Dynamite running back Jeff Blanc travels down road of BYU’s 1974 pals

Editor’s note: Third in a series on the 50th anniversary of BYU’s first bowl team.

Jeff Blanc remains an iconic player in the LaVell Edwards legacy. A running back from Boise, he was a pillar of Edwards’ 1974 WAC championship team, the first to ever make a bowl game.

Today, Blanc is a retired Boise police officer and is on a committee to organize a reunion of Edwards’ first WAC championship squad that will be honored this weekend at the season opener with other events scheduled throughout the year.

Teenage Blanc was at Borah High one day when his English teacher got a call from the principal’s office secretary requesting he report immediately. As Blanc tells it, his teacher said, “Oh, no, what have you done? Jeff, you are one of my favorite students, what did you do?”

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” he said as he left the classroom.

The principal was sitting down. There was a big, tall man in the corner. “I asked what was up,” recalls Blanc. “The principal said the man wanted to talk to me.”

The man introduced himself as Dave Kragthorpe , the offensive coordinator at BYU. “I’m here to offer you a scholarship to BYU,” said Kragthorpe.

“I hadn’t followed BYU at all then. I didn’t know anything about them at that stage. But Kragthorpe was standing tall as an oak tree, just a wonderful guy.”

Dave Kragthorpe

Kragthorpe became one of his dearest friends. They have continued to talk regularly for 50 years. Blanc has stayed in Kragthorpe’s basement and got to know his sons Kurt and Steve like brothers. His own daughters ended up living with Dave and Barbara Kragthorpe in Logan when they attended Utah State. Now 91, Kragthorpe is expected to be at a banquet this Friday honoring that 1974 team.

Earlier this month, Kragthorpe buried his son Steve, a veteran college coach who made stops at Tulsa, Louisville and LSU.

“Dave Kragthorpe was one of the most Christlike men I’ve ever known,” said Blanc. “One of the best coaches I ever had.”

Blanc’s trek to BYU began a lifetime of experiences and friendships that remain today. His memories would fill a warehouse. This past week, he was invited to play golf at Riverside Country Club in Provo with a select group of BYU All-American golfers, including Pat McGowan, who flew in from North Carolina, and Mike “Radar” Reid and Jimmy Blair. Walking off the course, he saw an old teammate, QB Gifford Nielsen . “How did we get invited to play with these guys today?” Blanc asked Nielsen.

I fired off a few names to Blanc this past week to trigger his memories.

John Betham

Wide receiver John Betham was a key target on that BYU team, a 9.8 sprinter for 100 yards in California. Betham was a multisport star and one of many Californians the Cougars recruited in the early 1970s.

“Boy, what a fireball that guy was,” said Blanc. “I got to know him when they first moved me up to play varsity. I got to do kickoffs and punt returns, and a lot of times Betham was back there with me. As a freshman, you don’t get to know a lot of those guys until you get moved up. But I watched him, and man, that kid was amazing.

“I saw him run 100-yard kickoffs for touchdowns. He was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet. I’ve talked to him a while back and kept in contact over this reunion and stuff. Betham is a wonderful, wonderful human being, He’s somebody I looked up to.”

Jay Miller

Betham stepped up for Jay Miller, a favorite target of QB Gary Sheide. He set an NCAA record for receptions in a single game (22) before hurting his shoulder and missing the rest of the season.

“He was never the same after that injury,” said Blanc.

“The amazing thing about Miller was he wasn’t that fast. He wasn’t a speedster. But his route running was elite. He could separate and get wide open.

“He was the leading receiver in the nation, and I got to play with him and was the secondary receiver on a lot of plays coming out of the backfield. He broke records. He was another California kid and being one of the guys from Idaho, we took a lot of pride playing with those guys. The way he meshed with Sheide was something to see.”

Gary Sheide

Gary Sheide was older than Blanc and in those days, freshmen played junior varsity ball with their own schedule and coaching staff. “You don’t get to mingle with those older guys unless they ask you to take their lunch tray back, you know, they kind of pick on the freshmen, not as bad as other schools. It was fun, but it was a thing.”

Halfway through his first year in Provo, freshman coach Mel Olson asked Blanc to see him in his office.

“Mark Terranova, another California kid, got hurt. He was a lot faster than I was, but Olson said he wanted to convince Edwards to move me up to varsity to help running back depth.” Blanc was surprised and a little intimidated. “I think you’re ready,” said Olson.

