BOWLING GREEN - The coach's wife knows a little bit about football, after serving tours of duty at Colorado State and Notre Dame. She knows how much football players eat, how many linemen you can fit on a sofa, and how valuable field position is. She also knows what football players look like.

At least she thought she did.

But when Urban Meyer introduced his freshman backup quarterback to his wife Shelley recently, she couldn't hide her astonishment. This football player was not big or wide or hairy or bulging with muscles. He did not have that rough-and-tough, forged-on-the-gridiron look.

At first glance, Cole Magner could be mistaken for the carryout kid from Kroger, a misplaced member of the Vienna Boys Choir, or maybe the junior high quarterback. He looks more like an altar boy than a Division I football player.

But most altar boys don't run like Magner. In his first full series at quarterback for the Falcons, on Oct. 20, Magner sliced through a hole and outran the Akron defense for a 38-yard touchdown. The Zips had little chance to take in those Cherubic looks as he blazed past them, but they found out what the BG players already know - Magner can play.

“The first time I saw him was this summer when a bunch of us were just fooling around, throwing the ball back and forth, and he made some great plays,” said Bowling Green senior wide receiver Kurt Gerling. “He does look pretty young compared to the rest of the guys, but we knew right then. We could tell he was a big-time athlete.”

Nothing was known about Magner's athletic exploits, because they took place more than 4,000 miles away from here. In Palmer, Alaska, a city about 40 miles north of Anchorage, Magner is a legend. He was the state player of the year and was first-team all-state at quarterback and safety. Magner ran for 17 touchdowns, passed for seven more, and intercepted 11 passes. He was also the top punt returner in the state.

But as an all-around athlete, did Magner also play basketball? “Yes,” said the 6-2, 180-pounder who was born in Ojai, Calif. He did not elaborate.

Magner was the leading scorer in the state, averaging 25.4 points per game. He tried soccer as a junior in high school, led his team to the state title game, and then won it by kicking the deciding goal in a shootout.

Cole's father, Randy, was his high school football coach, but he did not expect Magner to end up playing with the big boys in the lower 48. Cole was 5-10, 150 pounds as a junior.

“At that point it never dawned on me that he was going to be a college football player,” Randy Magner said. “But he hit a growth spurt over that winter and then it looked like a possibility. Going into his senior year I told him a Division I football player in Alaska should stick out like a sore thumb - and he did.”

But Division I schools don't recruit Alaska; the players have to come to summer camps in the lower 48 and sell themselves. Magner impressed the coaches at a camp sponsored by Colorado, and when Gregg Brandon came from the Buffaloes' staff to be Meyer's offensive coordinator at BG, the Falcons had the MAC's first football recruit from Alaska.

“At the camps you have to prove yourself, and nobody's really expecting much from a guy from Alaska, but I felt right away that I could play with those other guys,” Magner said. “Once Bowling Green invited me to visit, I knew after a couple of days here that this is where I belonged. I heard all of the jokes about Alaska, but once you start to play it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from. The guys just want to know if you can play.”

Meyer said he had a good idea the kid from Palmer could do just that.

“From pretty early on, Cole Magner was part of our plans, first at wide receiver and then as a backup at quarterback,” Meyer said. “I know he looks like he ought to be serving the drinks on the sidelines, but this kid just knows how to play. He can run, he can catch the ball, and he just keeps making plays. People around here are just going to love this guy.”

Magner, who is averaging almost six yards per carry, comes from athletic blood lines. Two older sisters played Division I college basketball, an older brother was all-state in football and basketball, and his younger brother Rhett is a high school freshman who is expected to make a run at breaking all of Cole's records.

“I know he's my son and people are going to think that influences my opinion, but I'm also a coach who has seen hundreds and hundreds of athletes over the years,” the elder Magner said. “I don't think I've ever seen anyone do a better job at making plays than he does. Other guys are faster, bigger, stronger and look the part, but Cole, he just makes plays. It's something you can't coach.”

Gerling said there's a respect athletes have for each other that allowed the rest of the Bowling Green team to quickly forget Magner's youthful looks, his less-than-imposing frame and his distant mailing address.

“We're all competitors, but everybody appreciates a fantastic athlete,” Gerling said. “Once Cole got out on the field, the guys couldn't care less about where he's from, or if he looks like a football player. Our defense hates to play against him in practice. He's that good.”

So all of the ribbing about riding a dogsled to school and wearing snowshoes to games quickly came to an end. The jokes about living in an igloo are over, fortunately, because those never made much sense to Magner: “I've never even seen an igloo,” Magner said.

First Published November 1, 2001, 6:57 p.m.