Phil Bates thought he was “pretty fast.” But those around him were faster. And they were stronger, too. “They were benching 300 (pounds) and I couldn’t do 250,” he says.

Bates had just arrived at Nebraska for second-semester classes in 1979, transferring from Ellsworth, Iowa, Junior College. He didn’t know anyone when winter conditioning began.

He also didn’t know he had mistakenly been assigned to work out with the defensive backs, among them Russell Gary, Rodney Lewis and Paul Letcher. He was a fullback.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to have a lot of work to do,’ ” he says.

Because he kept to himself, he didn’t learn of his mistake until much later, after he moved in with Isaiah Hipp before the start of spring practice. Hipp, an I-back, filled him in.

Bates had walked on, with encouragement from Coach Tom Osborne and the help of former Cornhusker recruiting coordinator Rick Duval, who had helped him get into Waldorf, Iowa, Junior College following graduation from Omaha Burke High School and then into Ellsworth.

After a year at Waldorf, where his teammates included soon-to-be Cornhusker Henry Waechter, he was expelled and returned to Omaha. Duval called to ask why he was back home and told him he had a choice, he could enroll at Ellsworth or at Dodge City, Kan., Community College.

Bates located Dodge City on a map of Kansas and picked Ellsworth.

A year before, Bates had studied a map of the northwestern United States before turning down an offer from Warren Powers to attend Washington State. The former Nebraska assistant had accepted the head coach’s job there. “I saw where Pullman (Wash.) was and said, ‘No,’ ” Bates says.

Powers spent one season at Washington State and then moved on to Missouri. If he had accepted Powers’ scholarship offer and gone to Pullman, “I would have been left there,” says Bates.

Even so, Powers had been interested enough to offer a scholarship, something other major college coaches weren’t willing to do. The offers he got were from smaller four-year schools.

The problem was, his high school credentials were limited. In two years at Omaha Central and one at Burke, he had been able to play in only “eight or nine games,” total, because of injuries. And the one full season he did play, as a junior at Central, the team was didn’t win a game.

Nevertheless, Bates saw himself playing running back at USC or Notre Dame.

Through it all, he had a sense of self that took shape during his two years in junior college and brought him to Nebraska. It enabled him to succeed as a Cornhusker, and afterward.

“We were taught you used sports to learn about life,” says Bates, an account manager for Qwest Communications in the Phoenix area, “fighting back when things got hard.”

At Nebraska, he learned from Osborne and from Mike Corgan, his gruff position coach, who carried the nickname “Iron Mike” for his no-nonsense, meet-tacklers-head-on approach.

Iron Mike called Bates a “bush league player” because he wasn’t disciplined and made too many mistakes. Bates could handle such criticism because he was as stubborn as Corgan and because “I thought very positively,” he says. “A lot of things roll off when you know who you are.”

Corgan, with an omnipresent pipe, arms crossed and stern demeanor, didn’t waste his criticism, directing it only at those who would play. When Corgan didn’t single you out, you were in trouble. He wasn’t intimidated, however, Bates says. In fact, “it took a while for him to adjust to me.”

Bates walked on, with Osborne’s encouragement. He was on campus with Randy Brooks, another Omaha athlete, when Osborne approached. “We’d like you to walk on,” Osborne said.

After watching a practice, Bates decided he was as good as the running backs he saw.

“I thought, ‘I don’t see anybody who’s better than I am,’ ” says Bates.

That confidence was tested. He began spring practice in 1979 at the bottom of the depth chart, sixth team, which meant there might have been as many as 10 players ahead of him — more than one could share a position on the spring depth chart. At the end of spring, however, he was put on scholarship.

And though he redshirted that fall, he practiced with the top units until late in the season when defensive coordinator Lance Van Zandt persuaded Osborne to use him on the scout team, to get a better look. Bates enjoyed the variety, playing tight end and quarterback as well as running back.

He backed up seniors Andra Franklin and Jim Kotera in 1980, then started in 1981, scoring seven touchdowns and averaging 6 yards per carry, both single-season records for a fullback.

His most memorable touchdown came from 3 yards out with 23 seconds remaining to cap a 10-play, 64-yard drive and give the Cornhuskers a 6-0 victory at Missouri’s Faurot Field.

He went to training camp with the Detroit Lions as a seventh-round draft pick and tried out for the Boston Breakers of the short-lived USFL. But neither worked out. And when the Kansas City Chiefs contacted him after he returned to Lincoln, he said thanks but no thanks.

“I had two kids and needed more stability” than professional football provided, he says. Besides, at that point in his football career, “I didn’t feel like I had anything else to prove.”

He worked in the insurance business, recruiting former Cornhusker teammates Neil Harris, Sammy Sims and Allen Lyday, and became involved in youth sports in Lincoln.

He returned to Nebraska to complete his undergraduate degree, with NCAA scholarship aid, working at the state penitentiary during that time. He worked in public radio in Lincoln, for the company that handled the yellow pages for Alltel and then moved to a similar position with Quest.

The late Corgan, no doubt, would be pleased with the way the former “bush league player” has been disciplined in taking on post-Nebraska challenges. Bates has come a long way since that first winter conditioning class with the defensive backs who were faster and stronger.

By the time he was finished at Nebraska, he was picked to the All-America Strength Team, a result not only of his own dedication in the weight room but also of Hipp’s influence.

Hipp, who walked on from Chapin, S.C., set the standard in the weight room. He would have lifted on the day of the game if he had been allowed. “I learned from him,” says Bates.

Despite his determination to succeed in football, his self-image was never tied up in athletics. “A lot of young men think only about playing football. I saw things in a different light,” he says.

Scholarship or not, “I always felt I was a better person.”

A better person and a fullback, not a defensive back.