Swanson: The L.A. Bowl is really the Drevno Bowl, a unique family showdown

LOS ANGELES — Who among you is compelled to diminish the significance of Saturday’s L.A. Bowl? Who wants to shrug it off as a meaningless matchup between Mountain West champion Boise State and a sputtering UCLA Bruins team?

Oh, but on the contrary. This might as well be the Super Bowl or the next closest thing – at least if you’re a member of the Drevno family.

No, there won’t be even a secondary second-hand trophy on the line for them Saturday at SoFi Stadium – UCLA offensive line coach Tim Drevno shot down his daughter’s playful suggestion – but there will be big-time bragging rights. Because for the first time he’ll be pitted against McKenna, his eldest and a former Mira Costa High School basketball player who is an athletic trainer embedded with the Broncos.

It’s a blood feud in the best way, this father-daughter showdown.

Football is in their blood, its pulsating nature – “a battle rhythm,” Tim calls it – setting the tempo of their lives for as long as either can remember. It’s emotional work, testing its subjects always and rewarding their passion and dedication in a way few endeavors will.

“The energy around a team, she gets excited about coming to work every day because it’s fun,” said Tim, who has a reputation for approaching the game like medical professionals see science – as something that’s ever evolving.

“This is what we do, it’s fun,” he said. “I get to go coach young people and she gets to be around young people. Going through the highs and lows, how it teaches you life lessons – to keep persevering. It’s like a roller coaster, it defines who you are as a person; tough things will come and you learn how to push through them.”

That’s exactly the world that McKenna, 25, always wanted to inhabit, because growing up in her dad’s orbit, it’s all she’s known.

It’s also all that Tim, 54, wanted after successful stints playing at El Camino Junior College and Cal State Fullerton. The game had done so much to support and nurture him after he lost his father at the age of 4, he had to pay it forward.

And so he has for the past 31 years. In coaching roles with the Bruins, of course, and before that, with USC, Michigan and the San Francisco 49ers, as well as Stanford, the University of San Diego, Idaho, San Jose State, UNLV, Montana State and, initially, Cal State Fullerton, he’s been fulfilling his promise: “I wanted to give back what this great game’s given me, to pass on its blessings.”

McKenna has been along for much of the ride, his biggest fan throughout – including recently, since he joined UCLA’s staff as an offensive analyst in 2021 before taking over as offensive line coach last season.

She catches as many of the Bruins’ games as she can, she said, and you bet he’s been keeping an eye on Boise State’s sideline too – though those rooting interests that have been paused this week, when suddenly dad and daughter have become especially tight-lipped.

The only insider information they’ve been willing to share: How much love and appreciation they have for this moment.

Pretty freaking cool get to play against my Dad!! @CoachDrev GAME ON!!! https://t.co/MnV6wxr8o6

— McKenna Drevno, MS, LAT, ATC (@Mdrevno98) December 3, 2023

“Playing against my dad? This is so cool!” McKenna said by phone Monday night, having flown in early to begin setting up the training room ahead of Boise State’s players’ arrival. “It’s what I’ve always dreamt of.”

“Unbelievable, a dream come true,” Tim echoed the next day after practice at UCLA. “It’s so awesome.”

McKenna grew up going ’round on a carousel that would give most of us serious motion sickness. She counts 11 moves – or, wait, maybe it’s 12? – before she left to study athletic training at Miami of Ohio. Her time at Mira Costa lasted all of six months, a pit stop on her three-high-school tour.

“Every four years is when you know you’re either going to move on,” McKenna said. “Because dad has been super-successful and a lot of the time we’d go to another school. Or unfortunately, your dad gets fired, and he finds a different job, and you just go about it.”

Moving isn’t usually easy on kids, so you’d think all that constant uprooting might leave a girl feeling rudderless, or unmoored, or, I don’t know, plain ol’ resentful of her dad’s gig.

But no, not McKenna. It made McKenna want her dad’s gig, or something in the same space.

She recalls the first time it dawned on her that athletic training was a possibility: She was in third or fourth grade and hit her head one Sunday on the corner of a play clock running around the otherwise deserted UC San Diego field with her brother, Zachary.

She remembers a big goose egg sprouted up. Tim is still seeing the blood. At any rate, McKenna ended up with the team’s trainer, who offered either ice or a band-aid – or maybe both? – and a healing touch that nudged her in the direction of what became her life’s goal.

And all those new places along the way? All those stops only made her appreciate her dad’s work more, because his colleagues always became like family – while also enhancing her social capacity, too.

“I remember her taking her on a Disney cruise when she was a little girl,” Tim said, “and my youngest (Baylee) didn’t want to go to the young teens’ (function), but McKenna was like, ‘I’ll go, it’s not a problem.’ And she stayed for four hours and met new friends.”

Such fast-friend-making benefits her now in a role that requires her not only to replicate her dad’s work ethic – his before-sunrise-to-well-after-sunset gig requires even more time than her 12-hour days, she said – but for her to be able to bond quickly with dozens of athletes.

It’s her job to establish trust with players who rely on her to help them navigate the strain of the game, to not only treat their wounds and injuries but often to listen to their hopes and concerns and, sometimes, to play mom: “Your stomach hurts? Why don’t you try eating some crackers?”

She hopes she’ll be doing the consoling on what could be an awkward car ride home after the game to the family’s home in Redondo Beach.

Tim would prefer the week at home for the holiday will serve as McKenna’s consolation prize.

Either way, football has delivered the Drevnos an opportunity to face each other in a bowl game, and what a fine gift that is.

So proud of my daughter McKenna. She has unbelievable passion and love for what she does. Great read! @Mdrevno98 @BroncoSportsFB @IdahoStatesman https://t.co/iVNmHwb8V6

— Tim Drevno (@CoachDrev) September 28, 2022