'The Lincoln Victor effect is real': The identity that shaped WSU's star receiver

Oct. 27—PULLMAN — Lincoln Victor felt like a double agent wearing crimson and gray. The more he thought about his situation, the more confused he felt: How could he earn the respect of his Washington State teammates, but not receptions? How could he score a captain's patch on his jersey, but not touchdowns?

Last fall, Victor may as well have been living on two planets at the same time. On one, he was a WSU team captain, a wide receiver with the pedigree to command the respect of his teammates. Earlier in the year, he had received a full scholarship, and within a few months, he had established himself as one of the Cougars' hardest workers.

In the other world, Victor was just another receiver, a junior lost in the shuffle, a guy who touched the ball some three times a game. In WSU's Air Raid offense, he was only a spoke in the wheel, a wideout who was rarely the first option.

Victor was somebody and nobody all at once. He came first in the leadership department and fourth in the receiver room.

"Having to be that voice on the field and not having no influence on the field," Victor said, "was very hard for me."

In some ways, Victor was always headed down this path. In high school in the Vancouver area, he became one of the state's single best players, a quarterback so talented he garnered AP state player of the year honors. As a true freshman at Hawaii, he was the Rainbow Warriors' primary kickoff returner, and he posted three touchdowns.

At each of those stops, Victor was a leader's leader. Even as an underclassman at Union High, he felt no issue pointing his teammates in the right direction, setting up for practice and staying late afterward.

"I could not be in practice, and if I watched the film of practice, it would look like every other practice — there could be no coaches there, because he was that kind of leader," said Rory Rosenbach, Victor's head coach at Union. "Like, he would have been that organized and dialed in."

So even in January 2021, when he walked on at Washington State, Victor's leadership never wavered. His playing time did. That gave him impostor syndrome of a lifetime. "It was very tough at that point," Victor said, "not getting the results I wanted."

So last season, Victor sat down with head coach Jake Dickert, who sensed his receiver's frustration. He wanted to make one thing clear to Victor: Leadership is not a results-based business. Leaders are leaders when things are good, Dickert said, and when things are bad. The Cougs needed Victor's mentorship even when he wasn't on the field.

In other words, Dickert explained, leadership and production aren't tied together. They're separate entities.

"Once I figured that out," Victor said, "everything clicked for me."

One spin around the sun later, Victor is making sure everyone notices.

***

Not until he polished off the best outing of his career, a 16-reception outing in Washington State's loss to Oregon last week, did Victor understand what he had accomplished. He hadn't just broken the WSU school record for single-game catches. He had also broken the record for most catches in one game at Autzen Stadium — and now he's tied for the most by any player in the country this season.

"I could have had zero catches and a W and would have been a lot happier," Victor said after the game.

Like he has so often this fall, though, Victor sent a jolt of energy into his team just by being out there. After a high-ankle injury sidelined him for nearly two games, Victor was back on the field in full in Eugene, where he reeled in 16 catches for 161 yards, unlocking the Cougs' offense like only he can. So far this season, he has totaled 44 receptions for 522 yards and 3 touchdowns, averaging nearly 12 yards per catch.

When the Cougs' offense has been at its best, so has Victor. He opened the season with an 11-catch, 168-yard outing in WSU's romp over Colorado State, and a week later, he helped his club upset Wisconsin by hauling in 7 balls for 55 yards and a score. One week after that, Victor snagged 6 catches for 119 yards and two scores in the Cougs' blowout win over FCS Northern Colorado.

Victor has rare speed, the kind that warps the geometry of the field, the type that scares secondaries when he so much as lines up in the slot.

"The Lincoln Victor effect is real," Rosenbach said. "If you didn't believe it was real, the last two games he didn't play should be evidence."

The injury happened back on Sept. 23, in the first quarter of WSU's win over Oregon State. Victor was holding an extra point, like he usually does, when an OSU defender inadvertently stepped on Victor's ankle. He left the game and didn't return.

The Cougs held on for a 38-35 win, their second victory over a ranked opponent in three weeks. Victor watched part of the game from the locker room, where he learned his injury was more serious than he hoped. He had suffered a high-ankle sprain, an injury that tends to sideline its victims for weeks.

