Captain Chaos Enjoying the Ride

But over the Aggies' next 15 games, Cooley caught more than 100 passes. His senior year alone he caught 62 passes and six touchdowns. He could rumble downfield after a catch, too, leaving defensive backs strewn about the ground.

"All of a sudden," Cooley said, "it was, boom, boom, boom, here you go."

In his predraft interview with Washington in 2004, Gibbs remembered Cooley telling him he could run "pretty good" after a catch. The Redskins plucked him in the third round of the draft, the 81st player selected overall. He signed a four-year contract worth about $1.38 million not including a $665,000 signing bonus. The organization envisioned him as a potential H-back, the hybrid fullback-tight end position that is a distinguishing characteristic of a Gibbs offense.

Within months, Cooley and his wife of two years, Angela, were on a plane to Northern Virginia. He started at the H-back position his first season, catching 37 passes and six touchdowns. This year, Cooley pulled in 71 passes and scored seven times. With injuries to David Patten and James Thrash, he emerged as the team's No. 2 receiver behind wideout Santana Moss.

Cooley says he lost track of Collins, his former teammate, after college. "We never really kept in contact," Cooley said. "But I always wanted to call him and be like, 'Yeah, dude. I made it.' "

A year ago, Cooley was the team's nominee for the NFL's Man of the Year award, named after the late Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton. He had spent time reading to children at D.C. recreation centers and libraries. With the help of Angela, he helped buy and distribute 2,500 turkeys and 100,000 pounds of food to families the week before Thanksgiving.

A year later, the high school sweetheart he married two weeks after his 20th birthday is back in Utah.

"How did that go down?" Cooley said. "Ready: Dated for two years. Got engaged. Broke up for six months. Went out on a Tuesday night date. I said, 'I want to see you again.' She said, 'I don't want to be less than what we're going to be.' That was Tuesday. We got married on Saturday."

"I look back now and think, 'Should I have maybe given it a month?' " he said, through a rueful smile. "It wasn't like I came to the NFL and decided, I don't want to be married. There were ups and downs through the whole thing."

Angela returned to Utah late last spring. They were divorced in December. Cooley said they remain friends, that the separation was amicable given the circumstances. "We worked out everything ourselves," he said.

She got the golden Labrador retriever, "which was okay, because I don't think that dog liked me," he said.

After Angela left, he briefly dated Frankie Buglisi, a Redskins cheerleader, who brought her friend and fellow Redskinette Christy Ogilvie to Cooley's welcome-home party last July after a month-long trip out West.