Alexis Serna to the OSU Athletics Hall of Fame: ‘It’s an incredible story’

The Sernas — Alexis and Julie with sons Sebastian and Lorenzo (courtesy the Sernas)

Updated 10/22/2023 11:00 PM

Former placekicker Alexis Serna is among the induction class of 2023 for the Oregon State Athletics Hall of Fame Nov. 10 at Reser Stadium in Corvallis.

If the honor makes Serna a little sheepish, it’s because as director of the school’s “Beyond Football” program since 2018, one of his duties is to serve as coordinator for the Hall of Fame event.

“Alexis absolutely belongs in there by himself for what he has done, not just as an athlete but in his role working for the university,” says Tim Euhus, the former tight end great who is in the Hall of Fame as a member of the 2001 Fiesta Bowl champions. “He has been a huge part of its success on both counts.”

Serna is the most decorated placekicker in Oregon State history, an All-American and Lou Groza Award recipient as the nation’s top kicker in 2005 who set a Pac-10 record for most consecutive made PATs. He also is author of one of the great comeback stories in American sports, one that would make great fodder if OSU alum and sports film screenwriter extraordinaire Mike Rich (Secretariat, Radio, The Rookie, Miracle, Invincible) were so inclined.

Alexis with his Lou Groza Award trophy in the foyer at Valley Football Center

“It’s an incredible story, one that I have told to every team I have coached since then,” says Mike Riley, Serna’s coach at Oregon State. “Alexis is a role model for what grit and determination and mental toughness and work ethic can do. After the way it started, it’s amazing what he accomplished on the football field.”

Serna is chairman of the selection committee that chose this year’s induction class, which includes Riley, football players Steven Jackson and Mike Hass, basketball’s Brent Barry, former athletic director Bob De Carolis, Josh Inman (crew), Mandi Rodriguez (gymnastics) and Rachel Rourke (volleyball) along with the 2006 softball and 2016 women’s basketball teams. Serna didn’t vote for himself, though, and nobody questioned whether he was deserving.

“It’s awesome to be inducted with this class,” says Serna, 38. “You see these great athletes. … I’m a humble person, so this is weird for me. I mean, Coach Riley, Steven, Mike, Brent Barry … I don’t see myself on that level.

“I absolutely love Oregon State. I take a lot of pride in being an alum. This honor — it’s a big deal for me.”

Wife Julie and children Sebastian (10) and Lorenzo (6) will be with him at the induction ceremony.

“Being able to share this with my boys is a very big deal,” Alexis says. “The older one definitely understands what it’s about. I love to be able to expose them to this. The Hall of Fame is such a unique experience.”

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Serna grew up in Fontana, Calif., a city of 200,000 located 50 miles east of Los Angeles in the San Bernardino Mountains. He is the youngest of five children — four boys and a girl — to Arnold Serna and Celia Gonzalez. His father was a construction worker, his mother an elementary school teacher.

“We didn’t have a lot of money,” Alexis says, “but (the children) were provided for. We got by just fine.”

Celia was born in Mexico. Arnold was born and raised in Brownsville, Tex., but his parents were from Mexico.

“We still have family in Mexico,” Alexis says. “I’m very proud of our Mexican heritage.”

The parents separated when Alexis was in the third grade.

“I lived with Mom,” he says, “but Dad has always been a part of my life.”

Soccer was Serna’s first love.

“I was kicking a soccer ball soon after I started walking,” he says. “All my brothers played soccer. I loved the sport.”

At A.B. Miller High, Serna was a three-year letterman in soccer, second-team all-league as a sophomore and first-team all-league his final two seasons. He started playing football as a freshman, mostly to prepare for soccer.

“Our soccer season was in the winter, and football was the only sport that had its athletes lift weights,” Serna says. “I played football and transitioned into soccer, and I figured that would be good for me.”

At 5-6 1/2 and 135 pounds, Serna played wide receiver on the freshman team. During the second week of the season, he suffered a fractured collarbone. He returned to see a little action late in the season and started kicking, but didn’t play football as a sophomore, focusing on soccer in the winter and track (as a long jumper) in the spring.

Serna was the Rebels’ varsity placekicker as a junior and senior, getting a boost midway through his junior year with an introduction to kicking coach Hugo Castellanos, who had played at Texas-El Paso. The week after meeting with Castellanos for the first time, Serna booted a school-record 43-yard field goal. Castellanos became a mentor with whom he still maintains contact today.

