Dave Boling: Forty years ago, WSU’s Rueben Mayes painted a masterpiece, even as he still ‘aww, shucks’ it
As happens sometimes on those rare occasions when athletics is elevated to artistry, Rueben Mayes made everything look so easy that observers came away surprised by the statistical enormity of his performance.
Forty years ago, the Washington State running back accomplished a feat unprecedented in the history of college football.
None of his exalted predecessors – Jim Brown, Gale Sayers, O.J. Simpson, Earl Campbell – rushed for the single-game yardage Mayes compiled on Oct. 27, 1984, at Oregon’s Autzen Stadium.
Thirty-nine carries for 357 yards in the Cougars’ 50-41 win.
It bested by 1 yard the existing mark of Georgia Tech’s Eddie Lee Ivery, set six years earlier. And it lasted five years until broken by Indiana’s Anthony Thompson.
“I’m just glad we won,” Mayes said afterward, thanking his blockers and teammates. “It’s only a game … you just play the best you can. After tonight, I’ll start thinking about next week.”
A rare star driven by an abundance of pride and an absence of ego.
The memories of teammates and staffers asked to recall that game 40 years ago were sometimes contradictory and at odds with contemporaneous news accounts. But each agreed on the most unforgettable component of that record: Rueben Mayes’ humble response.
Decades later, more than the yardage, each stressed what an incomparable teammate and fine man Mayes was and is. How highly regarded must someone be that his behavior was more memorable than such a stunning record-breaking performance?
Since the raw numbers couldn’t capture the overpowering essence of Rueben Mayes’ performance that day, a perfect quote from Cougars radio sage Bob Robertson was extracted from the archives: “Rueben Mayes has, on this day, taken the game of college football and reduced it to child’s play.”
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Mayes’ clearest memories of the day were these: The field was slick with rain, which discouraged the passing attack, and the score was close enough that the Cougars had to keep running their best plays to put away the Ducks in the final minute.
“We had a good blocking scheme and everybody was blocking well, so we just kept running it, and that allowed me to build some momentum,” Mayes said.
Helped by a 77-yard fake-punt touchdown run by receiver Rick Chase, the Cougars jumped on top early.
As the Ducks’ offense got rolling and threatened to take over, Mayes piled up 156 yards in the second period, blazing around right end for a 70-yard score on an option-pitch and pushing his total to 197 yards on 20 carries at half.
The breakaway was the perfect display of Mayes’ skills. Quarterback Mark Rypien took the snap at the Cougars 30, faked a dive and optioned the Oregon end, releasing his pitch to Mayes just as he was getting clobbered by the free rusher. The pitch came out low, and Mayes grabbed it from below his knees and cut upfield, never breaking stride.
At the 38, he was surrounded by five Ducks defenders and two Cougars blockers. Somehow able to accelerate without noticeably changing gears, Mayes blew past them all in about a 5-yard space. Over the next 55 yards, no one else was even in the camera frame.
He cracked 300 yards with roughly 10 minutes left in the game. Oregon pulled to within six points with 5:24 remaining. To protect the 47-41 advantage, coach Jim Walden continued to grind it out, with Mayes running seven of the last nine plays to set up a lead-extending field goal in the final minute.
Mayes said he was “so focused” that he had no concept of the yards compounding.
As sports information director Rod Commons recalled, he was “in the dark” about the record until after the final horn because he used to shoot photos from the sidelines during road games and had no contact with the press box.
“When I told Rueben, he said something to the effect of, ‘You’re kidding.’ ”
Commons clearly recalled Walden’s quote: “He said, ‘We needed every damn one of those yards to win this game.’ ”
Of the 663 total yards the Cougars gained, 524 came on the ground.
“It was as good a quality of option football I’ve ever been a part of,” Rypien said.
And Mayes’ yardage total? “We knew Rueben was good,” Rypien said. “But I don’t think anyone imagined 357 yards. When I heard it, I went ‘Wow.’ I couldn’t believe it because a lot of times that would match our whole offense for a game.”
Tackle Mike Dreyer remembered how dominant Mayes had been the previous week in the Cougars’ dramatic comeback win over Stanford, overcoming a 28-point deficit to win, powered by Ron Collins’ three interceptions and Mayes’ 216 rushing yards and five touchdowns.
“He had just come off a magnificent game at Stanford the week before … (but) instead of any letdown, he just became stronger,” Dreyer said. “He completely dominated the Oregon defense, outrunning them most of the time, and overpowering them when he took them head on.”