"In the moment, I could just see the lack of leadership and confidence out there when I was on the sideline," Victor said. "I really felt that and took that to heart. So as much as I could, if these guys are straining out here, I need to be straining in the training room because I sacrifice my body for the team."

Feeling that pressure, Victor hit the recovery room and established a daily routine that looked a little like this.

He'd show up early in the morning and meet with athletic trainer Jim Spooner, who would help Victor warm up his ankle and start rehabbing. He'd spend roughly an hour and a half there. Then he'd venture outside to practice, where he spent a few minutes watching his teammates go through drills and scrimmages.

Then Victor got into some active recovery, a lighter version of his usual workouts. "I really wanted to keep staying in shape, doing as much as I can with the strength staff," Victor said. Then he'd go back out to practice, check in on his teammates, then return to the training room. There, he got more treatment on his ankle until the room closed, at 12:30 p.m.

Then it was off to Moscow, where Victor got acupuncture and dry-needling, a treatment where a provider inserts thin needles near trigger points, in Victor's case his ankle. Then he'd return to Pullman, where from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. he'd be back in the training room, running in a pool and on a machine called the AlterG, an anti-gravity treadmill used for physical training.

"Some days would progress and be very positive. Some days would plateau and it'd be super frustrating," Victor said. "So it was a fluctuating thing — up and down, up and down, up and down."

As he worked to return to full strength, Victor traveled with the team, but the Cougs noticed when he wasn't on the field. Their offense stalled to a halt in an Oct. 7 loss to UCLA. It vanished entirely in an Oct. 14 blowout loss to Arizona, a 44-6 humiliation that forced coaches and players alike to look in the mirror. Victor was out there for that one, but because he was feeling far from 100% healthy, he managed just 4 catches for 20 yards.

Still, the fact that Victor played in any capacity meant something to his teammates, a surge of energy even when his team couldn't capitalize.

"It looked like he had a pop in his step," Dickert said. "He's an energy giver on our team. I really mean that. I think it was inspiring to have him back out there."

In that way, Victor has never changed. During one playoff game in high school, Victor was trying to guide Union into the third round when he broke his collarbone — and stayed in the game for another series. Coaches saw him hurting, so they tried to pull him.

"I'm good," Victor responded.

"I'm like, are you sure? He's like, yeah, I'm good," Rosenbach said. "And he believed he was good. But then he tried to throw a ball and it was like, yeah, you're not good. He is as tough a kid as I've ever had."

"I think that's in his DNA — always, period," Dickert said.

What drives Victor on the field — and what fuels him to return there — has to do with the rest of his DNA.

***

Back on Aug. 14, a few days into the fires that devastated Victor's home of Lahaina, Hawaii, he strode behind a microphone and chose his words carefully. The Cougs had just wrapped up the third day of fall camp, but in some ways Victor's mind was elsewhere, on his home and on his family.

His family was safe, Victor said, but he felt shaken. The first thing he brought up had nothing to do with football.

"Right now, it's a tough situation," Victor said. "I play for back home every single day. Every time I strap on those pads, it's for everyone back there. It's for the family. It's for the island. It's for the 'Aina."

As much as Victor is a Washington State wide receiver, he is also a product of Hawaii, a scion of a nation and an extension of the heritage he cherishes so dearly. To say Victor embraces his culture is to miss the mark. Victor is his culture.

When he appears in interviews, he wears it on his clothes, a maile lei after the Colorado State game, another combination of flowers and a necklace after the Wisconsin game, a different necklace entirely after the Oregon game. When he talks, he references it directly, mentioning mana — a Hawaiian term for spiritual energy of power and strength — and bidding mahalo when he leaves media availabilities.

That's what occupies Victor's mind in the hard moments, the times that test his patience and rattle his mettle. He wants to play at the next level. He wants to ensure his parents never struggle, that Maui recovers and blossoms back to full strength. For Victor, football is just a vehicle to that destination.

Which explains so much about Victor: Why he took Dickert's message to heart, why he built the endurance to catch 16 receptions, why he spent extreme hours in the training room, why coaches had to drag him out of a game when his collarbone shattered. Victor is as much himself as he is those around him and the culture that shaped him.

"That little boy inside you is telling you to quit, telling you to turn around and turn your back on things," Victor said. "But that man inside of you is gonna tell you to keep pushing through because there's greater things. It gets better at the end."

To that end, Victor has made an example of himself.