Catching up with Steve Pelluer

Steve and Scott Pelluer will each return to Husky Stadium tomorrow to do a little coaching.

Steve's duties, though, won't be quite as taxing as those of his older brother Scott, who is in his second year as the special-teams coordinator and linebackers coach for the Arizona Wildcats.

Steve Pelluer, meanwhile, will help run the pee-wee game that takes place two hours before the big guys hit the field, then return to his seat at Husky Stadium for kickoff.

"It'll be a tough game to root for," said Steve Pelluer of choosing between his alma mater or his brother. "I'll root for both, I guess."

Pelluer, though, makes it sound as if little else in his life is too tough these days, working in commercial real estate in Belltown and living in Sammamish with his wife, two daughters and one son.

"I love what I'm doing now," he said, talking as he put up a sign on the Mercer on-ramp. "This has always been my passion."

Pelluer started 28 games for the Huskies from 1981-83, leading the UW to a win over Iowa in the 1982 Rose Bowl and leaving school as the No. 2 career passer (he is now No. 6).

He played eight years in the NFL, most notably starting for Dallas for most of the 1986-88 seasons. Tom Landry was fired after the 1988 season, however, and the Cowboys drafted Troy Aikman, leading Pelluer to ask for a trade.

"It was the option year of my contract," he said. "I was cockier than I should have been."

He was traded to Kansas City, spending two years with the Chiefs, then moving on to Denver, where his NFL career ended when he was released in 1992. At the time, Pelluer was happy to be done with football and went back to school for a while. A couple of years later, though, he caught the football bug and played in the World League for two seasons.

"At the time I got released, I wasn't that excited about continuing on," he said. "Now I wished I'd pursued it a little bit more."

His NFL career ended with 29 touchdowns and 39 interceptions in 65 games.

By 1998, however, he was completely done with football and moved back to Seattle — both he and Scott played at Interlake High School — to start his real-estate career.

His brother was then an assistant at the UW, but was fired with the rest of Jim Lambright's staff after the 1998 season.

Pelluer said he hasn't followed the team as closely since then, but will be there tomorrow, helping former UW teammate Dan Eernissee run the pee-wee game.

Maybe, he said, he'll bump into Rick Neuheisel along the way. In Pelluer's greatest individual day as a Husky, he completed 19 of 25 passes at UCLA in 1983. The only problem was Neuheisel completed a then-NCAA record 25 of 27 to lead the Bruins to a 27-24 victory.

"I've never talked to him about it," Pelluer said. "Maybe I'll see him Saturday."