College Football ’91 : Seizing the Day : UCLA’s Maddox Plans to Keep Making the Most of Every Opportunity

Tommy Maddox recalls that after he had relieved Jim Bonds in last year’s opening game against Oklahoma, he was toweling off in the crowded UCLA dressing room at the Rose Bowl.

Reporters walked past him without a clue to his identity.

“Finally, one reporter said, ‘Are you Tommy Maddox?’ and then others started interviewing me,” Maddox said.

What a difference a year makes.

Maddox, UCLA’s sophomore quarterback, is now the focal point of the team, so much so that the Bruins’ hopes of reversing a trend of two losing seasons are invested largely in him.

He won’t turn 20 until Monday, but there’s an air of maturity about him beyond his years.

Coach Terry Donahue says he could develop into one of the school’s greatest quarterbacks--and there have been many.

Homer Smith, the offensive coordinator, says that Maddox is “blessed with every tool that Mother Nature gave a quarterback.”

Maddox has a whip-like passing delivery, throwing from every position from near his hip to over his shoulder. Whatever it takes.

Last season, he completed 55.7% of his passes for 2,682 yards and 17 touchdowns while setting Pacific 10 Conference freshman records for yards passing and total offense.

Perhaps his most memorable game was the 45-42 loss to USC, when he set a school record with 409 yards passing and then came into the interview room, smiled wryly and said, “I guess I scored all the points for both teams.”

He was alluding to his touchdown passes and his interceptions.

Even though UCLA had a 5-6 record last year, it could have been worse if Maddox, a redshirt freshman, had not emerged as the starting quarterback.

That took some doing. First, Bret Johnson left school when he learned that Bonds had been designated UCLA’s starting quarterback.

Then, when Bonds faltered against Oklahoma and Stanford in the first two games, Maddox replaced him as the starting quarterback.

Maddox is aware that he would have been the No. 3 quarterback if Johnson hadn’t transferred to Michigan State.

What then?

“I would have had to wait for two things to happen,” he said.

And if he hadn’t played?

“I would have had to talk to Coach Donahue about my future,” he said. “If Johnson (then a sophomore) had played, I’d have had to sit until my fifth year.”

Maddox said he was wrenched emotionally when he eventually replaced Bonds.

“Jimmy and I are great friends and you don’t want him to screw up and you want the team to win,” he said. “But you also want something to happen that gets you in the game.

“Wide receiver is a perfect position because so many play. They shuttle in plays with the running backs, but there is only one quarterback.

“When you go 2,000 miles away from home (Bedford, Tex.), and you’re not playing, you’re going to be unhappy. The only reason I came here is to play football. Every school I looked at out of high school would have given me a great education--Michigan, Brigham Young, Louisiana State, Notre Dame and UCLA.”

Now that Maddox is settled in as the quarterback, he said he is more comfortable here. He stayed on campus during the summer.

“I had no urge to go home,” he said. “It all comes back to being the starting quarterback. I feel I have a position here and something to take care of.”

Maddox is 6 feet 4 and 195 pounds, 10 pounds more than last year. He wears a red jersey in practice, a reminder to the defense that he is off limits.

Smith said that a quarterback takes pictures in his mind of various situations, which are recalled over a course of a career.

Maddox, who had 14 passes intercepted, was filling up his mental scrapbook last season.

He recalls USC safety Stephon Pace intercepting his pass 52 seconds into the first quarter and returning it 27 yards for a touchdown.

“It looked like (Pace) was backing off, then he breaks,” Maddox said. “It’s a robber defense. He’s a floater with no responsibility but to read the quarterback’s eyes.

“If we had played somebody the next week and they had run the same defense, it wouldn’t have bothered me. Oregon did it to me, too.

“Our defense has done a lot of it to me. . . . It’s just a deal you have to go through, get your lumps to learn.”

Maddox shakes his head when he reflects on last season, an unvarying pattern of lose, win, lose, win to the final game against USC.

“When you look back, every game we won, or lost, we had a chance to do the other,” he said.

Near the end of the season, Maddox operated extensively from a shotgun formation, primarily a passing alignment that he is comfortable with.

The Bruins came close to upsetting Oregon at Eugene, Ore., losing, 28-24, mainly because of a controversial pass interference penalty.

Then, as a 21-point underdog, UCLA upset Washington in Seattle, 25-22, depriving the Rose Bowl-bound Huskies of a possible national championship.

“People can say they weren’t ready and all that, but we were the better team that day,” Maddox said. “It was my best game, as far as being a quarterback, leading the team, doing the the things I need to do to win the game--little (passes), or going over the top. It was my smartest game.”

Then came the game against the Trojans, during which 42 points were scored in the fourth quarter.

USC led, 45-42, with only 16 seconds to play, but Maddox says he had time to rally his team.

“When I go back and look at the film--and I believe it to this day--I just missed Scott Miller on a pass on first down,” said Maddox, spreading his hands slightly to show how close Miller had come to the ball.

“If he catches the ball, he gets to their 20-yard line, at least, and out of bounds. There was a big gap. So there probably would have been eight seconds left. We either kick a field goal for a tie, or we run another play to win.”

But time finally ran out on Maddox as he was harassed into throwing a hurried incompletion on the last play of the game.

“That game is still bitter to me, but it was unbelievable what those two teams did in the fourth quarter,” Maddox said.

Maddox won’t be homesick this season. He has brought his family with him.

His father, Wayne, has transferred from Texas to insurance offices here, and so has his mother, Glynda, with an airline.

They have a condominium on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood and will have a tenant soon, son Tommy.

“It’s really going to be nice,” Maddox said. “On the weekend of games, I won’t have to worry about whether they’re going to get into the airport here all right. Now I know they’re going to be here and it’s going to be a special season.”

20 QUESTIONS: C6

TY DETMER: C7