His father stood there like he has every other time, every other moment when life’s obstacles left Anu Solomon hearing those same words over and over.
Stay calm in uncomfortable situations.
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Only these words this time were nothing like Arizona’s star quarterback had heard before.
“He walked over to me, gave me a big hug and said, ‘Son, I’m proud of you. I love you,’” Solomon said. “It kind of shocked me.”
This is what happens after years of pushing, prodding, teaching — yes, parenting — stares directly in the face of the single moment of adversity that left Jarrett Solomon without an answer.
He steered his son through a rough childhood in Kalihi, Hawaii, just outside of Honolulu, where the one-time bail bondsman had seen just about every bit of dirty and nasty a man could take and swore his children would find a way through the filth.
Stand up for yourself when the gangs reach out, he told Anu. Don’t let someone take your dreams.
More than anything, stay calm in uncomfortable situations — in life and sports.
That was Anu on New Year’s Eve, clock winding down with no timeouts remaining and the Fiesta Bowl on the line. The only thing he couldn’t do from the Boise State 14 was get sacked and let the clock run out.
He took a sack instead of throwing the ball away, and Arizona lost, 38-30.
“I saw my dad right after the game, and I didn’t know what to expect,” Solomon said. “Usually, if I make a mistake, he’ll go off on me. This time he said, 'You know what you did wrong,' and then started making jokes and singing 'Let It Go.'"
Staying calm in uncomfortable situations.
That was Anu last month when spring practice began, when Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez publicly called out his quarterback who set numerous school records in a fabulous freshman season, stating without hesitation that Solomon, “has to get better.”
The same coach who pushed Pat White at West Virginia and made him the most feared player in the game by his senior season. The same coach who, in less than one year, helped castoff quarterback Matt Scott produce one of the best seasons in Arizona history.
Imagine what Rodriguez can do with Solomon over the next two years by pushing and demanding perfection from a player who has lived his entire life with a father doing the same to keep his son safe and his dream alive.
“He can be hard-headed at times,” Rodriguez said of Anu. “But just about every really good quarterback is hard-headed to some degree.”
You don’t really think this offseason of mental gymnastics with Rodriguez is going to faze Solomon, do you?
He had to run home from school every day as a teenager, through gang- and drug-infested neighborhoods, just to reach the point where he’d get through the door and have Jarrett looking back at him — where the intensity would hit another level.
You don’t really think a careless mistake in a bowl game — one that could crush others with weaker fortitude — is going to dictate Anu’s path at Arizona, do you? It would have been easy to blame it on experience, a redshirt freshman still trying to navigate life as a starting quarterback.
“It was unacceptable; youth has nothing to do with it,” Solomon said. “I have to hold myself to a high level of accountability. If I don’t, I can’t ask the same thing from my teammates.”
A year ago at this time, Solomon was competing with as many as five quarterbacks for the starting job, including some with more recruiting stars and more experience. Rodriguez told him then that experience means nothing — whoever practices the best plays on fall Saturdays.
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The same exact thing he told Solomon, who threw for nearly 4,000 yards and accounted for 30 touchdowns last season, when spring practice began this time around.
Think about that: a player who is primed to become one of the game’s elite says his one goal this spring is to “gain back coach Rod’s trust.”
This is the way Rodriguez works, how he takes less-hyped players (see: recruiting stars) and turns them into giants in the game (White, Steve Slaton, Denard Robinson).
How he takes programs that shouldn’t rise to the elite of the nation because of history or geography or any other long-held excuse, and carries them within a handful of plays of the unthinkable.
Eight years ago, he had West Virginia a game away from playing for the BCS National Championship. You better believe he can do the same thing at Arizona, a long-forgotten program that still hasn’t played in a Rose Bowl.
“We absolutely can win big here,” Solomon said.
A few days after the loss to Boise State, with the sting of the poor decision still rattling through Anu’s head, Jarrett asked his son if he wanted to go to the College Football Playoff championship game in Dallas.
“I told him no way,” Anu said. “I’m not going unless I’m playing in it.”