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Provo

Ty Detmer grins and chuckles as he humbly looks back at his college football days at BYU, from each of the touchdown passes to the time he ran into a crowded public stadium bathroom, fully dressed out in uniform, helmet in hand, smack dab in the middle of a game, because … well, he had to go. But then, Detmer almost always grins and chuckles. He has one of the easiest, most natural grin-and-chuckle countenances — and dispositions — you'll ever see or be around. Throw in his Texas drawl, and it seems he was born to grin and chuckle.

His time spent here, starting nearly 30 years ago, when he showed up on campus as a skinny quarterback, destined for greatness that on the front end of it he did not, could not, comprehend, blew past his puny dreams.

"The whole thing couldn't have gone much better," he says. "Coming to BYU, I remember seeing the Davey O'Brien awards, the trophies, the All-American pictures on the walls, and thinking, 'Yeah, that would be awesome if I could have my picture up there one day.' It was a far-fetched dream at that time."

His imagination couldn't have stretched far enough to foresee the supreme chunk of hardware he would add to the collection — the Heisman Trophy.

"On the field, off the field, I couldn't have asked for anything more," he says. "I'd do it all over again if I could."

Instead, he'll try the next-best thing — coaching players a couple of fistfuls of generations removed to put their mark on BYU football, mostly by contributing to the school's win totals. In December, Kalani Sitake hired Detmer as his offensive coordinator, a first for the former QB.

"He's a coordinator I can trust to handle his job," Sitake says. "Some might be concerned about his [lack of] experience. But he's ready, I can promise you that."

Says Detmer: "I don't know how many games we're going to win, I'd like to win them all. I just want the guys to learn the plan, learn the game, understand it, and execute it. You're not always going to control how the ball bounces, the mistakes that happen. But I hope we execute the offense. That's been BYU's trademark. We're not always the most talented team, but we know what we're doing and we do it."

Detmer remembers the knowing and the doing.

He knows what it was like to grow up in Provo. He arrived here in 1987, as that diminutive teenager from Texas who had put up outrageous numbers in high school, where his father, Sonny, was his coach. By the end of his redshirt freshman year at BYU, he was on his way to putting up even more outrageous numbers in college.

Everybody around here is aware of that part of the story: 59 NCAA records broken and three tied, 121 career touchdown passes, 15,031 total passing yards, 958 completions, a memorable win over Miami, a memorable 52-52 tie against San Diego State, a couple of Davey O'Briens, a Maxwell, a Sammy Baugh, two consensus All-American awards, and … The Trophy.

What is lesser-known is his growth off the field, the personal joy attained and the pain suffered en route, the difficult lessons learned, lessons he still carries.

Here's the nut of it: Detmer matured from a knuckleheaded kid at BYU who once stole a barbecued pig's head from a team luau and placed it in then-Cougar running back Matt Bellini's bed, just for laughs, to a young man who handled steep challenges, even after he won the Heisman at the end of his junior year. The period following that ceremony, in which C. Peter Lambos of New York's Downtown Athletic Club announced Detmer as "this year's greatest football player, the winner of the 1990 Heisman Award," was an arduous climb.

It started in earnest a few hours after the big announcement, when Hawaii crushed the Cougars in Honolulu. In the subsequent Holiday Bowl, Detmer had both shoulders separated by a Texas A&M defense sick of the hype he had received in the game's run-up. Those defenders admitted to trying to pummel the quarterback. BYU lost those two games by a combined score of 124-42.

Mission accomplished: Detmer needed surgery to repair one shoulder and a screw turned into his collarbone to hold it together.

Even worse, during that offseason, he lost his grandfather, Hubert, with whom he was extremely close, to cancer. His sister, Dee, lost a baby in the ninth month of pregnancy. His mother, Betty, was diagnosed with breast cancer. And, somewhere considerably south of any of that in importance, a Dallas company issued a Ty Detmer football card, contrary to NCAA rules, igniting a legal battle between the company and BYU.

Two other happenings, on a much happier end of the spectrum: Detmer married his wife, Kim. And he switched religions, becoming the most famous Mormon convert of the time. Some 4,000 guests attended his wedding reception in Salt Lake.

He emotionally plowed through all of it and finished off his career at BYU with an 8-3-1 senior season, after which Cougar fans adored him, but a lot of football observers doubted him and his pro prospects.

Detmer, who weighed 162 pounds the day he won the Heisman, went on to bulk up a bit, surviving 14 years in the NFL, most of them spent as a quarterback standing on the sideline, backing up others, helping prepare them for Sunday's battle, more by way of his extraordinary acumen than his ordinary arm.

"You learn a lot about yourself and other people playing in the NFL," he says. "It can drive you a little crazy. What you can control is your attitude and your effort."

His NFL highlight? "The first four games in Philly that I got to start," he says. "We went 4-0, and we beat the Cowboys in Dallas. That was fun for me. I finally got to play, knowing I could play at that level."

After bouncing from Green Bay to Philly to San Francisco to Cleveland to Detroit to Atlanta, establishing a reputation as a quarterback guru, a guy who could expertly read defenses, a player coaches kept around because he virtually doubled as an assistant coach, Detmer retired in 2005.

"It was time," he says. "I was 38 years old. I was ready to leave."

He settled onto a ranch in Texas, and started living his post-football good life, happy to hang with Kim and their four daughters, a life that might have stayed good had it not been for a business venture that later was discovered to be fraudulent.

"A buddy of mine started a financial firm," Detmer says. "It turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. He's in prison right now for it. It was not fun. I was promoting this thing and, behind the scenes, things were happening that were different than what we thought. I had my brother involved, and others — we all bought into it."

The SEC investigated the business, and while Detmer was not implicated, he had to testify against his friend. He also lost $2.5 million in the firm's collapse and worried about his reputation.

"It was a bad deal," he says. "So, I decided to get into something I knew more about."

Football.

Detmer became the head coach at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Austin for six years, an experience he calls "a rewarding test of your coaching skills, and your patience."

He had conversed on occasion with former BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall about coming back to his alma mater, but never in any serious or formal manner. "I was never offered anything," he says.

When Sitake called in December, the tone was different, the responsibility bigger. The new coach offered Detmer a chance to run his own offense. "I'd have more say-so as offensive coordinator," he says. "That was interesting to me."

Says Sitake: "The time was right for Ty. It all just worked out. And I'm glad he's here. The players love him. He fits in perfectly. He's got energy, a sense of urgency, and he knows offensive football. The players feed off of all of those things."

Detmer says he will put a varied, balanced attack on the field and that he still isn't sure which of his two established quarterbacks — Taysom Hill and Tanner Mangum — will be his starter: "I just don't know, yet."

He grins and he chuckles when he says it.

Either way, the man is pleased to be back where his legend took flight. He feels the love of the fans, the warmth of the place where he grew up. He also knows expectations will eventually surround him, and, if the offense sputters, swamp him.

"I hope people are patient," he says. "I'm excited to be here. It feels good to be here. It's a great opportunity."

A chance to do it all over again, or the next-best thing to it.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.