Greg Laybourn is a senior safety on the Oregon State football team.

He first played baseball for the Beavers, then moved to football.

His interception and return helped seal OSU's 27-21 win over USC.

Q: Were you a sports guy while you were growing up?

A: Yeah, that's all I did. I had two older brothers who played football, basketball and baseball, so I was always the younger brother on the sidelines of their games trying to get into the game and playing with the balls and stuff. I've just been playing sports my whole life.

Q: Which sports did you like the most? Were you a football guy from day one?

A: I wanted to be because both my brothers played football, but my mom wouldn't let me. She had me playing soccer until fifth or sixth grade. It was baseball growing up, was my big thing. We always had pretty good baseball teams in our area and playing all summer and stuff, so that's really what I was into growing up until my mom finally let me play football and then it was football and baseball.

Q: What did you play in baseball?

A: Outfield. When I was younger I tried to play shortstop and pitcher, but as the competition got better, they put me in the outfield.

Q: When did your mom finally decide that it was OK for you to play football?

A: I think it was fifth grade and I don't think she was ready to let me play, yet, but there was some pressure from my older brothers. They had been playing for years and they finally got in her ear and said, "You've got to let him play."

Finally one year she could tell I just wasn't having any fun playing soccer. We had a really good soccer team and I was a defender and the ball never came to me. So I ended up sitting down a few times and when she saw me sitting down on the field I think she realized I needed to be playing football.

Q: You played several positions (running back, quarterback and receiver) on offense at Beaverton High. Did you like offense better at that time?

A: I think for the most part I just liked being on the field, but on offense I liked getting the ball. I started off as a running back and then sophomore and junior years played receiver. Then senior year moved to quarterback because we really didn't have anyone else to play the position. That's what I really loved. I loved playing quarterback because we ran a lot of option and we ran the fly sweep kind of stuff. It was just fun being in control of the game and having the ball every play.

Q: Did you do anything other than sports when you were younger?

A: Not anything of note. Hang out with friends and play video games, I guess. Even in my free time when we weren't with teams, we'd just go up to the park and play three-on-three or get a baseball game going. It always found its way back to athletics with me.

Q: Did you watch a lot of college and NFL football and did you have favorite teams you followed?

A: I watched a decent amount but I wasn't really into it. I've always been the kind of guy who didn't want to watch, always wanted to play. When I sat down and tried to watch a game I just got bored or anxious because I wanted to be out there playing. I wasn't really a die-hard fan of any team other than the Blazers growing up, which is kind of ironic since basketball is my third of the three sports I was playing, but it's the only sport I'm a big fan of.

Q: Have you gone to Blazers games through the years?

A: Yeah, I've been to a lot. I probably went to about 10 to 12 games last year and I'm hoping to try and do the same this year.

Q: So you're still a big fan?

A: Oh, yeah. Especially now that we got rid of some of the bad attitudes on the team and now we've got a team we can be proud of. It's pretty exciting.

Q: What do you think about the Blazers getting Greg Oden?

A: I'm just hoping he can be healthy for his defensive presence. The guy I'm really excited to see is Rudy Fernandez. I've watched plenty of Youtube clips of him and watched the (Olympic) gold-medal game. He's pretty special, so I'm excited to watch him play.

I was kind of torn (watching Fernandez play against Team USA) because I was wanting the U.S. to win, but I knew he was coming to play for the Blazers, so when he was doing well I was excited.

Q: How did the team do at Beaverton High during your years?

A: My junior and senior years we had really good years. We were 8-0 in league both years. It was the last two times anyone but Jesuit won the league, so that was exciting. We didn't go as far in the playoffs as we had hoped because I thought we had really talented teams that I thought had a chance to make a run at the finals, but we lost in the quarterfinals both years, which was disappointing. But it was a great experience overall.

Q: Did you plan on playing college football?

A: From day one I think I had always planned on playing college football at some level. People always said I was undersized and for a while I believed it and thought it would keep me out of it and that's I think part of why I settled for going to something like the Big Sky (at Northern Arizona) at first rather than trying to walk on at a bigger school. But I'm here now and I'm happy with it.

Q: Who was looking at you out of high school?

A: I was pretty stubborn at the time about not going anywhere unless it's a full scholarship, but the only two full scholarship offers I had were Northern Arizona and Cal Poly. Cal Poly actually offered me to play quarterback, which I probably would have taken but I had already committed to Northern Arizona. That's why I ended up there, is they were only one of the schools that offered me, so they got me.

Q: What was your time at Northern Arizona like?

A: I had a lot of fun. I liked the guys I played with and it was a great school. If I was to go somewhere and just be a full-time student, that would be a great place. I just didn't feel like I fit in there. It wasn't what I was looking for and I realized I wanted to play in the Pac-10 and play at a big time school and just be a part of something like that, so when I got the opportunity to come here and play baseball, I took it.

Q: How did you wind up playing baseball at OSU?

A: I came back in the summer to train. Initially, I planned on going back and playing football, but when I was here up for the summer I didn't have a job or anything, I was just working out and I got bored, so I joined a senior Babe Ruth team just to pass the time after my workouts and that ended up leading to a baseball scholarship here.

Q: Were you recruited by any schools to play baseball?

A: No, I didn't play my junior year in high school because I had shoulder surgery to get ready for football season, so I think because of that I didn't get recruited at all because I didn't get my name out there. Your junior year is big for getting recruited. I ended up having a good senior year in baseball but I had already committed in football so there was really no point in recruiting me.

My (Babe Ruth) coach was a friend of coach (Pat) Casey and so he was like, "If you're interested in pursuing this baseball thing, I'll give him a call." So I wasn't really on the open market for teams to come recruit, it was just coach Casey came to a couple games and decided to give me a scholarship.

Q: What was it like to be a part of the 2005 OSU team?

A: I didn't play all that much, but I was a part of that team. I didn't (go to Omaha). That was a disappointment because I had been on (the travel squad) most of the year and I then I struggled a couple games late in the year and it was real disappointing not to get to go but I understand the decision because they were pretty solid with the guys they were playing in the outfield at that point and they needed an extra pitcher, so I was sort of the odd man out in that situation. So I didn't end up making the trip and I was like, "All right, if I'm here I might as well be doing something." So I started training and started working out for football.

Q: How did you end up making the step over to football?

A: I was hanging out and they're like come watch practice so I went out and watched spring practice and coach (Mike) Riley was there and jokingly calls me over and says, "So are we ever going to get you out on the football field?" And I thought about it for a while and started training in the summer and I talked to (Riley) and coach Casey and said, "I'm thinking about going out for the football team in the fall." They were both really supportive of it and excited about it. Initially, I was going to try to do both. They were both all right with that. But then I hurt my shoulder that first season and couldn't really throw a baseball any more and I just decided I'd rather be good at one thing than mediocre at two, so football won out.

Q: Was it a little bittersweet for you when the baseball team went on to win the two national titles?

A: No, it was really exciting. I didn't have any bitterness about it at all. It was kind of hard the first year when I was on the team to actually watch it from home, but the next year I was having so much fun playing football that I didn't really worry about that and I was just really excited because I still had a lot of friends on that baseball team, so I was just purely excited for them.