This isn’t the first time somebody has called Jason Gesser’s number and asked him to go do something remarkable.

At Saint Louis School they tasked him to follow Darnell Arceneaux in the late 1990s as the Crusaders’ quarterback and keep the Prep Bowl championship lineage unbroken.

At Washington State they implored him to take the Cougars to the Rose Bowl (2003) with a broken rib and a bum leg and then, oh by the way, pull the team together during a fractious late-season coaching change.

And on Sunday at the University of Idaho, summoned by a 4:30 a.m. text message, they asked him to be the Vandals’ interim head coach in the wake of the firing of Robb Akey.

What is noteworthy here isn’t that Gesser accepted — since he thrives on challenges, the more daunting the better, apparently — but, rather, that Idaho made him the second-youngest head coach at a Football Bowl Subdivision school when there were people on the staff with double-digit years of experience and one with more college coaching seasons than the 33-year-old Gesser has years of life.

Among 124 head coaches, only Toledo’s Matt Campbell is younger than Gesser, and that by a scant six months.

But Gesser is just two years removed from being a high school coach at Eastside Catholic in Sammamish, Wash., and had been an offensive coordinator at Idaho for all of eight months.
Time enough, apparently, for the passion and force of personality that earned him a captaincy at WSU from the time he was a sophomore, to show through.

“Jason has demonstrated the leadership skills throughout his playing career and as an assistant coach,” Idaho athletic director Rob Spear told the Star-Advertiser in an email.

“He has a great rapport with his players and understands the needs of this program at this time.”

Basically what the 1-7 Vandals, who are assured a 12th losing season in 13 years, need is somebody to be a miracle worker or faith healer. Beaten up by a non-conference schedule that included paycheck-producing road games at Louisiana State and North Carolina, the Vandals have struggled mightily and still have four games remaining, none of which they are likely to be favored in.

Characteristically, it wasn’t the uphill task that gave Gesser pause about accepting the job. It is respect for Akey, the genial man who had hired and promoted him. Akey had been an assistant at WSU when Gesser was setting passing records and leading the Cougars to improbable victories.

So when Gesser was approached about the interim position, he sounded out the rest of the staff.

“I told them what he (Spear) had said and they said, ‘One of us is going to have to do it and Coach Akey isn’t going to be (ticked) at us for taking it,’ ” Gesser said. “This isn’t about me, this is about us.

Everybody on the staff and in that meeting and locker room cares about Coach Akey. But we also realize that there are some games that remain to be played and we have to come together now more than ever.”

Not for the first time in his career are people looking at Gesser to be the one they rally around.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.