Looking back, now, Walden has a glorious recollection of what his offense looked like at times: “Hand if off to Rueben, and it was like the gates of heaven opening up for him.”
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The Stanford win the week before surely solidified the Cougars’ belief in Mayes’ ability to take over a game. It was another time when they needed an almost superhuman effort by the overlooked recruit out of North Battleford, Saskatchewan.
“It was one of those games where we played terrible and had so many errors in the first half that the coaches wouldn’t even talk to us at halftime,” Mayes said. “Coach Walden was so upset.”
Walden had reason. The Cougars trailed Stanford 42-14 in the second half, yet won 49-42.
How did they pull that off?
“You fail, you recover, you come back. You address the problems and work through them,” Mayes said. “It was so much fun, so good to come out of that with a win.”
Asked if the Stanford game was the springboard to his offensive explosion at Oregon, Mayes looked back further, and deeper, to a time the previous year when he wondered if he’d ever get a chance to reach his potential.
That sophomore season, he caught a touchdown pass in the end zone against UCLA but separated his shoulder when he fell. While Mayes was sidelined, his roommate and friend, Kerry Porter, took over in the backfield and finished the season with 1,000 rushing yards and first-team All Pac-10 honors.
“I was done for the year,” Mayes said. “But it was actually the best thing to ever happen to me. It gave me time to think and reflect on why I was there and what I was doing.”
Pins were surgically inserted in Mayes’ shoulder and removed six weeks later. Suddenly, he was struck by an overpowering sense of helplessness, and of how quickly it could all be taken away.
“I went to the weight room and I could barely lift the bar,” he said. “I said to myself that I would never let that happen to me again. From that day forward, I focused on how I could be the best I could be. It’s really a message of what a great opportunity we have every day, in the midst of adversity, to focus on the things that can help you get better.”
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Mayes didn’t realize how the record would change his life until the next morning.
“They said, ‘You have to come in and do a press conference’ … CBS and NBC, all that,” he said. “I didn’t know (what to expect).”
So, he showed up at Bohler Gym wearing his gray workout sweatsuit.
“I walked into Bohler and the basketball team was sitting on the floor in a circle and when I walked in, they all stood up and gave me an ovation. I thought, ‘Wow, this must be something special.’ ”
He finished his junior season with 1,637 yards to earn consensus All-America honors and the first of his two consecutive Pacific-10 Conference offensive player of the year awards. He was 10th in the Heisman Trophy voting, one spot behind Jerry Rice of Mississippi Valley State.
With high expectations for his senior season, considering their all-conference backfield of Rypien, Porter and Mayes – the RPM offense – Mayes and crew finished a disappointing 4-7 in 1985.
A third-round draft pick of the New Orleans Saints, Mayes quickly lived up to expectations, as NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year (1,353 yards), earning the first of his two Pro Bowl honors.
Leg injuries eventually reduced his playing time and effectiveness, and he retired from the Saints in 1991. He returned in ’92 to sign with the Seattle Seahawks before retiring for good early in the 1993 season after being put on the injured-reserve list.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008.
Mayes has long worked in the health care industry and lives in Pullman. He is the regional partnership and philanthropy officer for Seattle Children’s Hospital.
He and his wife, Marie, are parents of Logan, a senior financial analyst for Amazon, and Kellen, a third-year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Now, 61, Mayes stays fit by swimming.
“Forty years is a long time, but in some ways, it’s still pretty new to me,” he said. “I feel great; I feel energized, fresh, and all that. I’ve got a great wife and boys and friends, so I try to focus on the positive and the things that are good in our lives. You’ve got to find the positive things and strive every day.”
Walden said Mayes has always had that attitude.
“Rueben always was of one mindset, to take whatever it was as it came,” the coach said. “We could have played the next week (after his record) and if we handed him the ball six times, he wouldn’t have complained a bit. He always made the best of the things that he’s been given, and he’s very much that way today.”
“He was the most humble superstar I’ve ever been around, and he still is,” Commons said. “Nothing fazed him. He was always the consummate team player.”
“Rueben is the most humble, self-effacing person I have ever known,” Dreyer said.
When told that so many old Cougars teammates were effusive in their decades-long regard for Mayes as a friend, Rypien agreed: “Absolutely, to a man, everyone would say that … to this day. He’s just a humble and loving person, arguably one of the nicest guys I’ve ever come across.”
And of that day when Mayes turned the game of college football into nothing more than child’s play, Rypien offered a Cougars consensus:
“It couldn’t have happened to a better person.”