Boise State defensive end Chase Hatada ‘bleeds blue to the core’ — and has since he was 10
Boise State defensive end Chase Hatada was first introduced to the university by his father, Ian, a former hurdler on the Broncos’ track team, who still calls Boise “the best city in the country.”
Hatada has been attending games at Albertsons Stadium with his family for as long as he can remember, but he has Boise State head of security Larry Darling to thank for his first up-close look at the football program.
On that particular trip to see the Broncos play New Mexico when he was 12, Hatada brought a gaggle of friends and the group landed in Boise in time to catch a team practice. The Broncos were indoors at the Caven-Williams Sports Complex, and though he knew he was bending the rules, Darling let the boys in to watch the team run drills. It wasn’t the first or last time he bent the rules for impressionable youth.
“They’re mesmerized by big football players,” said Darling, who is in his 25th year at Boise State. “You see ‘em watch and their eyes are getting all big, and they can see themselves doing that one day. You get ‘em interested when they’re young, and they’re hooked.”
That was the first of what turned out to be many trips for Hatada to the Broncos’ indoor facility. Now a senior at Boise State facing his final regular-season game Friday at Colorado State (1:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network), Hatada is proud to have carried on the family tradition. In 1996, Ian Hatada won a 110-meter hurdles championship when the Broncos were in the Big Sky Conference.
“It’s been awesome being here and having my family come watch me play,” Hatada said. “It’s a special place, and I know it’s been special for my dad especially to be able to come back so much and see me play.”
Hatada was 10 years old and playing Peewee football the first time he told his father he was going to end up at Boise State. He still fondly remembers the day he called his dad from school to tell him he got a scholarship offer from the Broncos.
Hatada was in the locker room at Rocklin High in California when he got the call from former Boise State defensive line coach Steve Caldwell. He waited for about a day before verbally committing, but his mind was made up before he hung up the phone.
“I think that was his 13th or 14th offer at the time, but it was the one he wasn’t sure he was going to get,” Ian Hatada said. “It was pretty emotional because he had been waiting for that for a while. Imagine being a fan of college football and your favorite team offers you. That’s pretty big.”
All these years and a few position changes later, Hatada has the chance to cap his career with another grandiose accomplishment. With a win Friday in Fort Collins, Colorado, he’ll be on the first team in Boise State history to go undefeated in Mountain West play.
“He’s been telling me from pretty early on that, ‘I think I’m pretty good at this and can do it after high school,’ ” Ian Hatada said. “You just never know how a kid’s going to grow, though, and you never know how that journey through high school football is going to go.”
Hatada was bigger than 90 percent of the kids on the field, but from the time he first strapped on a pair of youth pads, he operated out of the backfield as an H-back and fullback. In short-yardage situations, he even dotted the I.
That all changed as he made the transition to high school.
“I told him: ‘You’re a youth running back. You’re not a high school running back,’ ” Ian Hatada said. “My advice to him was to not even try out for running back or linebacker and just go find the big guys.”
Hatada quickly realized his father was right. During tryouts for the junior varsity team his freshman year, he joined the running backs for about a second before realizing, “There’s so many of them and they’re all faster than me,” Ian Hatada remembers his son telling him.
Hatada played all three positions on the defensive line early in his high school career, and he took to them right away. Even though by California rules he was too young to play on varsity without his parents signing a consent form, he got called up near the end of his freshman year.
By the time he was a senior, he was a first-team All-Metro, All-Sac-Joaquin and All-Northern California pick and Sierra Foothill League Defensive Player of the Year. His numbers took a little dip that year, from 45 tackles and eight sacks his junior year to 40 stops and six sacks as a senior. But that was because he missed the first six games of the season with an injury.
In a moment that mirrored Hatada’s return from injury two weeks ago against New Mexico, he was back on the field as a high school senior for Rocklin’s game against rival Del Oro High, and he took over the game.
This season, Hatada suffered an injury at San Jose State that kept him out of the Wyoming game.
“That really upset him. He would say he’s missed too many games in his career,” Ian Hatada said. “We always talk about that hour glass has been tipped over and that sand is moving very, very fast, but I remember him telling me to watch this one because he was feeling it.”
Hatada returned to The Blue in grand fashion. He opened the Broncos’ 42-9 drubbing of New Mexico with a forced fumble on the first play of the game and finished with a career-high four tackles for loss. Afterward, “You could see his smile from a mile away,” Ian Hatada said.
Chase Hatada grew up in a house divided by football. Whether it was in the family’s living room or in Nevada’s Mackay Stadium, Hatada’s stepmother, Holly, who was a dancer at Nevada, was always decked out in Wolf Pack gear while he and his father were supporting the Broncos. Some things will never change.
“He bleeds blue to the core and whatever you do, he is all in,” Boise State defensive coordinator Jeff Schmedding said.
