CHARLESTON, Ill. – Sitting in his office, next to the stadium where Tony Romo performed wonders for Eastern Illinois University, coach Bob Spoo says he isn't the least surprised that his former quarterback has risen to quasi-star status.
He sees Romo in his No. 9 Cowboys jersey playing much as he did while wearing No. 17 for the Panthers. But the old coach and everyone else around here is bemused by one development in Tony's life.
No, not Carrie Underwood. It's that folks in Texas consider Romo's legs to be assets.
"He was a slug here," Spoo chuckles. "He didn't move very well at all.
"He looks a lot quicker now."
"Slug" in this case is a term of endearment. Romo is revered at his alma mater, which he led to the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs in 2000, 2001 and 2002.
Cowboys fans are not as convinced as they were a few weeks ago, before their team's December collapse and Romo's four fumbles in the regular-season finale.
As Dallas enters Saturday's wild-card game at Seattle seeking its first playoff win since 1996, it probably isn't a good time to mention that Romo was 0-3 in playoff games at Eastern.
Or that the last time he won a postseason game was his junior season at Burlington (Wis.) High, coincidentally in '96. But Spoo offers reassurance in the form of two Romo traits that left an enduring mark on Eastern's 12,000-student campus.
The infectious anything's-possible aura he carried into every game. And his resiliency.
"He is kind of a loosey-goosey guy," says Spoo, Eastern Illinois' coach since 1987. "That demeanor is very beneficial to him. When he makes a mistake, he's able to move on to the next play, so to speak."
As Purdue's quarterbacks coach during the 1980s, Spoo developed passers such as Mark Hermann and Jim Everett. But he takes no bows for Romo.
Spoo and Romo credit former Eastern Illinois offensive coordinator Roy Wittke. It was Wittke who talked Spoo into giving Romo a scholarship. When Romo struggled during his freshman year, Wittke talked Spoo out of moving him to tight end.
As a pro, Romo has improved under the tutelage of several Cowboys assistants, particularly, he says, David Lee.
But it was in this east-central Illinois town of 21,000 that Romo says he found his way as a football player. It was here that he realized ability wasn't enough to propel him to the NFL.
"By the time he left us, he was the best practice player I've ever been around," Wittke says. "But, boy, he wasn't that way when he started.
"There are a thousand Tony Romos out there, a lot of guys with potential. But he did something about it."
Out of the shadows
When Romo won five of his first six Cowboys starts after replacing Drew Bledsoe in late October, Eastern Illinois basked in his overnight celebrity.
For most if not all of its 112 years, Eastern has dwelled in the shadow of the University of Illinois, 50 miles to the north in Champaign.
Former Eastern Illinois students include Burl Ives, Joan Allen, John Malkovich and Jerry Van Dyke. Before Romo, its most famous athletic alumni were former Portland center Kevin Duckworth and ex-major league players Kevin Seitzer and Marty Pattin.
The school dubs itself "The Cradle of NFL Coaches" because it produced Denver head coach Mike Shanahan (Class of '74), New Orleans' Sean Payton ('87) and Minnesota's Brad Childress ('88) and current NFL assistants Mike Heimerdinger, Randy Melvin and Greg McMahon.
"But in the 34 years I've been here, nothing has brought this school the national recognition Tony has," assistant athletic director David Kidwell says of the last two months.
"I just wish more people had come to watch him while he was here, but that's the way it is at our level."
Though Romo-mania has somewhat subsided nationally, Eastern Illinois has a Romo Watch on its athletic Web site. And the home page of www.charlestontourism.org describes Eastern as "the college of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo."
Truth is, it was one of two colleges that recruited him, albeit reluctantly. Despite starring in football, basketball and golf in Burlington, Romo seemed destined to play at Division III's Wisconsin-Whitewater.
But Wittke, a native of neighboring Racine, Wis., kept getting newspaper clips from his parents about this Romo kid. After watching Romo on film, Wittke drove four hours north to Burlington to see one of his senior-year basketball games.
"Every time a play needed to be made, a big bucket or a rebound, Tony was in the middle of it," Wittke recalls. "You sensed that he had something special about him."
While sitting in the Romo living room that night, Wittke explained that Tony would have to be a backup because Eastern already had a starting quarterback, Anthony Buich.
Spoo and Wittke say that Romo's ability and love of competition were immediately obvious. But during most of his freshman season, 1998, he lacked urgency and couldn't adapt to the speed of the college game. He was redshirted, though not because Spoo deemed him the quarterback of the future.
"It was a real test," Spoo says. "It almost exonerated my feelings about not wanting to take him initially."
Unhappy start
Romo's parents, Ramiro and Joan, recall several phone conversations that year with a disillusioned Tony, who contemplated switching to basketball.
The only time they heard excitement in Tony's voice was when he found a Charleston Methodist church that offered food, fellowship and volleyball. "He felt like he hit the jackpot," laughs Joan.
