First Steps

Tony Sr. pleaded with Pagano to give his son a chance at quarterback.

The coach relented—sort of. "Only for one week," he said.

That week Tony Sr. went to every practice until work prevented him from attending the final session. That evening Little Tony came home and proudly announced, "I'm now an offensive lineman!"

Tony Sr. was crushed. "At least be a defensive lineman," he said. "They make a lot more money and get a lot more glory."

"But, Dad," Little Tony argued, "Coach Pagano says that by the time I get out of college, offensive linemen will be making $1 million a year."

"He's crazy!" Tony Sr. said. "That'll never happen."

After his junior season in high school, Little Tony, then a mere 225 pounds, persuaded his father to get him a personal trainer to work on his weightlifting and his diet in hopes of improving his chances of receiving a college scholarship. A year later Tony Jr. tipped the scales at a solid 265. He was named a high school All-America and first-team all-state, and most major college football programs recruited him; one exception: Notre Dame, where Boselli, a devout Catholic, most wanted to go. Says Little Tony, "I learned to hate Notre Dame."

As it turned out, there was no better place for Boselli than USC, which had had 24 All-America offensive linemen, and there was no better teacher than Robinson, who returned in 1993, before Boselli's junior season, for a second tour with the Trojans. From the beginning Robinson made it clear that he expected the offensive line to be the most imposing part of Southern Cal's team. He confronted Boselli, saying, "You aren't physical enough. When I turn on the film and see you block, I want to be able to tell the young guys, 'This is how it's done.' "

Robinson encouraged offensive-line coach Mike Barry to ride Boselli. So Barry routinely badgered Boselli in meetings and at practice. "That's not an All-America performance," he would holler. Boselli dislocated his left kneecap against Arizona in the fifth game of the 1993 season, and he was sidelined for five games. But the injury, coupled with Robinson's challenge, proved to be the turning point in his career. "It flipped a switch," Boselli says. "It changed the way I looked at everything. Before, I had worked hard, but I took my talent for granted. When I was hurt, I wanted it more. Everybody had said I was good, but I wanted to prove that I was better than they'd ever imagined."

From that point on, Boselli became his own toughest competition, spending hours in the weight room, attending a summer running camp for skill position players in San Diego to improve his footwork and logging miles in the L.A. summer sun. And he would punish himself for even the slightest error in a game. After he slipped on the Stanford Stadium field because he wasn't wearing long enough cleats and was beaten for a sack, Boselli returned to his hotel room when many of the Trojan upperclassmen went partying in San Francisco. "My biggest fear is the fear of failure," he says. "I want to do everything perfectly. And I don't care how much hard work it takes."