(U-WIRE) STANFORD, Calif. – When offensive lineman Gerrit Wood went to visit Willamette University in 1995 with the hope of playing college football, he was a little nervous about getting in the coach’s car at the airport. And it wasn’t just because he was driving a manual transmission.

The coach, Mark Speckman, was born without hands.

Wood says that’s the first thing people notice about Speckman, but they soon learn how special he would be under any circumstances.

The offensive coordinator when Wood enrolled, Speckman is now the head coach at Willamette, where he has accumulated a 41-29 record in seven seasons. Under Speckman, the Bearcats are 21-14 in the Northwest Conference, a league that has recently produced two Division III national playoff champions (Linfield in 2004 and Pacific Lutheran in 1999).

Speck can do just about everything he needs to get done – driving, writing, eating, typing on a computer, stuffing envelopes. He even played practice catcher for his brother one time by holding the mitt between his arms and his chest. He made it work, even if he came home with some nasty bruises.

The only thing nobody has seen him do is tie his shoes – everything else just takes a bit more time.

He hasn’t let those extra seconds slow him down. Speckman began assaulting the offensive record books upon arrival at Willamette in 1995, working under Dan Hawkins (now the head coach at Boise State). Before that, he coached and taught social studies in high school in California for 17 years while also operating a mentoring program for at-risk youth.

Forced to use flawless technique as a player because he couldn’t grab, he was named honorable mention All-America as a linebacker at Azusa Pacific. According to Wood, the coach is “super competitive” and unbeatable in racquetball.

He is also a husband, father and a motivational speaker in great demand, having made himself a success with a positive style that is all his own, but at the same time irresistibly contagious.

“He’s taken lessons from his teaching career,” current Willamette offensive coordinator Glen Fowles said. “Practice goes at a brisk pace. Each session is short, concise, intense and then we move on.”

It’s important to keep it focused and not waste practice time, Fowles said, as Willamette is a top-flight academic school in Salem, Ore.

The mantra for the program is “figure it out,” which Speckman has been doing since his youth in the Peninsula suburb of Belmont. He was fortunate to have coaches who wanted him to succeed and who gave him a chance.

I first heard of Speck when I was on the coaching staff at a San Jose high school. My employer sent me a tape of Speckman lecturing about the fly series, a decades-old running offense of misdirection with multiple backs going every which way. Speck is considered the foremost contemporary expert on the system.

They tell me when it’s run right, it’s unstoppable. Division I-A teams have been known to run fly-style plays (usually handing off to a receiver in motion), but with so much pressure to sell tickets with the passing game, few major-college teams would consider committing to it today.