Beavers are in good hands with Mike Hass

Junior wide receiver is setting records but had to earn his scholarship

By Kerry Eggers

The Portland Tribune, Oct 1, 2004, Updated Oct 30, 2009

CORVALLIS Ñ First, there was Jonathan Smith, the former walk-on who played his way into a scholarship and became a record-setting quarterback at Oregon State.

Now, Mike Hass is the standard by which aspiring Beaver players judge themselves and draw incentive.

“I’ve had guys come up and tell me, ‘I’m just trying to do what you did,’ ” Hass says. “And that’s pretty cool.”

What Hass has done is extraordinary. The 6-1, 210-pound junior receiver from Jesuit High, who received no scholarship offers from NCAA Division I schools, is second in the nation in both receptions (36) and receiving yardage (575) going into Saturday’s date with 10th-ranked California at Reser Stadium.

That’s not the whole of it. Among his other accomplishments:

• 44 catches for 1,013 yards and seven touchdowns as a sophomore, when he teamed with James Newson to give Oregon State the second pair of receivers with more than 1,000 yards on one team in Division I-A history.

• Three of the six 200-yard receiving games in OSU history, including a Pac-10 record 293 yards at Boise State on Sept. 10.

• A school single-game record-tying 12 receptions at Boise State, then 14 catches for 172 yards at Arizona State last Saturday.

“Jonathan is the ultimate example of a walk-on who makes good, but Mike is an equally inspiring story,” coach Mike Riley says. “He’ll have most of the school receiving records before he’s done.”

Where’s my ride?

It wasn’t as if Hass was an unknown coming out of Jesuit. As a 6-1, 190-pound senior, he had 79 catches for 1,739 yards and 21 touchdowns, scored seven TDs in a state playoff game and was the state’s offensive player of the year.

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