``When the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game.''
--Grantland Rice
The verse has been passed down from one Bollinger generation to the next.
Miles Bollinger was a high school football and basketball coach in North and South Dakota.
``And there's a poem from Grantland Rice -- `Football's Answer' -- that we've had around our family forever,'' said Miles Bollinger's son, Rob, ``and I think it probably came from him.''
Rob Bollinger was a high school football coach and then a college assistant, an offensive coordinator, at the University of North Dakota.
``My grandfather (Miles Bollinger) passed away when I was 2, so I know him just from what my dad tells me,'' said Rob Bollinger's son, Brooks. ``That Grantland Rice poem is really a good one. I wish I had it with me right now. I haven't read it for over a year.''
Brooks Bollinger is now the starting quarterback on the University of Wisconsin football team. And the 19-year-old redshirt freshman will be making his third consecutive start today against Indiana at Camp Randall Stadium.
The Grantland Rice poem which has been passed down from one Bollinger generation to the next is basically an ode to football.
Jogging his memory and taking a stab at paraphrasing the message, Brooks Bollinger said, ``It goes something like this: ``When each fall comes around, so does the football season and football makes boys into men ... '' Close enough.
Brooks Bollinger, for one, has been forced to grow up in a hurry.
In his first collegiate start Oct. 2, he guided the Badgers to 42 unanswered points and a stunning victory over Ohio State in Columbus, where Wisconsin had won only twice previously at Ohio Stadium in the last 77 years.
In his second collegiate start, he rallied the Badgers from 7-0, 14-7, 17-14 deficits during an equally stunning overtime victory over Minnesota last Saturday in Minneapolis.
Bollinger feels like he's just scratching the surface, though.
``I've got a long ways to go,'' he said, ``and a lot of stuff to improve on before I'm where I want to be with this offense and team.
``The biggest improvement is just the confidence level to where I feel more comfortable with the offense and being out there on the field with the guys.
``I've still got a ton to get better at, and I'm not perfect by any means. But I'm really feeling comfortable with everything.''
You would expect a coach's kid to be able to assimilate an offense more quickly than others.
And you would expect a coach's kid to bring something extra into the huddle, whether it's enthusiasm, savvy or football wherewithal.
``That was really evident the first time I met Brooks during our summer football camp,'' said UW offensive coordinator Brian White, who knew from the very beginning that he was dealing with a coach's kid.
``If he wasn't throwing the football as a quarterback, he was out playing wide receiver. He was always active, moving. I mean, he grew up on a football field. He grew up in a football locker room. He grew up that way.''
Maybe it takes one to know one.
White was a coach's kid.
``I'm not trying to draw any parallels that I resembled Brooks at all, because I didn't,'' White pleaded, ``but, yeah, I grew up in that same environment.''
After practice earlier this week, White was greeted by his wife, Sally, and their two young children, Cassidy and Jackson. Yes, Jackson, too, will be growing up around a football field and locker room. Another coach's kid.
``I know our backgrounds are similar,'' White said of Bollinger, ``so it's kind of fun to see him play and watch him grow.''
Rob Bollinger said the same thing by telephone from Grand Forks, where he's now working for the North Dakota alumni office.
``Nothing was ever forced on Brooks in any way,'' he recalled. ``We lived in an older neighborhood where there were not a ton of kids his age. But I just remember having a little ball, a Nerf ball, and we'd just play catch.
``It seemed like we were always playing catch. And he was always in the stadium. Our offices were there and he was up and down the stairs and in the locker room and on the field. He was probably like a lot of coach's kids.''
Rob Bollinger played his high school ball in South Dakota -- he was a defensive back -- and his college ball in western South Dakota at Dickinson State University.
At the University of North Dakota, he worked his way up the coaching ladder from graduate assistant to offensive backs to offensive coordinator. After a couple of stints elsewhere, including one season as a head coach at a small college, Rob Bollinger returned to Grand Forks and established family roots when Brooks was 7.
``There are a lot of benefits to being a coach's kid,'' Brooks Bollinger said. ``One was just being able to grow up around the game like I did. I spent all my time at UND practices and I learned a lot from him about the game.''
In the eighth grade, Brooks Bollinger played on the ninth-grade team. In the ninth grade, he played on the varsity at Grand Forks Central High School. He was a four-year starter.
During his junior and senior seasons, Bollinger's quarterback coach was none other than his dad, who left the North Dakota staff for a job in the alumni office. Rob Bollinger, in turn, became a volunteer assistant at Central High.
``And he was a great help to me during practices and being on the sidelines for games,'' Brooks said. ``Just by having him there, he would help me see things the way he would see them.''
He'd see them as a coach.
``Our approach was always ball control,'' said Rob Bollinger, flashing back to the Fighting Sioux playbook. ``High percentage passing game. Balance between the run and pass. Multiple formations. Being very sound technically and fundamentally.''
Who's that sound like?
``Wisconsin is very much the same way,'' Rob Bollinger said. ``Our offensive staff at North Dakota used to visit Wisconsin, so we have a lot of the same ideas.''
When Brooks, who's the oldest of four Bollinger children (two boys, two girls) and Rob talk, the conversation usually gets around to football and the X's and O's.
Why not?
They think alike.
``Definitely,'' Brooks said. ``And I don't know if you want to call it brainwashing, or whatever, but I think he has a pretty good grasp on what's going on.
``I know some people may think that I call him up and he'll have a written report on how I played in the game. But the thing that he always emphasizes to me is to have fun, stay positive and learn from your mistakes.''
Rob Bollinger doesn't want to make it sound like he's always grading his son, because he's not.
``We talk about everything,'' he stressed, noting the competition last spring and this fall between Scott Kavanagh and Brooks.
``When they were competing and sharing time (at quarterback), I wanted to make sure Brooks was handling it the right way and not getting too high or too low. I'm there for support more than any type of coaching or critiquing.''
Last Sunday night, Rob Bollinger and Brooks Bollinger talked on the telephone.
``I told him, `Tomorrow (Monday) you're back to bringing the lunch bucket to practice,' '' Rob Bollinger said, flipping up his blue collar. ``And he said, `Oh, yeah, I've got a lot to improve on.' ``Football is a great game because there's always another game, always another series, always another play. The good and the bad are always going to happen, and it's up to you on how you're going to handle it.
``Brooks is a good kid. He handles things well. Up or down. That's probably what I'm most proud of. If you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. And if you do well, you've always got another game coming up.''
Who's that sound like?
Grantland Rice must have been a coach's kid.
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