The Rebels didn’t kick many field goals during Serna’s senior season — he was 3 for 5 — and Serna planned to play junior-college ball, hoping to get discovered by a Division I program. Castellanos had a friend named Bobby Pleasant, a sergeant with the San Bernardino County sheriff’s department who helped place area athletes in colleges. Riley had just taken over for the second time as Oregon State head coach and was looking for a walk-on placekicker. Pleasant — who now works as an on-campus ambassador for the Beavers — arranged a meeting and, not long before training camp started, Serna was offered the spot. The next couple of weeks were a whirlwind for him.

“I applied for school, got accepted, then drove up to Corvallis with my mom, brother Ben and sister Olivia,” Alexis says with a smile. “I remember vividly walking into the office (of chief of staff Dan Van De Riet), getting a key to my room at Finley Hall and driving there. Mom literally dropped me off there and took off for home.”

Senior Kirk Yliniemi was the incumbent kicker and would close out a sterling career by making 19 of 23 field-goal attempts during the upcoming 2003 campaign. Serna redshirted.

“I didn’t come in with the idea I was going to start,” he says. “My idea was, ‘I’ll come in and learn and get adapted to college.’ It was good to have Kirk here. He set the bar pretty high. That was what I knew I had to attain. I dove into the whole experience.”

The next season, Serna won out in competition with junior John Dailey and redshirt freshman Ross Wopat for the starting job. There was a caveat, however, provided by special teams coach Bruce Read.

“In order to earn a scholarship, we want you to hit 80 percent of your field goals this season,” Read told Serna.

“I never batted an eye at that,” Alexis says.

Serna would have a major bump in the road, however, before he began to make his mark as a Beaver.

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Oregon State’s first opponent that season was formidable — defending national champion Louisiana State in a game at Baton Rouge. The No. 2-ranked Bayou Tigers, three-touchdown favorites, were coached by Nick Saban. His offensive coordinator was Jimbo Fisher. The upstart Beavers gave them all they could handle.

With a raucous crowd of more than 91,000 looking on, Oregon State scored on its first possession on a six-yard pass from Derek Anderson to George Gillett. Serna’s PAT attempt bounced off the right upright.

What some long-time OSU fans forget: Serna knocked a 40-yard field-goal attempt right down the middle to give the visitors a 9-0 lead just before halftime.

Alexis Serna is the most decorated placekicker in Oregon State history (courtesy OSU sports communications)

Late in the third quarter, Anderson hit Anthony Wheat-Brown for four yards and a touchdown to give Oregon State a 15-7 advantage. Remarkably, Serna again bounced the extra point try off the right upright.

The Beavers held the lead until the Tigers scored with 1:05 to play, a 38-yard TD pass from freshman reserve JaMarcus Russell. They converted the 2-point conversion to tie it at 15-15 and force overtime.

LSU got the ball first in the extra session, scored a touchdown and, with the PAT, led 22-15. Oregon State responded with an Anderson-to-Joe Newton 19-yard TD pass to make it 22-21. Serna missed the extra point wide right, and the nightmare in his first college performance was over. Or maybe it had just begun.

“It was just one of those games,” Serna says today. “What hurt me the most was my personality. I thrived in pressure situations. In soccer, I was always the fifth shooter on penalty kicks. The pressure was there to keep us in it or win it. That mentality hurt me (against LSU), because I was too aggressive, going too quickly (to the ball). I was giving myself too little time to see the ball, so I wasn’t striking it well. I had to learn to slow down a little bit. I didn’t get it then. I found out that you understand the game a lot more as you go through your career.”

After the game, Serna was crestfallen.

“I was disappointed in letting my team down,” he says. “You’re out there to help your team win. To be the focal point of why we lost, that really hurt me. There wasn’t anything anybody could say or do.

“Coach Riley came up after the game and said, ‘Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can say or do to help make you feel better.’ And he was right.”

After the flight home to Corvallis the following day, Serna caught a break. Olivia’s boyfriend lived in Monmouth, and she was visiting.

“She picked me up, and I went and hung out with his family,” Alexis says. “They didn’t even know about the game. It was good to get the perspective that football’s not everything. I was making it a bigger deal than it should have been.”

Serna spoke with Castellanos, and one piece of advice stuck with him.

