Naperville Central coaches look back on Owen Daniels' journey to Super Bowl 50
When he was a high school junior and the quarterback who helped lead Naperville Central to an undefeated season and the 1999 6A state title, Owen Daniels' coaches realized he was something special.
"You don't get kids who are 6-foot-4, 215 pounds very often who can run and jump and throw and do all the things he could do," said Mike Stine, an assistant on head coach Joe Bunge's staff. "Those guys don't come along very often."
Daniels grew into a tight end at Wisconsin after enrolling as a quarterback and was drafted in the fourth round (98th overall) by the Houston Texans in 2006. The 10-year veteran is in his first season with the Denver Broncos, and he will play in his first Super Bowl on Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.
Daniels had 46 receptions this season for 517 yards and 3 touchdowns. He added 2 catches in the AFC title game, both of which went for touchdowns. His 21- and 12-yard scoring grabs accounted for the Broncos' only touchdowns in their 20-18 victory over the New England Patriots.
Daniels also put up impressive numbers on his Naperville Central championship team. He completed 96 of 148 passes (64.8 percent) for 1,708 yards, 16 touchdowns and just 1 interception.
Using the NFL formula, that's a 137.4 passer rating. He also rushed for 373 yards on 62 attempts (6.0-yard average) and scored 6 touchdowns.
In the 1999 state title game against Schaumburg, Daniels completed 9 of 13 passes for 231 yards and 2 touchdowns, and he had a pair of 1-yard TD runs. Teammate Ryan Clifford had 252 yards rushing on 30 attempts with 4 touchdowns in the 56-31 victory.
"If you asked me if I knew he was going to play in the pros, no I didn't know," Bunge said. "It wasn't like I thought, 'This guy's going to end up in the Super Bowl.' You hope these kids can go on and be successful, of course, but there's no way of telling.
"And it wasn't like he thought of himself like he was going to go on to play pro football. I'm sure what he thought was, 'I just want to contribute to the team.' He was a pretty humble kid at that time, and I imagine he's still a pretty humble guy.
"He just wanted to do whatever was necessary to make the team successful. So I guess the thing that made him special for me was that he was a team player."
In the second game of his senior season at Naperville Central, Daniels suffered an injury to his left knee, the severity of which wasn't immediately known.
"He came to school Monday, and just by the look on his face I knew it was bad," Bunge said. "There were tears in his eyes. He took it hard that he couldn't play anymore that year."
That time it was a torn ACL, and in his redshirt freshman season at Wisconsin, Daniels suffered another devastating injury to his left knee, this time tearing the ACL and MCL. After recovering, he made the transition to tight end.
Daniels left Wisconsin on a high note, helping Barry Alvarez win his final game as a head coach with an upset in the 2006 Capital One Bowl over Auburn. Gary Kubiak then drafted Daniels in 2006 for Houston, and the two have been together ever since.
After Houston, Daniels joined Kubiak for one season in Baltimore before Kubiak took the head-coaching job in Denver and convinced the Broncos to sign Daniels.
"He has been very important. I'm really proud of him," Kubiak said of Daniels on Tuesday during his Super Bowl news conference. "I've said this numerous times: as a coach, when you bounce and you go somewhere and guys are free, you get asked about them. That's just the way it is.
"If you're going to stand up and say, 'Go get this player,' (and) those types of things, you better be right. There are a lot of players out there, but I've always thought the world of Owen. I knew he had some football left in him."
In his 10 seasons, Daniels has amassed 479 career receptions for 5,661 yards and has made the Pro Bowl twice. This is his fourth trip to the NFL playoffs.
"Ten years is a long time to wait," Daniels told reporters at Monday's Super Bowl media event, "but it's 100 percent worth the wait to be in this and have this experience and to be in the moment and enjoy everything and hopefully have a great outcome on Sunday."
Last fall Daniels was inducted into the Naperville Central's Hall of Fame, which includes Sean Payton (Class of 1982), who led New Orleans to a Super Bowl victory in 2010 as head coach.
It's a longshot for any high school athlete to play professionally, but Daniels always has possessed an impressive combination of tools. He was a center on the Naperville Central basketball team and a 22-foot long jumper in track.
"He had the size, he had the work ethic, he had the mentality to possibly get to that (pro) level," Stine said. "The thing about it, too, is that everything he could do - whether it was on the basketball court, football field or on the track - he was a better person, just a great, quality kid."
Daniels' personality and attitude on and off the field made him a favorite of coaches and teammates.
"He was a hard worker and had great leadership qualities," Stine said. "People were attracted to him. He always had a real positive attitude. But it was almost an easygoing attitude where no matter what he was doing he was having fun doing it.
"You watch him on the football field now, he's always having fun. He's got a smile on his face, almost kind of that childish, 'this is still a game we're playing' mentality.
"He was that way in high school. It didn't matter whether he was at track practice, basketball practice, football practice. He played because it was a game, and he was having fun."
At 33, Daniels is still playing, and Sunday he will play in football's biggest game.
Sounds like fun.
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