Idaho State Football's #3 jersey comes with a résumé.
Retired in honor of Case deBruijn, the Bengal punter who twice led the nation in punting, helped deliver ISU's 1981 national championship with a 33-yard field goal in triple overtime, and went on to play in the NFL, the number sat untouched for decades. Last year, with deBruijn's blessing, the program brought it back, not as a retirement in name only, but as an annual honor for the player who does the most, and asks for the least, on special teams. This season, it belongs to Dekker Haggler.
"You don't really hear of a punter getting their number retired," Haggler said. "For him to be able to accomplish the things he accomplished, and to have, rightfully so, his number retired, and to go on and do even more in the Pros, is an honor to be able to wear it."
Born in Pocatello, raised for a stretch in Fallon, Nevada, before settling in Middleton, Idaho, Haggler grew up the youngest of four brothers in a house where the sport was simply what the family did. His oldest brother, DJ, played at Idaho State. Another brother, Dallas, played at Eastern Oregon. An uncle played for the Bengals as well, and further back, Haggler's great-grandfather boxed here at Idaho State under the tutelage of ISC Boxing coach Dubby Holt.
Asked how he got into football, Haggler stated that it's been part of his entire life.
"I started playing when I was going into my second grade year," Haggler said. "It was a family thing. My older brothers did it, and I wanted to be like them."
Haggler's path to Pocatello wasn't the straight line his family history might suggest. Going into his senior year of high school, he had a full-ride offer to Idaho State from then-head coach Charlie Ragle.
"I actually went to call Coach Ragle and commit the day he resigned," Haggler said. "That was kind of a bombshell."
In the coaching change that followed, and with the program working through a round of roster reinstatements, Haggler lost the full ride he thought he'd secured. New head coach Cody Hawkins offered him a quarter scholarship instead, no guarantee, just a foot in the door.
He took it, and by his own account, didn't immediately make the most of it which prompted a frank discussion with Idaho State Football Director of Strength and Conditioning Coach Jeff Pittman.
"Coach Pittman told me to pull my head out…," Haggler said, laughing at the memory of strength coach Jeff Pittman's blunt intervention that fall. "Going into the spring, I just put my head down and worked. They saw something in me that maybe I didn't really see in myself."
That spring earned him a full ride. It also cemented a relationship with Pittman that Haggler describes in almost paternal terms.
"I see him as, honestly, like another father," Haggler said. "He's tough on you, but it's because he cares a lot. He's got a big heart, and I love the dude."
Ask Haggler about Idaho State's identity under Hawkins and his staff, and the answer comes fast: special teams.
Over the last three seasons, the Bengals have fielded the No. 1 net punt unit in the country and produced All-American specialists, a level of investment Haggler credits to special teams coaches Big Hawk and Little Hawk, alongside Scott Thiessen.
"Special teams is a huge part of the game," Haggler said. "Big Hawk, taking those specialist guys and really refining them just to be their best, has been crazy, you see that with all the kickers and punters getting the accolades. We focus on special teams a lot. The best players are gonna be on special teams. It's a third of the game. It's very important for us."
That philosophy shows up in personnel, too. Haggler, a defensive back by trade, is one of the starters ISU regularly commits to special-teams units, not as an afterthought, but as policy.
"Coach Duff talks about this, if you wanna go play in the NFL, and it's between you and another guy that was on special teams, they're probably gonna pick that other guy," Haggler said. "You wanna go to the next level, that's a big thing. Playing the best players at that spot, whatever unit it is, just puts us in the best position to win and succeed."
To understand what #3 carries, it helps to understand the night it was earned.
Case deBruijn, a Dutch native who moved with his family from the Netherlands to Virginia at age five, arrived at Idaho State as a punter and placekicker with a leg strong enough to become local legend, the kind of leg that, as the story goes, occasionally banged punts off the ceiling of the dome. "It might have been a few times during a game, but it never really affected a game," deBruijn said in a recent interview, waving off the myth a little. "Let the legend be. But the truth is, it's hard, it's really hard."
The leg was no myth on November 21, 1981. Idaho State needed to beat Weber State to clinch the Big Sky title and a spot in the eight-team Division I-AA playoffs, lose, and the season was over. It didn't go smoothly. All-American quarterback Mike Machurek threw five interceptions, and the game dragged into overtime, where Weber State had a chance to win it outright with a 33-yard field goal.
"I'm holding my helmet on the sideline, I remember that, and I'm almost in tears because I'm thinking this is going to be my last college game," deBruijn recalled. Weber State's kicker missed. He missed again in the third overtime, from 44 yards. That opened the door for deBruijn, who calmly stepped up and made a 32-yard field goal to win it.
"It was a short field, and you know how many times I've made that kick," deBruijn said. "People ask me, 'Were you nervous?' No, it didn't even enter my mind about being nervous. We were going to snap the ball, get it down, and I was going to keep my head down and make the kick."
Idaho State rolled through the playoffs from there, wins over Rhode Island, South Carolina State, and Eastern Kentucky in the championship game, for the program's first, and still only, national title. DeBruijn went on to chase a professional kicking career in the NFL and USFL before building a second career in real estate and mining. Idaho State retired his #3 and inducted him into the Ring of Honor. Now 65 and living in Myrtle Beach with his wife Carla, deBruijn has ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, and, as of last year, a jersey back on the field.
"ISU came and asked me before they went rolling with that idea, and I was 100% behind it," deBruijn said of the decision to reinstate #3 as an annual honor rather than leave it retired outright. "I think it's a great idea. Any way to motivate the team, if that helps, let's do it."
When Haggler found out last season that he'd logged the most special-teams reps on the roster, he earned the right to wear #3. But the decision wasn't automatic. Coach Hawkins gave him three options: stay in #13, switch to #25, or take #3.
Number 25 is its own honored tradition at Idaho State, worn annually by a defensive player in tribute to Marcus Jackson, the All-Big Sky defensive back whose Bengal career was cut short in 1996 when a tackle in a game against Montana-Western left him paralyzed from the chest down. Jackson turned that moment into decades of advocacy, founding the Only the Strong Foundation in his late mother's honor and eventually earning induction into ISU's Ring of Honor. It's also the number Haggler's brother DJ wore during his own time at Idaho State.
Haggler passed on it.
"He has his legacy here," Haggler said. "I wanted to have my own."
What he chose instead is, in his words, less about the individual and more about a standard.
"Number three symbolizes the special teams," Haggler said. "I think leadership-wise, it's about elevating the special teams, as well as the defense. But at the end of the day, it's an honor to wear it."
Haggler is careful not to make the jersey bigger than the goal in front of him. Asked about the season ahead, his answer is unadorned.
"They're high," Haggler said of his expectations for the team. "We have the potential, and we have the bodies, we have the people to do something really special here. I wanna leave this place with a ring on my finger, whether it's Big Sky, National Championship, anything."
He credits Hawkins with setting a tone that's matched the results so far, a coach who, during recruitment, laid out a year-by-year blueprint for building the program back up.
"Everything he told me has been the absolute truth," Haggler said. "I really appreciate that. It's hard to find in college football, for sure."
For now, that truth is stitched onto Haggler's chest in the form of a single digit, a number that once belonged to a punter, handed down to a defensive back who's spent his college career doing the work that makes special teams special in the first place.
Case deBruijn #3 Legacy Award Honorees