“Going into camp, I was more focused on trying to not miss kicks, rather than to go out there to make them,” Alexas says. “After that game, I corrected that. There was nothing to lose.”

Somehow, Serna’s email address got out to the public. It wasn’t pretty.

“All the emails I received were bad,” he says. “Telling me to commit suicide, that my family was embarrassed of me …

“It never bothered me too much, but I’m a little feisty. I responded to a lot of them. When I’d get something like that, I’d respond with, ‘Look, I’m a son, I’m a brother. I hope it makes you feel better that you got this off your chest. Hope you feel good about it. Have a good life.’ Usually, the responses after that were like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.’ ”

After a few days, Serna began to receive letters from people around the country, addressed to him through the OSU athletic department. He got about 30 of them.

“That taught me something,” he says. “Some people will get after you if it’s easy to do. But when you have to take the time to write a letter, put on a stamp and address it? Those people care. I kept a lot of them, including the one from Austan Pearce.”

Pearce was a 12-year-old from Spokane who was undergoing bone cancer treatment at Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital. Two years later, he would have his left leg amputated. He offered words of encouragement, sentiment beyond what you would expect from a child.

“The timing of that letter was interesting,” Serna says. “The day before, I had a meeting with Hugo, and we were talking a little bit about perspective in life. He said, ‘Football is just a game. People are out there fighting for their lives.’ Then Austan’s letter arrived. Talk about God talking to you.

“To have a young boy and his doctor take the time out of their day to write me a letter, especially with the struggles he was going through? It meant a lot.”

Serna was so moved that he wrote an “A” on his left thumb and a “P” on his right thumb before every game for the rest of his career.

(Pearce, now 31, is living in Dallas, where he works in logistics for Ryder Systems, Inc. “Austan is healthy,” Serna says. “It has been long enough where you can say he is cured from cancer. I message him every once in awhile. My family and I were in Texas in 2021 and stopped in Dallas for a day and hung out for a few hours. He got to meet my boys.”)

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Serna was benched for the next game, a 53-34 loss at Boise State. Dailey was 4 for 4 in PATs but attempted no field goals. Serna regained the kickoff job for the ensuing game against New Mexico at Reser Stadium, but Dailey began the day with the other kicking duties. Serna says when he went out to kick off, he heard boos from the partisans at Reser.

During the game, Dailey missed a pair of field-goal attempts.

“It was pouring rain, and we couldn’t put (the Lobos) away,” Serna recalls. “Coach Read comes over and says, ‘Whatever the next kick is, you have it.’ ”

With Oregon State ahead 14-7, Serna entered to attempt a 35-yard field goal with just more than three minutes remaining.

“Got some more boos,” he says. “It gave me a little chip on my shoulder. I made it from the right hash. Drilled it down the middle and the place erupted. Shows you how finicky fans can be.”

The Beavers won 17-7, and the job again was Serna’s.

“I’d opened the door and allowed Dailey an opportunity, but for some reason, Coach Read saw something in me,” he says. “He wanted to get me back in there.”

Serna was back in the saddle, but had one more task to fulfill before the Beavers headed out for a game at Arizona State.

“Coach Read came up to me after practice that week,” Serna says. “He said they would take only one kicker on the trip, and if I made 10 (extra points) in a row right now, I’d be the guy. So I did it.”

The Beavers lost to Arizona State and then California to fall to 1-4, then rallied to win six of their final seven games, beating Notre Dame 38-21 in the Insight Bowl. Serna was 16 for 17 on field-goal attempts during the regular season — he went 1 for 3 in the Insight Bowl to finish 17 for 20 — and was named second-team All-Pac-10 and first-team Freshman All-American.

“After the Civil War game, I went to Coach Riley and asked him about the scholarship,” Serna says. “I was talking to a couple of junior colleges in case I wasn’t going to get one. He said, ‘We’re putting you on scholarship this winter.’ ”

Serna had gotten a second chance and made the most of it.

“I’m very grateful to Coach Riley and Coach Read for giving me that opportunity,” he says. “There were a lot of learning moments from that. In life, you can’t be playing defensive. You have to stay aggressive and go out and make things happen. You have to trust and believe in what you’re doing. In that respect, it was a good experience, going through that.”

During his weeks of turmoil, Serna prayed about it.

