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Chad Hutchinson
“The money was incredible, but I decided to go with my heart,” says
Hutchinson.
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to have the
whole
college experience to look back on. Plus, I wanted to be a kid a little
longer.”
A heady decision, say those closest to this would-be philosopher with the
cannon-arm. And a typical one.
It’s a sun-rich September afternoon on campus. Outside the Arrillaga Family
Sports Center, a sandal-clad Hutchinson has arrived by bike. He is every bit the
laid-back collegiate: shorts, long and baggy shirt, untucked. He has just come
from his cluttered dormitory room, which has no phone.
As he drinks in the scene the rustling eucalyptus trees, Hoover Tower, the
occasional passing coed it is apparent that he wouldn’t swap any of it,
phone or no phone, for anything.
“I just couldn’t put a dollar value on all this,” he says.
The normally upbeat Hutchinson is somewhat glum on this particular day because
Tim Carey, a fourth-year junior who lost out in a fierce competition for starting
quarterback, has quit Stanford to enroll at Hawaii. Though competitors,
Hutchinson and Carey were roommates and friends.
As an athlete, Hutchinson says he is thrilled to have won the job. As a person,
the victory is bittersweet.
“It’s hard to see Tim leave. He worked very hard,” Hutchinson says. “I feel badly
for him.”
Longtime Hutchinson family friend and confidante Gary E. Marshall credits Chad’s
sound upbringing for such sensitivity. In the hectic Hutchinson household, says
Marshall, people were never too busy to encourage and support one another. “He’s
very loyal,” Marshall says.
And Chad’s mother says “he doesn’t consider himself above anybody else; he
doesn’t exalt himself.”
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