‘One of the most underrated players’: Michael Roos will become EWU’s first football player in Big Sky Hall of Fame

It is perhaps apt that the first Eastern Washington football player to be inducted into the Big Sky Hall of Fame will be an offensive lineman.

Before it was known for producing quarterbacks and wide receivers, Eastern sent a series of linemen to the National Football League, among them Ed Simmons, Trent Pollard and Tom Ackerman.

But none had an NFL career to match that of Michael Roos, whose path to a 10-year pro career – and, on Saturday, a membership in the Big Sky’s second class of Hall of Fame inductees – was anything but certain.

“I would have never thought having this conversation 24 years later that a guy who moved to the offensive line his third fall (in Cheney) would have been the first Eastern Washington player inducted,” EWU head coach Aaron Best said this week. “I’m sure it’ll be a short speech. That’s the way he likes things.”

Best was Roos’ position coach in the latter half of Roos’ time in Cheney from 2000 to 2004, once Roos became a member of the offensive line. Roos wasn’t recruited by the Eagles to be a lineman, at least not officially.

Born in Estonia, Roos moved to the United States in 1992. His primary sport was basketball. He didn’t play football until his senior year of high school when Mike Woodward, who had been his junior varsity basketball coach, was named Mountain View (Vancouver, Washington) High School’s head football coach.

Even then, Roos was a slot receiver.

“I was always a basketball player first and was afraid of getting hurt in football,” Roos said.

But Woodward, like Best, had a personality Roos gravitated toward. Since it became evident to Roos that basketball wasn’t going to net him a college scholarship, he decided to give football a shot.

That’s how Roos ended up in Eastern’s recruiting class, as a tight end.

He moved to defensive line in his redshirt freshman year, and it wasn’t until his third fall at Eastern that he became an offensive lineman.

“A lot of credit goes to (former EWU coach) Paul Wulff,” Best said, “because he saw the long term in what Mike was going to be.”

Roos remembers the position shifts, too – and perhaps not being given all the intel about what coaches envisioned for his career.

“Being a young student-athlete, they don’t tell you all the information,” Roos said. “They have all their thoughts and plans that you find out later when you become friends with coaches.”

But Roos was happy to be playing, and he thrived.

He started the final 35 games of his college career, and in 2004 he was named first-team All-Big Sky and was an All-America selection.

Yet during that time an NFL career wasn’t something Roos pondered all that much.

“Truthfully, almost never,” Roos said. “I kept having coaches make comments here and there, and I never thought that, me being me, that’s a thing.”

By then, Roos had built a reputation as a quiet, dedicated member of the Eastern Washington football team. Best said Roos wasn’t outspoken and he was a quick study.

“He took the teaching on a 2-D platform, on the (whiteboards), and he applied it to the 3-D aspect out on the field,” Best said. “Sometimes that’s hard to translate. He just got it.

“He was just wise beyond his years, even though he hadn’t played the position very long. And he was accountable. Never missed. Never talked back.”

Sometimes that tendency to never talk back annoyed opponents. Count Jared Allen among the bothered – and impressed.

“He never shot his hands too much, but he was strong enough to not get barreled over,” Allen said this week from his summer home near Lake Tahoe. “He didn’t talk, didn’t say much. Just put his hand in the dirt and went to work.”

Allen played college football at Idaho State and last year was a part of the inaugural class of inductees into the Big Sky Hall of Fame. A three-time All-Big Sky selection, Allen finished his college career with 38½ sacks – but none of them, Roos will point out, came against the Eastern Washington tackle. Allen affirmed as much of their two matchups in college, with a caveat.

“He was on the other side of me most of the time,” Allen said. “I’d have to go back and watch the film.”

The two matched up a handful of times during their NFL careers, too: After being selected 41st overall in the NFL draft, Roos spent all of his 10 pro years with the Tennessee Titans, while Allen played 10 of his 12 years with the Kansas City Chiefs and Minnesota Vikings.

They recognized each other from their Big Sky days, and as two of the most heralded players from the conference they went out of their way to say hello after those matchups.

They got to know each other more when Allen moved his family to Nashville, Tennessee, where Roos still spends most of the year (his family splits time with a home in the Spokane area). They also, for a time, competed together on a curling team with the goal of reaching the Olympics (they haven’t yet).

Allen said Roos was “one of the most underrated players” he saw in the NFL.

“He never got the credit he deserved in the NFL,” Allen said. “I think it’s because of his demeanor. He’s so steadfast. … Those are the toughest guys to play against, the ones who were emotionless and just went about their job.”

The Eastern Washington football program retired his jersey – No. 71 – in 2009, and a year later Roos’ legacy at Eastern was made all the more tangible when he and Katherine, his wife, donated $500,000 toward the renovation project on the signature red field that bears their name.

During his career and even more so since his retirement from the NFL in 2015 – he played in 148 regular-season games, making all 16 starts in eight of 10 seasons – Roos has frequently attended football games at Eastern. He was inducted into EWU’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016.

“He hates the spotlight like most offensive linemen I’ve encountered, and his connection (to Eastern) is special,” Best said. “But he still shows up to tailgate with some of his best friends who were also in the same era (at Eastern). His connectivity is more from a fan’s perspective and less a donor’s perspective or a former All-American’s perspective. He just enjoys it.”

His candidacy for any hall of fame isn’t something Roos said he regularly ponders, but he recognized the significance of being among the 14 inductees in this year’s Big Sky class. Roos and Kim Exner, who starred for EWU’s volleyball team from 1995 to 1998 and will also be recognized on Saturday, will be the first two members of the Big Sky Hall of Fame who competed at Eastern Washington.

“It’s a giant honor, obviously, to be considered among the best in the entire conference,” he said. “It’s surreal to me, because I’ve never thought of myself that way. It’s something I am going to enjoy, and it’ll be a fun evening.”

Allen wasn’t able to make last year’s induction ceremony in person after it was rescheduled from its original date in 2020. But he said it has been great to carry the badge of being recognized among the greatest athletes – not just football players – to come out of the Big Sky.

He said Roos ought to fit right in.

“The Big Sky is not only putting in a guy with high talent but of high character and moral standing,” Allen said. “That’s what I love about Mike. … It’s awesome to see a friend and fellow competitor get recognized.”