“I’m cradle Catholic,” he says. “It was about realizing there is that conversation with God, that there is a higher power. I’ve noticed that people often pull away from religion when they go through bad moments. For me, I always found myself gravitating more toward it and trusting that things are going to work out. I’ve been through down moments, but there was always faith.”

There weren’t many down moments through the rest of Serna’s career at Oregon State. He never missed another PAT, knocking through 144 in a row.

“I think I still have the most consecutive makes in Pac-12,” he says, adding with a laugh, “and also for the most consecutive misses.”

The 5-6 1/2 Serna — by now weighing a robust 170 — was 80 for 104 (76 percent) on field goals in his career. He converted 15 straight during his sophomore season, when he was 23 for 28 and 17 for 18 from inside 40 yards. The longest make was 58 yards against Cal his junior year. He stands tied for fifth on the Pac-12 career scoring list with 384 points.

“Alexis went from a place where maybe you never hear of him again, to the top of the world,” Riley says. “It was about perseverance, due to the fact that he had confidence and a work ethic and wasn’t going to let it die. Our coaches would meet after practice (at Valley Football Center). We’d look out the window and there he was out on the field, kicking field goals by himself.”

Serna often came up big in the biggest games. He kicked four field goals — including two from 47 and 53 yards — and three extra points in a 33-31 win over Southern Cal in 2006, helping end the third-ranked Trojans’ 38-game regular-season win streak.

In four years against Washington, Serna was 18 for 18 on field goals — 6 for 6 in an 18-10 win in 2005 and 5 for 5, including one from 55 yards, in a 29-14 win as a freshman in 2004.

“I like to think of myself as a Husky-killer,” says Serna, who was 4-0 against the Dawgs.

Serna was also 3-1 in the Civil War. As a freshman, he kicked five field goals and had five extra points in a 50-21 win. As a junior, he nailed one from 40 yards with 1:12 to play to secure a 30-28 victory over the Ducks. Serna had previously converted from 49 and 50 yards.

“There was something different that day,” he says. “I was feeling it. There were days like that when I was just not going to miss.”

Then there was his senior year in 2007, when the Beavers won 38-31 in double overtime in Eugene. His 41-yard field goal sent the game into the second extra session.

“I was 0 for 3 before that kick,” Serna recalls. “I hated the wind in Eugene. It was constantly swirling. I hit one well, but it got blocked. Luckily I was able to put the last one through. That was the biggest kick of my career.”

Says Riley: “One of the most clutch kicks ever.”

Serna took one for the team as a senior. The day before training camp began, Riley learned that punter Kyle Loomis was leaving the program. Serna, who hadn’t punted since high school, assumed the job.

“Thank God for him,” Riley says. “We had no other options. We had recruited the guy we thought was going to be the punter for four years. Alexis did it without complaining about it, but I don’t think it was good for his placekicking.”

Serna punted 81 times for a 35.4-yard average, among the lowest in FCS that season.

“In that situation, I’m not going to be selfish,” he says. “I’m going to try to be the best punter I can be, but it was almost like being a freshman punting. But that experience of having a year as the worst punter in Oregon State history benefitted me in the long run. If I’d not had it, I’d have never played in the CFL, because I ended up doing both (punting and kicking) in Winnipeg.”

Serna says only recently has he done much reflection on his career at Oregon State. The two years after winning the Groza trophy, he says, were difficult.

“There were a lot of learning moments through that period that I like to share with our student-athletes today,” he says. “A lot of times we pursue athletic goals and try to be No. 1. We never think about what happens when we get there. It’s different when you’re the hunted compared to being the hunter. It was really hard the last two years. There was a lot of pressure, and I could have handled that better.

“But it’s crazy to look at the big picture. To think about where I came from the LSU game to December 2005, 15 months later, walking onto the stage and accepting the Lou Groza Award … I have to admit, it’s pretty impressive.”

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Serna played in the Senior Bowl and attended the NFL Combine, where he failed to impress the scouts.

“I had a declining percentage through my college years, I’m not very big, and NFL Europe folded that spring, so there were a lot more kickers who needed jobs,” he says.

He wound up in Winnipeg, where he kicked and punted his rookie season. Serna was terrific while kicking only during his second season, making 34 of 34 extra points and 40 of 49 field goals (82 percent). He started poorly in 2010, though, and when he missed two short field goals in a 29-22 loss to Hamilton in early August, it dropped him to 8 for 14 for the season. And then he was released.

