1984 revisited: ‘Naive enough’ to believe

Editor’s note: Seventh in a series exploring BYU’s 1984 national football championship.

Team captains Glen Kozlowski and offensive guard Craig Garrick decided to throw it out there during a players-only meeting before the 1984 season opener at No. 3 Pitt.

The challenge was huge. They’d said goodbye to future Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young and the offense was untested and young. Kozlowski and Garrick declared to the team that if they beat Pitt that day and got by Baylor the next week, there was a real possibility they could go undefeated that season.

In what began as a team tradition before games, players gathered with arms around each other and said a prayer. The volunteer to pray that day was offensive lineman Louis Wong, who wasn’t even a member of the team’s dominant religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“From that day forward, every week, that’s what we did, and it was one of those things that never occurred to us that we would lose a game,” Kozlowski said. “A lot of times we just felt like, ‘Ah, we’ll be OK. We’ll figure it out eventually and in the end we’ll find a way to win.’”

Kozlowski remembers Garrick reading a poem before the second game against Baylor. Teammate Blaine Fowler memorized that poem by an unknown author. It was cited later by future church President Thomas S. Monson at a fireside on Feb. 7, 1999, and he described it as one of his favorites:

Stick to your task ‘til it

Sticks to you;

Beginners are many, but

Enders are few.

Honor, power, place and

Praise

Will come, in time, to the

One who stays.

Stick to your task ‘til it

Sticks to you;

Bend at it, sweat at it,

Smile at it too.

For out of the bend and the

Sweat and the smile

Will come life’s victories,

After awhile.

Victory did come for BYU that day. The Cougars, thanks in part to a key diving catch by Kozlowski, won 20-14.

“It was a tough game and we made a lot of mistakes on offense, but the defense saved us and we beat Pitt,” he said.

‘It never occurred to us that we’d lose’

Kozlowski remembers feeling sorry for quarterback Robbie Bosco that season. In the huddle, Kozlowski and receiver Mark Bellini would jostle for position according to the play call — who was going to play X and who would play Z. If the primary was either one, both wanted to be that guy.

Looking back, Kozlowski believes that was the essence of that team. Every guy on the field thought they could make the play to win the game. And it turned out that way.

Each week after the win at Pitt, every game, different guys took turns being stars and performing at crunch time.

“I think, for me, the greatest memory was just how we all bought into the fact that we were the best and we were going to prove we were the best,” Kozlowski said. “Even if we made a lot of mistakes along the way, we were never worried that we were going to lose the game. It never occurred to us that we’d lose.”

Kozlowski remembers getting together with teammates and running before the season. The times they went out and played basketball on an outdoor court. How they bonded. How they got to really know each other.

What Kozlowski didn’t know was that those relationships would last well beyond that season and would still be strong for decades to come as some died and others buried their children. But, that season, they would never lose.

They believed.

They had each other’s backs, a bond that was forged and has lasted almost half a century.

“I’d say we were probably naive to think that way, but sometimes being just dumb enough allows you to succeed beyond what you ever thought possible,” Kozlowski said. “For me, it was the friendships. The fact I could count on everybody on the field to make a play. We believed that.”

Everyone contributed

Only 45 players could travel to away games. The young guys who were on the scout team were out there practicing every day knowing they would not join the 45 on the airplane and road trip. “Those scout team players would push us to be better starters.”

One of those scout team players was safety Jeff Wilcox, who Kozlowski went against every day.

“I remember one Thursday I was running a lazy route. Jeff was a young guy playing strong safety and at the time they moved him out to play corner, and he jumped the route, picked off the pass. I immediately looked at him.

“What are you doing?”

Wilcox replied, “Well, why don’t you run a better route?”

It made Kozlowski mad. Wilcox had called him out for his lazy effort. “The rest of that day I ran those routes as hard as I could because I wasn’t going to let him get another interception on my route.”

Kozlowski said situations like that made everyone better, to try and be perfect. “It made us unique”

‘We didn’t know any better’

Reflecting back now, Kozlowski, one of the fiercest competitors on the team, acknowledges how fun it was, how innocent and goofy it was for that team to believe they could actually be the best team in the country. “We didn’t know any better, so we just went out there and did it.”

Even now, 40 years later, he recently played golf with three of his former teammates in Davis County. He has a group of six or eight he plays with regularly and they still have the same feelings, like they revert to being 20-year-old punks.

“It’s like being in a family.,” he said. “We loved each other so much. We believed in each other. Everybody wanted to make a play. Mark and I told Robbie we were open on every play. David Mills came back and said he was open and wanted the ball. Everybody said they were open. It was just interesting.

“We were never worried about the defense because we knew they would handle it, take care of business. Looking back now, there were a lot of those guys who went on to the pros. I mean we were a very talented team and played within a system that worked.”

The 1984 team experience at BYU changed Kozlowski’s life. With the help of Julie, who became his wife, Kozlowski grew in perspective and found focus for his boundless energy and passion for the game.

Kozlowski remains one of BYU’s most talented and colorful personalities on that 1984 squad, a captain who cared enough to put his body on the line in ways that made others eager to follow.