Flag day for Oilers alum

Moments after what arguably was the biggest upset of the 2006 college football season, Brian Ruziecki had one shining moment on the Rose Bowl field.

The Huntington Beach native emphatically waved the UCLA flag high into a dusky, twilight sky, much to the delight of the jubilant Bruins fans he played to on the west side of the Bowl, who still were wildly celebrating a 13-9 upset victory over second-ranked USC.

“It was so surreal,” said Ruziecki, a redshirt senior defensive tackle who played on special teams in the 76th renewal of the cross-town rivalry. “I just grabbed that flag right before the final play, and took off at the final gun. It was an incredible feeling out there.”

It was his final game at the Rose Bowl, and made Senior Day all the more special.

The Dec. 2 victory for Ruziecki was significant in many ways. It ended USC’s seven-game win streak in the series, and knocked the Trojans out of consideration for the Bowl Championship Series national championship game. It helped the Bruins realize their late-season goal of finishing the regular season 3-0, after enduring a four-game losing streak. And it was a personal triumph for the 22-year-old who walked on to the team three years ago.

“That moment represented many things,” he said. “All the hard work I put in, the disappointment that I had endured and then to realize this ending, were wrapped up right there. I stopped at midfield for a moment, and took the whole scene in.”

The road that ultimately took him to the Rose Bowl that day Dec. 2 was one not traveled by the majority of his teammates.

Ruziecki, a standout all-league athlete at Huntington Beach High, went to UCLA on a track and field scholarship. Three years ago, he decided to attempt to walk on to the Bruins football team.

He said that first year on the team, 2004, was “difficult,” and that “going from a star recruit to a nobody, was tough.” Last year, he gained a lot of valuable playing time during a 10-2 season. This year, he was expected to contribute even more, but suffered a setback that sidelined him.

During summer workouts, Ruziecki broke an ankle during the fourth day of camp.

“I was in the trainers’ room sometimes up to three times a day,” he said. “I wanted to get back to playing. I kept asking, ‘How much longer, how much longer?’”

The ankle break sidelined Ruziecki for eight weeks. He returned to play on special teams against Notre Dame on Oct. 21. It was a huge game for the program, as the Bruins’ were making their first trip to South Bend and playing the Fighting Irish for the first time since 1964.

He would only play again on special teams during the USC game.

“Brian is the strongest guy I have coached at UCLA,” Bruins defensive line coach Todd Howard said Tuesday. “Although he did not see much action on the field this season, he provided great senior leadership and really helped me and the guys out on the sidelines during games. His leadership and presence will be missed.”

During his days at Huntington Beach High, Ruziecki starred in both football and track and field. He was a two-time All-Sunset League football player, was named all-county, played in the Orange County North-South All-Star game, was named to the National Football Hall of Fame, Orange County chapter, won the team’s scholar athlete and MVP awards and was a team captain for the Oilers.

In track and field, he won the 2002 CIF Division I shot put title and placed second in the discus as a senior. He won the league discus and shot put titles as a junior.

It was track and field that took him to UCLA, but he said that the Bruins football staff took notice of him following his performance at the North-South All-Star game at the end of his senior year.

During a redshirt freshman year at UCLA, Ruziecki recorded the second-best Junior Olympic (Under-19) shot put mark in the world. In his final year in track and field, he had top-10 placements in both the shot and discus at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships.

Funny thing, but Ruziecki said he grew up a USC fan. His father, Jim, was an all-American golfer at USC. His grandfather, Al Greenleaf, also attended the school, and he said that his grandparents still were USC football season ticket holders through last year. But when he got to Huntington Beach High, he looked up to a certain athlete there and, as he said, “wanted to follow in his footsteps.”

That athlete was Scott Moser who preceded Ruziecki as a star football and track and field athlete at Huntington. Moser went on to a highly successful track-and-field career at UCLA.

It was during his high school years that Ruziecki’s interests began to wander toward Westwood.

“He was kind of an idol to me in high school and I looked up to him,” Ruziecki said of Moser, the Oilers’ school record holder in the shot and discus, behind whom Ruziecki ranks second in both events. Moser also was a two-time state champion in the discus, set a state record in the event in 1997 and then went on to become a two-time All-American and Pac-10 champion at UCLA.

Ruziecki said he even got his roommate, Matt Willis of Servite High and another track and field athlete for the Bruins, to walk on to the football team. Willis, also a senior, was a big go-to receiver for the Bruins this year.

ABC television cameras caught Ruziecki in his flag-waving euphoria, his right hand hoisting high the UCLA banner while he pumped his left arm and fist into the air and flexed his entire 6-foot-4, 300-pound frame, for just a few seconds. It aired again later that night, too, on ESPN’s College Gameday Final.

Although the season could have ended right then and there on that incredibly high note for Ruziecki and his Bruins teammates, they still have one game left to play this season: a Wednesday date with Bobby Bowden and Florida State in the Emerald Bowl at AT&T; Park in San Francisco.

It will be the final football game Ruziecki will play, ending a long and successful career that began with Huntington Beach Pop Warner and Junior All-American football.

“It’s been quite a road but definitely worth it,” Ruziecki said, adding he has one more class to complete and will graduate in June with a degree in sociology and minor in environmental studies. His ambition is to get into real estate.

“It was difficult, sometimes, along the way,” he added. “But I learned so much and it was a great experience. To go from a nobody, to getting playing time, then to battle back from an injury and be able to beat SC in my final game at the Rose Bowl, is just a great way to end my career.”