But her voice turns serious when crediting Wittke for "not letting Tony get away with anything." Wittke says that if there was a turning point for Romo, it occurred in February or March 1999.
Tony and some buddies reached the final of a campus three-on-three basketball tournament. The final was to be played at halftime of an Eastern Illinois basketball game. Tony asked permission to be late to that night's study hall.
Wittke happened to attend the basketball game, so he knew when Tony should have arrived for study hall. When he didn't show, Wittke scheduled a 6 a.m. disciplinary workout for Romo the next day.
"I really got after him hard," Wittke says. "He came back and had a real good spring. In my mind, if there was one incident, that would be it."
Wittke says he never told Romo that he was close to being moved to tight end. Just as well, since Romo's work habits improved and gradually paid dividends.
In 1999, he appeared in just three games for the 2-10 Panthers, getting the start against Central Florida when Buich was hurt. That summer, Romo drove 40 minutes to Terre Haute, Ind., to watch the Colts train. He saw Peyton Manning make a couple of mistakes in practice, then stay afterward to correct them.
Romo blossomed in 2000, earning the first of three straight Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Year awards while leading Eastern to its first playoff berth since 1996.
When asked this week about the pressure he will encounter Saturday, Romo smiled and noted that this won't be his first road playoff game. Then he sheepishly admitted that Eastern lost at No. 1 Montana in 2000 (45-13). He neglected to mention that his final game at Eastern was a 48-9 playoff loss at Western Illinois.
But after that 2002 season, Romo received the Walter Payton Award, given to the Division I-AA offensive player of the year.
"He was a guy that improved every year with us," Wittke says. "He played his best football as a senior. There's no magic, no oddball formula. He threw constantly. He always had a ball in his hands."
Little attention
Eastern Illinois' 10,000-seat O'Brien Stadium, the campus and Charleston are testament to how far 26-year-old Romo has come.
Beyond one end zone is a parking lot; past the other is a grove of trees. The largest crowd to watch him at O'Brien was 11,628 on Family Weekend in 2001, when Romo led the Panthers to a 52-49 victory over Tennessee State.
The Charleston area, where Abraham Lincoln's father and stepmother settled in the 1840s, is surrounded by corn and soybean farms. Charlestonians joke that the tallest building in June is a cornstalk.
Media members who covered the Romo years consisted of a Charleston Times-Courier reporter and a student newspaper writer. During his senior year, a couple of Chicago newspaper and TV reporters journeyed the 165 miles to Charleston.
"I'm not surprised at how he's handling the news media in Dallas," says Kidwell, who until last year doubled as sports information director – and estimates that he spent $400 on Romo's Payton "campaign" in '02. "He's enjoying it without letting it go to his head."
Although few would have envisioned Romo being where he is now, his college major, communications, helped prepare him.
Mike Bradd, associate chair of the school's department of communications studies and radio play-by-play voice since 2000, taught Romo in a television production class.
"It was live studio production," Bradd says. "For a lot of students, that's difficult. You have to multitask. Tony sits down, puts the headset on, and it was, 'OK, you do this; you need to do that.' He's keeping track of eight different people at once.
"Yeah, he went to school and seemed to buy in, but I think deep down he was pretty sure that football was going to work out for him. Which I thought was pretty bold for a guy that, it turned out, didn't get drafted."
During his meteoric rise this season, Romo hasn't forgotten his roots. Wittke, who served as Arizona State's offensive coordinator this season, found out last month that the entire staff would be swept out after Dennis Erickson's hiring. One of the first calls he got was from Romo, asking if he could do anything to help.
"I laughed and told him, 'Tony, the only thing you need to do is keep playing well.' "
Yes, Romo enters his first NFL playoff start mired in a postseason drought as lengthy as the Cowboys'. But at Eastern, they still talk about his flair for the dramatic and the mischievous smile he flashed in the face of pressure.
Everyone agrees that his signature moment occurred in his senior year, against conference powerhouse Eastern Kentucky, on homecoming. Trailing 24-19 with 43 seconds left, Eastern took over on its 25, with no timeouts.
Romo hit two sideline passes, then a 45-yard bomb to the Eastern Kentucky 8. On the final play, Romo was flushed from the pocket.
"We're thinking, 'Aw, man, he's not going to make it,' " Kidwell says.
Weaving through the defense, Romo covered about 20 yards, then dived and nipped the pylon for the game-winner.
Not bad for a slug.
E-mail btownsend@dallasnews.com
Tony Romo, who makes his first NFL playoff start Saturday, was 0-3 in playoff games at Division 1-AA Eastern Illinois:
| Year | Score | Romo's numbers | | 2000 | Montana 45, EIU 13 | 20-of-42, 212 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT | | 2001 | Northern Iowa 49, EIU 43 | 22-of-34, 386 yards, 5 TDs, 2 INT | | 2002 | Western Illinois 48, EIU 9 | 21-of-44, 220 yards, 1TD, 1 INT | |