“Disappointing,” Serna says, “but the CFL was a good experience that helped me to get my current position. I realized pro football is not that glamorous. It’s very stressful. I learned to be accountable, to do things on your own.”

Serna and his wife returned to Oregon. Julie got a job teaching child development at Crescent Valley and, in 2012, Alexis was hired by Sherwin-Williams Paints. He spent six years there and walked away as the No. 1 sales rep in the state.

“I learned a lot there,” he says. “I found my passion for building relationships with people.”

In September 2018, Serna was hired as director of Beyond Football as Jonathan Smith began his first season as coach. The program is designed to help transition players from college into their non-football professional careers. Riley started the program in 2013 under Scott Spiegelberg.

“I’m so glad that it continued, and that Alexis is directing it,” Riley says. “He’s the perfect guy to do it.”

So was Spiegelberg, who expertly ran it through 2014 and then directed the Varsity O program through 2020, now handled by Serna.

“Alexis has done a fantastic job,” says Spiegelberg, now retired. “He’s a great Beaver. He has a sense of history and tradition of the program, which are things you need for that job. You have to have a love for where Oregon State has been in the past. He is great with names and with people and, of course, with helping kids get connections with employers.”

Serna works with all 105 players in the football program each year. He starts with them when they’re freshmen but gets more serious when they approach graduation. He estimates there are an average of 15 to 16 graduating seniors who hit the work force each year. Almost all of the seniors have NFL ambitions.

“They are done with college football in December,” Serna says. “They train, come back in March for Pro Day, then are waiting until the end of April for the draft. By that time, they are four or five months removed from us. That’s where a gap can happen.”

Only about two percent of them make the NFL for even one season.

“I have one-on-one conversations with our athletes before that point, and I think I approach things differently than most people do in my position,” Serna says. “The chances are less than two percent that they’ll make the NFL, but 100 percent of them think they’re the two percent. So I don’t talk about that.

“What I emphasize is, if you really dive into this experience as a student-athlete, if you work to get to that next level, if you do that to the best of your ability, with those skills, I can teach you to be successful beyond these walls. The experience you develop in working hard in football, that will help transition you into your career outside of it.”

Serna works with a team that includes Maureen Tremblay and Mya Johnson in Oregon State’s student-athlete development program.

“They put programming together and I work closely with them to make sure our football athletes are doing a four-year curriculum,” Serna says. “I’m around them a lot. I go to practice and travel with the team to games. I eat meals with them at training table. I have conversations with them as a group. There is a level of comfort with me. Longevity helps.”

Resumes, Serna says, “are a big deal. I help them write them and make sure they look good.”

“We explain stuff about the interview process, being able to tell their story,” he says. “Employers want to hire them because they were collegiate student-athletes. Sometimes (players) don’t know how to speak to that experience. It’s also about figuring out what they want to do. They have to go out and earn the jobs, but I can help get them interviews.

“We tell employers they are getting somebody who is accountable, has a good work ethic, is good with time management, coachable, a leader, a communicator, dealing with adversity — we have all of that. Our guys are going to be successful because of it.”

Sometimes, job opportunities are the result of relationships with Oregon State alums looking for employees. Sometimes, they come about because of Serna’s connections to recruiters. There are periodic career fairs on campus. Serna vets the companies and knows what his players are looking for.

“At the career fairs, I introduce myself and have conversations and get to know their companies,” he says. “I want to put our guys in a position where they can get a decent base, and the potential to move up to make good money. I want them to make six figures. That’s a goal.

“They’re losing their identity as a student-athlete, but the job plays a big role in how they feel about that. If the company or job sucks, they struggle a lot more. I always tell them, ‘Do something that makes your time working suck less.’ ”

Serna laughs. He talks about tracking all of the football players who have passed through his office over the past five years.

“I tell them, if you come here, unfortunately you’re stuck with me for the rest of your life,” he says, laughing again. “I will reach out to them. I stay connected. I was just talking with Jake Luton a month ago. We talked about life after football. Recently, Josh Andrews hit me up. He said, ‘I’m retired (after a seven-year NFL career), I’m interested in a job.’ I started networking him with people. I message the guys regularly, saying, ‘Hey, if you ever need anything, let me know.’ ”

What Serna is doing is working. Daniel Rodriguez, Oregon State’s punter in 2018 and ’19, has been a lumber trader for American International Forest Products in Beaverton since shortly after he left school.

