Rep. Steve Largent (R-Okla.) is challenging House Majority Leader Dick Armey. (Ray Lustig - The Post)

By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 13, 1998; Page A25

When Steve Largent, a star wide receiver at the University of Tulsa, graduated in 1976, he was considered too small and too slow to make it in the brutal world of professional football. Early in his rookie season, he was traded to the Seattle Seahawks by Houston, which asked for only an eighth-round draft choice in return.

Nineteen years later, Largent was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

With that background, nobody is underestimating Largent's challenge of House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.). From the moment he was elected to Congress in 1994 to represent the Oklahoma district that includes Tulsa, his fellow Republicans have recognized the value of what they call his "star power" and his telegenic good looks.

Largent, 44, has responded by being a tireless campaigner and fund-raiser for Republicans, especially the other fiery members of the class of 1994 who helped the GOP take over the House and who promised to revolutionize the way business is done in Washington.

But for someone who is a product of what is arguably the supreme team sport, the one thing Largent has not always been is a team player. He has clashed often with outgoing Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), especially over budget and spending measures, and he has been openly critical of his own party's leadership. He was a leading figure in the failed attempt to topple Gingrich last year.

In one widely reported 1997 incident, when Largent and 10 other Republicans derailed a spending bill and were called to a closed-door meeting to be berated by the angry speaker, it was Largent who spoke up for the group. "You can't intimidate me," he told Gingrich. "I've had linebackers who wanted to kill me."

"He is not going to be a shift-to-the-left, compromising person," said Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.).

Largent grew up in a poor family in Oklahoma City. His father abandoned the family when he was a boy and his mother later married an alcoholic who moved the family frequently, finally settling in Tulsa.

A deeply committed Christian conservative and outspoken critic of homosexuality, Largent is one of the House's most conservative members, earning a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union duing his first two years in Congress.

Married and the father of four children, Largent had no political experience when he first ran for office and has said he intends to leave the House after 12 years. But he has proven adept in politics, winning reelection to a third term last week with 62 percent of the vote.

Largent was a fierce advocate of the "Contract With America," the Gingrich-inspired set of promises that drove the GOP's successful campaign to capture control of the House in 1994. But after only two years in the House, he was already expressing disillusionment.

"We don't have a bold game plan," Largent said at the time. "You just get this creeping feeling that either people were not very serious about the 'Contract With America' and the 1994 election, or we're somehow sliding back to where we came in."