Sheide knew Blanc was scared to death, weighed only 175 pounds and hadn’t been around very much. “I wanted to play, of course, but hadn’t been around much.”

“Sheide came up to me and told me it was a great opportunity. ‘I think we can make it work and as good as you catch passes, I think you’ll get a few,’” Blanc said. “He kind of took me under his wing.”

Sheide was on track to be mentioned as an All-American candidate. He was accurate, productive and in BYU’s new passing offense, he had it clicking on all cylinders. “I always thought Gary was under-recognized. He was one of the best BYU quarterbacks, the guy who kind of started it all under Edwards. He was the real deal.”

Blanc used to go in the huddle and asked Sheide to give him the ball. In other words, he grew up fast and his competitive nature just took over. “They started throwing me a lot more passes. Gary was one of a kind and he started this carousel. I’ll always look up to him.”

Coach JD Helm

JD Helm, a high school coach from Shawnee Mission, Kansas, was Edwards’ running back coach in the early ‘70s. He will be in Provo this week for the reunion. Helm retired as tight ends coach of the Kansas City Chiefs after a dozen years.

Blanc has continued a relationship with Helm and when the Chiefs play in the Super Bowl, they ratchet up the football talk over the phone.

“Helm said Patrick Mahomes is as good on one leg as most quarterbacks are on two.”

Helm lives in Overland Park near the Chiefs headquarters and drives a classic Mustang. “I can’t wait to see him. Helm, Kragthorpe and Edwards were the most Christlike men I’ve ever been around. They were father figures to me.”

Helm asked Blanc if he had to do it all over again, what would he do differently back at BYU.

“I told him I’d work twice as hard as I ever did. I never worked hard enough. He told me I was one of the hardest workers he’d ever seen and I said, ‘Whoa, whoa.’ Things were given to me, they came easy to me, but talking about those days gives me goosebumps, they’re such great memories.”

Todd Christensen

The late Todd Christensen would become an All-Pro tight end with the Oakland Raiders and Blanc said Christensen was the most driven athlete he’s ever been around and worked out harder than anyone. “You just knew he was going to play in the NFL because in his mind he never doubted he would.”

Christensen, from Eugene, Oregon, came in a year after Blanc and they were known as the guys from the Northwest.

“He set his sights high. He knew his entire life he would play in the NFL. They called him Toddzilla because he worked so hard and was so big and strong.”

On the day of Christensen’s funeral, BYU was playing Idaho State in Provo. The Cougar Club asked him to come and talk about Christensen.

“I would rather have been at his funeral. Speaking to the Cougar Club that day about Todd was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life. It was tough.”

Blanc keeps in touch with Christensen’s son, Toby, and they talk about the days he played with his father.

Blanc will never forget the last college game he ever played at the University of Utah. In that game, he got hit in the chest and started to have a seizure. Utah trainers put a roll of tape in his mouth so he wouldn’t bite his tongue off. He was taken to the hospital in the third quarter of his last game, a team that was headed to the Tangerine Bowl. He had suffered a grand mal seizure.

He remembers being strapped to the hospital bed long after the game had ended and in walked Todd Christensen.

“Somehow he showed up in my hospital room and stood there and said a little prayer for me. I mean the guy is amazing. He was the only teammate who came to see me that day. I don’t know how he got there or how he got home because he obviously missed the bus.”

Years later, Blanc saw Christensen when he was doing a TV broadcast for baseball in Provo and he got to talk to him.

“Todd’s skin color was really brown, jaundiced and I asked him what was going on. I had no idea what had happened.”

“Well, I’ve got a liver problem. I had my gall bladder removed and they nicked a duct in my liver and now I’m waiting for a liver transplant.”

The rest is history. He died on the table during a 16-hour surgery.

“Todd was a man who did everything he said he would do. I miss him.”

Teams come and go. What players go through and experience with those they go to battle with on the football field become intertwined with their souls. Blanc could go down the roster and recite stories of every man, every player whose life intersected with his because of football, road trips, locker rooms and games. When they all hang it up, that fabric is a woven tapestry of tales and tolls.

Terranova recently died, news that Blanc did not know. He’d expected to see him this week and rekindle their relationship. Terranova joined 13 of Blanc’s former teammates who will not be at the reunion this week, who have died. But they’ll never be forgotten.