Former OSU punter Daniel Rodriguez credits Serna for helping him get a job out of college (courtesy Daniel Rodriguez)

“Alexis took me to a career fair in the spring of 2018,” says Rodriguez, a Pleasanton, Calif., native. “He talked to the (AIFP) president, John Vranizan, and connected us. I had a great conversation with him, and he invited me to come in for an interview.

“Alexis helped me prepare for that. He looked at the job description on-line and prepared me for what type of questions would be asked, which was very helpful. He was spot-on with the questions they were going to ask and the answers they were looking for.”

Rodriguez was fortunate. He had NFL aspirations after college and went through Pro Day in Corvallis in 2020. AIFP management told him a job would be waiting for him. No club beckoned in the ensuing months. In August 2020, he reached out and said, “I’m ready to start.” Three years later, he remains on the job.

Daniel was able to help another former Beaver, center Nous Keobounnam, get a job with AIFP after he graduated.

“I told them about Nous, that he was a guy who had a big role in my punting career, was a trustworthy guy and would be a benefit to the company working next to me,” Rodriguez says.

Rodriguez says he is “100 percent” convinced employers look favorably at hiring college student-athletes.

“We know what it’s like to be on a team,” he says. “We know what hard work is and what it can lead to. We’re good with organization, time management — the list goes on and on. We were on a tight schedule when I was playing. You’ve got to be organized and have a strong work ethic.”

Rodriguez feels indebted to Serna.

“He was a great role model,” Rodriguez says. “A lot of his traits, I see in myself. We talk pretty regularly. He always wants updates on what’s going on in my life.

“I love my job. At Oregon State, I was surrounded by 100 teammates and staff members every day. You learn to love the people you’re with. That’s how I feel here. The people I work with are great. This is where I want to be. Alexis helped lead me here.”

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Serna fits gymnast Ellie Weaver, a sophomore from Union High in Vancouver, Wash., for a letterman’s jacket

The other part of Serna’s job — a smaller part, but an important role — is in organizing banquets. His first big job in that capacity was the induction of the Fiesta Bowl team and a reunion of its players in 2021.

“Spieg started it, but then Covid hit, and Alexis put the whole thing together and did an amazing job with it,” Euhus says.

Serna’s first year at Oregon State was Euhus’ senior year. The next year, Euhus was playing with the Buffalo Bills and was at home watching the Oregon State-LSU game on TV with ex-Beaver teammate Ken Simonton, then also with the Bills.

“It was painful to watch,” says Euhus, now a financial advisor in Corvallis. “It was a rough start to a college career, but we all know how the story ended.”

Euhus contrasts Serna with a predecessor, Ryan Cesca, the Beavers’ regular kicker from 1999-2001 who lost his job as a senior.

“Ryan missed a couple of big kicks, and it just ruined him,” Euhus says. “He could never come back mentally. For Alexis to respond like he did, that shows the character he has. It seems to me that he brings the same kind of planning and toughness and approach to the job he’s in today.”

Euhus appreciates Serna’s personal touch in running the Varsity O tailgater before home games.

“He works hard at getting alums involved, which is important,” Euhus says. “I love the way he has approached his role. Quite frankly, it’s because he is a graduate and takes pride in Oregon State. There are not a lot of people left in the athletic department who are Beavers, but Alexis is. Everything Alexis does, he does with excellence.”

In 2022, Serna helped organize a 50-year reunion of the 1970 Oregon State football team, delayed two years due to Covid.

“Alexis was our liaison,” says Craig Hanneman, a defensive tackle who went on to four years in the NFL. “Every little detail, no matter how small, he immersed himself in it. We had a good reunion, and I give him a lot of credit.”

Hanneman and Serna discussed having name tags.

“He said, ‘We have some cool name tags that go on a lanyard. If you get me the names, I’ll do them for you,’ ” Hanneman says. “He took that stuff home and did it himself on his own time. And then he came to the dinner and visited with all the guys. Everybody really appreciated that.”

Hanneman likes the way Serna handles the Varsity O pre-game tailgater.

“He’s out there greeting former players and trying to do something that everyone in his position should want to do,” Hanneman says. “He has immersed himself in developing a current data base of former players, and he makes a real effort trying to make football alumni welcome to come back. It takes a special person to do that. Alexis is pretty special.”

No question about that. On Nov. 10, he will become something else — an Oregon State Hall of Famer.

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