HONOLULU -- Ever since Steve Greatwood added Hawaii to the territory he recruited for Oregon Ducks football in the mid-1990s, he'd come to trust the advice of Delbert Tengan.

The friendship, and its football benefits, were mutual. When Tengan, who spent 27 years at Honolulu's Saint Louis School as a teacher or coach and was head football coach during the mid-2000s, wanted to install a read-option running attack to the Crusaders' famed run-and-shoot offense, he visited Greatwood in Eugene just as the Ducks were adding the same wrinkle.

And when Greatwood visited the islands for recruiting, Tengan would point out some of the islands' best players over plates of kimchi fried rice at Honolulu's Big City Diner.

"Steve probably knows I'm a true friend," Tengan said, "because I befriended Steve when Oregon wasn't very good."

Oregon is no longer not very good. And it was that trust between the two that led Oregon's line coach not to dismiss Tengan's slightly unusual recruiting tip in 2010, advice to check out a backup quarterback that paid off and recently pushed the program to new heights of success.

In the oft-told tale of how Marcus Mariota was recruited to Oregon when so few teams even knew about the prospect -- he only started his senior year and held scholarships from Memphis and later Washington -- few know its origin.

"Delbert," Greatwood said, "was the first person who told me about (Mariota)."

Five years later, and only a short drive down the road from the Saint Louis field where Oregon began recruiting Mariota, the Ducks' Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback celebrated his No. 2 overall selection by the Tennessee Titans last week in the 2015 NFL draft. Only one player in UO history, quarterback George Shaw, has been drafted higher -- and that was in 1955.

Even Tengan, one of the first to spread the word about Mariota, finds the quarterback's transformation from virtual unknown in high school to NFL centerpiece staggering.

When he walks around Honolulu and sees Mariota jerseys, he can't shake the feeling it's all a bit surreal.

"Nobody ever thought in their wildest dreams that a kid from Hawaii would win the Heisman," Tengan said last week against the backdrop of the Waikiki skyline that abuts Iolani School, where he has been defensive coordinator since 2010.

"I mean, (Notre Dame linebacker) Manti Te'o came close, but a quarterback? I mean you hope, you have dreams of doing it, but when Marcus did it, the kids here felt like, it can happen."

And Tengan is one who played a small but vital role in making it come to fruition.

* * *

The connection between Oregon and Saint Louis dates to the 1960s in -- of all places -- Salem.

In the mid-1960s, the Lee brothers -- Ron, Cal and Tommy -- from Hawaii played at Willamette University. On that staff was a defensive coach, Joe Schaffeld, who joined the Oregon football staff in 1974 under coach Don Read and continued through the tenures of Rich Brooks and Mike Bellotti.

Schaffeld and the Lees never lost touch, and because of it Oregon coaches never stopped flying to Hawaii for recruiting trips in the 1980s and 1990s. Greatwood, who grew up in Eugene and played for the Ducks in the early 1980s, learned coaching and recruiting from Schaffeld, who was a guard on Oregon's 1958 Rose Bowl team.

Meanwhile in Honolulu, Tengan was doing the same as a longtime assistant to Cal Lee as the Crusaders won 14 Prep Bowl titles. In 1990 Oregon signed defensive linemen Silila Malepeai and D.J. Cabrera, and was a finalist for running back Tupu Alualu -- all from Saint Louis.

In the late 2000s, more Crusaders became Ducks: Bronson Yim, Isaac Ava, Mana Greig. Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who played at Saint Louis for one year under Tengan in 2006 after being expelled from his Bay Area high school, led the Ducks to their first Rose Bowl in 15 years in 2009.

The clincher, however, was Mariota, who as a quarterback was a departure from the usual types of players Greatwood --- and the rest of college football's recruiters --- looked for on the islands.

"It was either the big kids, offensive or defensive linemen -- the hitters," Tengan said.

Mariota, of course, would become a home run. Not that it was immediately clear when Tengan first broached the topic with Greatwood in 2010. Through his junior season, Mariota couldn't get off the bench for Saint Louis. Only Memphis, who knew of the QB because a Tigers graduate assistant used to coach Mariota on the Saint Louis junior varsity, had offered a scholarship.

