It was one elusive twosome

One half of the Blair Pair is retired, his days filled with golf.

The other counts the days.

Between them, former Pasadena Blair High and UCLA running backs James McAlister, 56, and Kermit Johnson, 55, lovingly dote on 11 grandchildren.

Neither is in game shape.

“The other night,” McAlister says, laughingly recalling a recent get-together of old friends, “we were sizing up our bellies, laughing at each other.”

Yes, that much time has passed since the powerful McAlister and the speedy Johnson joined forces at Blair to form one of the most propulsive and prolific running back tandems in state high school football history, earning the rhyming nickname that cemented their fame and has followed them into middle age.

In 1969, the Blair Pair combined for 57 touchdowns and nearly 4,000 yards rushing in leading Coach Pete Yoder’s Vikings to a 13-0 record and the school’s only Southern Section football championship. The dream season was capped by a 28-27 victory over La Puente Bishop Amat -- and its pass-and-catch duo of future USC stars Pat Haden and J.K. McKay -- in the 4-A Division final at the Coliseum.

Blair, though it rarely passed, averaged 44.6 points a game.

McAlister rushed for nearly 2,100 yards, Johnson about 1,800, and Marijon Ancich, the winningest high school football coach in state history, later called them “the best combination in a backfield I’ve ever seen in high school.”

Says McAlister, “They called me Mr. Inside and Kermit Mr. Outside. But I could get the corner on you. Don’t let my size fool you.”

Adds Johnson: “And I could hit that middle pretty good too.”

It was a lethal combination.

When the Blair Pair signed with UCLA, giddy Bruins fans wondered which one would win the Heisman Trophy first. Neither did, nor were they able to defeat USC or reach the Rose Bowl, a lasting frustration. But McAlister and Johnson nevertheless helped the Bruins rack up big numbers in Coach Pepper Rodgers’ wishbone offense. In 1973, the duo’s senior season, UCLA rushed for a school-record 400.3 yards a game, including a school-record 621 in a 59-13 rout of Stanford.

Johnson, who had played in McAlister’s considerable shadow at Blair, left UCLA as the Bruins’ all-time leading rusher and was the school’s first 1,000-yard runner. He and McAlister were All-Americans in 1973, when Johnson set a Pacific 10 Conference record by averaging 7.53 yards a carry.

Together, they rushed for nearly 4,000 yards and 42 touchdowns at UCLA, and McAlister set a school record in the long jump (27-0 1/2 ) that still stands.

They were far less successful in the pros, perhaps in part because of their signing with the Southern California Sun of the upstart World Football League, a decision they both say played a part in derailing their NFL careers.

The Sun filed for bankruptcy after only one season, and McAlister and Johnson, who signed a deal that was supposed to pay them a combined $750,000 over three years, collected only about half of what they were owed.

What’s worse, they say, their WFL foray was held against them when they reached the NFL in 1975, Johnson with the San Francisco 49ers and McAlister with the Philadelphia Eagles and, later, the New England Patriots.

“Nobody advised me on it,” McAlister says of his signing with the Sun, “and I did something that possibly cost me a long-term career.”

Early in 1979, less than five years after they had left UCLA, McAlister and Johnson were out of football. McAlister had accumulated nearly 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in 43 NFL games, Johnson less than 150 in 22. (A third member of the 1969 Blair team, former USC safety Charles Phillips, helped the Oakland Raiders win Super Bowl XI at the Rose Bowl in January 1977.)

Johnson, fulfilling a boyhood dream, joined the Pasadena Fire Department in 1979. “My mother says I like dangerous things,” says Johnson, who is still with the department. “I thought fighting fires was fun.”

Married to his second wife, Brenda, for the last 24 years, Johnson has two sons, two daughters and seven grandchildren. Living in Altadena and planning to retire next year, the former Mr. Outside enjoys tinkering with antique cars.

“I have a ’56 Ford,” he says, “that I call my other woman.”

McAlister, who coached football at Blair and two other high schools as well as owning a carpet cleaning and janitorial service, lives in Corona with Carolyn, his wife of 33 years and his high school sweetheart. The former Mr. Inside, who has four grandchildren, already is retired, thanks to the younger of his two sons, Chris, a three-time Pro Bowl cornerback with the Baltimore Ravens.

Says McAlister: “He bought us the house, bought us the cars, gave us a bank account and said, ‘It’s time for you just to relax.’ ”

McAlister and Johnson rarely see each other anymore. When they do get together, of course, they can’t help but reminisce about the past.

“We talk about our high school days more than anything,” Johnson says, “because we’re just amazed by the accomplishments of that Blair team. When we were playing, we weren’t thinking of the history we were making. We were just playing. So this is a time where we can sit back like fans and say, ‘Wow.’ ”

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jerome.crowe@latimes.com