Troubled O.J. Was Great One On The Field

Only a few days before the awful killings in Los Angeles, I was in the San Francisco Bay Area to attend a college graduation ceremony for one of my daughters. We were sightseeing around Fisherman's Wharf when I saw the campus of Galileo High School.

Without much thought, I told my kids, "That's where O.J. Simpson went to high school."

They nodded and rolled their eyes. I'd told them before. Many times.

I never failed to point out the projects north of Candlestick Park, where O.J. lived and fled. It was my way of suggesting to my kids that they never give up no matter the odds.

I explained to them it hadn't been easy even for O.J. Simpson, who had such poor high-school grades he had enrolled at City College of San Francisco.

The first time I saw O.J. play was the third game of his sophomore year at CCSF. A legend was being written across shaggy junior college stadiums. If you had a love for football and a need to be a part of history, you went to see him play.

Against Chabot College, in Hayward, he circled under the opening kickoff and was tackled at the 22-yard line. He looked mortal, nearly as mortal as he would this week in court.

The first play from scrimmage, however, with everyone assured he would carry the football, O.J. darted through a cluster of bodies at the line of scrimmage, burst into the secondary and weaved past defenders 78 yards for a touchdown. He gained more than 200 yards that night.

By the end of his sophomore season, every college in America wanted him. I went to interview him after a chilly, mid-December practice for a postseason game.

I wasn't alone.

Coaches from seven major colleges were there, too. Torn asunder by student riots, the nearby University of California tried to convince Simpson that he could save a program.

O.J. just wanted to run, and in the 1960s, you ran for USC.

This was a time of great running backs. Hugh McElhenny, Gale Sayers, Jim Brown. None was better than O.J. In just two seasons at USC, he won a Heisman Trophy and authored runs of unmatched length and grace. He had size, speed, balance and vision on the field. Warmth and humility off it. Like everyone else, I liked him.

I saw Simpson run many times on the track as well. He was a member of a USC relay team that set a world record. He ran second, as I remember.

In 1973, at Louisiana State, I watched O.J. and his wife, Marguerite, enjoy themselves around a hotel pool. He was there to do television commentary on the NCAA track and field championships. I was there to cover Steve Prefontaine's final collegiate race.

My kids don't remember Prefontaine, who died in 1975 when he drove his car into a rock wall. They do remember O.J. Simpson. They watched him run through airports the way I remember him running through UCLA Bruins. They know him as a movie star. They don't understand.

My daughters are appalled by spousal abuse of any kind. A double murder is numbing. They care more now for Nicole Simpson than O.J., as they should.

Like me, they worry about special treatment given athletes, about society's culpability in O.J.'s denial of abusive behavior.

But the next time we drive through San Francisco I'll tell them again how O.J. Simpson was the greatest running back I ever saw.

I'll tell them to appreciate performance, but separate it from personality. There is no reason to downgrade O.J. Simpson the athlete, to yank him from the Hall of Fame. He appears a victim of the 20th century's bubonic plague: mental illness.

The virtuosos' skills are to be admired, but their lives should not be envied.