You don’t get there if you don’t, and in anything I did, I always set a high enough standard for myself that I didn’t need to be pushed. But I know there definitely were some expectations which I obviously (didn’t meet), and after the injuries my first few years, trying to play out my career, I was never the same. Those years were tough on me, and that’s probably the thing I look back on most. I obviously wish that I would have stayed healthy, but you can only do the best you can.”

Oh, those injuries.

He had several significant injuries, but he stuck it out for six seasons. As a rookie, he was named to the AP All-Rookie Team on defense after playing the first nine games for the Colts. But in that ninth game, disaster struck in the form of a major injury to his left knee. In 1993, he tore the patellar tendon in his right knee, an injury from which no previous NFL player had returned. Again he battled back, only to be injured once more when he ruptured a disc in his neck. The injury-plagued label was applied and never went away.

“I think the mental part of it is probably the toughest thing, when you look back now,” he said. “After getting injured that first time, knowing in your mind that you’re not invincible, it kind of changes things a little bit, and I don’t think you admit it until years later. And maybe that little bit of confidence you had – once you realize, ‘Wow, I blew my knee out. Hey, I blew another knee out. I’ve got a neck injury,’ it’s always in the back of your mind. And you try to block it out, but it’s still there. And I think that definitely affects a lot of athletes,” he told foxsports.com.

“I think the mental part is the toughest challenge any athlete faces, getting through that at the end of the day. So I definitely struggled with that. But I still got back out on the field and I was able to walk away from the game, so to speak, and that was kind of my goal in the end.”

Emtman continued to play through 1997, with the Colts (1992-94), Miami (1995-96) and Washington (1997) before retiring.

After retirement, he was named to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006 and helped coach the Spokane Shock in 2007-2010. His Wikipedia page mentions an appearance in “Z Nation.” Now 52, he works in property management and development.

It was in high school where Emtman first made his enormous presence felt in and around Spokane. As a senior, he was named first-team All-Frontier League and first-team 2A All-State on both offense and defense. In one memorable game at West Valley – an 11-0 win for the Eagles over Cheney – a story in The Spokesman-Review reported that Emtman was credited with 17 solo tackles.

He accepted a scholarship offer from Washington and, by the time he left Montlake, the Huskies were national champions in the coaches poll and in the middle of what would become a 22-game winning streak. To say he anchored the Huskies’ defensive line is a bit of an understatement : The 6-foot-4, 290-pounder had 62 tackles and 20.5 tackles for loss in 1991. He was also named defensive MVP of the Rose Bowl after Washington manhandled Michigan 34-14.

What followed for Emtman was a six-year NFL career. Despite the injuries, his career stats show 134 tackles with eight sacks, three fumble recoveries and one interception in 50 games. That interception was memorable as he returned it 90 yards for a touchdown against Miami in his rookie season – two weeks before his first knee injury.

Looking back on those six years, Emtman said he may have pushed too hard to get back on the field after the early injuries, that a 100% recovery may have been a better option. Still, he said, “I worked hard for every organization to be on the field and I tried to fulfill what I could. I didn’t give up, and I fought through it.”

Sandberg, Stockton and Rypien made national headlines, but they were not alone in bringing attention to Spokane in their era. In 1988, the year Emtman graduated from high school, there were three other local graduates who would play in the NFL – Jason Hanson of Mead, Jeff Robinson of Ferris and Tim Hanshaw of West Valley.

But among them all, only Emtman could truly say he was No. 1.