CORVALLIS -- When Jason Phillips was about 8 years old, he began keeping a handwritten list of the moments when somebody doubted his size or ability.
He would never play high school football, they said. Or in college. Or professionally.
"It started small, but it just motivated me," said Phillips. "No one knew my true desire. No one could measure that."
Though his height only reached 5-foot-7, football put Phillips at the center of one of the college level's most potent offenses in the late 1980s. It took him to the NFL and CFL. Then it gave him a coaching career on staffs featuring some of the sport's brightest offensive minds.