"There wasn't enough tape on him," said Darnell Arceneaux, the Saint Louis coach during Mariota's senior season. "The big thing is, when Chip (Kelly) offered him, everyone came back and said, 'What do you got?' Marcus said, 'Coach, you gotta tell them I'm done. I don't want to be recruited, I'm going to Oregon.' There was still a big mystery until they saw him play. After our first couple games that senior year, they came back trying to get him."

Tengan never coached Mariota; his final season as varsity coach was 2008, when Mariota was a freshman on JV. He demurs when discussions about "discovering" Mariota arise. But he'd witnessed Mariota's blend of size, graceful athleticism and sprinter's speed -- as a senior, he ran a leg on Saint Louis' state-championship 4x100-meter relay -- during the P.E. classes he taught through 2010, his last season on staff at Saint Louis. Nevermind that most at Saint Louis already considered Mariota something of an Eagle Scout; his sheer physical attributes alone recalled in Tengan a conversation between he and Greatwood a few years earlier, when the school's spread offense was being executed impressively by a quarterback who stood less than 6 feet tall.

"Steve said, 'You know, if your kid was five or six inches taller, we'd recruit him,'" Tengan said, flashing a smile. (The Ducks no longer recruit by a territory strategy, but instead by position.)

"Finally when we had Marcus, he was the prototype."

Then-Oregon offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich was one of the coaches who made multiple visits to see Mariota after being tipped off by Greatwood's recommendation.

If Tengan helped spark the interest, it was all Mariota who convinced the Ducks he was worth a scholarship despite his nearly invisible profile in the recruiting world.

Marcus Mariota NFL Draft Day in Honolulu 59 Gallery: Marcus Mariota NFL Draft Day in Honolulu

"I go out to practice, with Diamond Head in the background, he just kills it," Helfrich, Oregon's head coach since 2013, said in December, minutes before Mariota won the Heisman Trophy. "Probably 15 minutes into the workout, I called Chip (Kelly) and said, 'This guy is unbelievable.'"

Mariota eventually chose Oregon over Memphis and Washington.

Said Tengan: "The rest is history."

Mariota became the first Pac-12 player to earn three first-team all-conference honors and account for more than 5,000 yards of total offense in a single season. A two-time All-American, he earned an unprecedented haul of awards in 2014, for player of the year (the Heisman, Walter Camp and Associated Press) and top quarterback (Davey O'Brien, Johnny Unitas).

Along the way, he not only helped Oregon become the winningest program in college football this decade, but he changed deeply ingrained attitudes and allegiances back in Hawaii.

"At Saint Louis we were on top so long we became the hated," Tengan said. "With Marcus, when people saw what kind of a person Marcus is, all of a sudden that Saint Louis thing, that guard went down and everybody embraced him. There wasn't a wall around him like, 'Oh that's a Saint Louis guy. ... People said, 'That's our boy.'"

As luck would have it, Tengan's first season as Iolani defensive coordinator was also Mariota's first and only season as Saint Louis' starting quarterback. Even with an advanced scouting report, Tengan's defense didn't fare well. Mariota went 15 of 21 passing for 193 yards and three touchdowns as Saint Louis won 41-14 at Aloha Stadium.

"We knew he was good, we weren't going to stop him," Tengan said. "We were just going to try to slow him down."

Mariota is not one to slow down, whether because of his tempo at Oregon or his obligations now as an endorser and face of the Titans franchise. But his rise from unknown to ubiquitous often gives Tengan pause. And his reasons have to do with a football field, though not for the reason you might expect.

In December, Tengan traveled to Los Angeles to attend Oregon's College Football Playoff semifinal against Florida State in the iconic Rose Bowl.

Two days before, his old friend Greatwood invited him to watch the Ducks' closed practice. And while there, Tengan was spotted by the once-unknown quarterback who'd since rocketed to stardom.

"The greatest thing about Marcus: He never lost perspective," Tengan said, stopping to gather his words. "I was just standing there on the edge of the field while Marcus is getting ready for practice. He saw me; he didn't have to do it, but he came running over, said hello, gave me a big hug and went back to work. That's the kind of guy he is."

-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

503-221-8100

@andrewgreif