Everyone but Glendale’s Duane Bickett Himeslf Said He Would Be Chosen High in the First Round of the Pro Football Draft--and They Were Right : Colts Make Trojan No.5

Duane Bickett, a three-sport athlete in high school, didn’t have room in his extracurricular schedule for much else while attending Glendale High. But he always found time to play catch or shoot baskets with his little brother in the backyard of their home.

The attention meant a lot to Fred Bickett, who always was given an 18-point head start in a 20-point game and still couldn’t win.

“Growing up with him was a lot of fun,” said Fred, who now wears his brother’s old No. 21 with the Glendale High basketball team. “We had a lot of good times.”

They had another one recently. It began in the dormitory at USC where Duane was spending his final days as a Trojan before tomorrow’s commencement exercises. The plan was for them to be at the home of Duane’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, at 5 a.m. and wait for a phone call from one of the 26 teams at the 50th annual National Football League draft in New York.

But they overslept and were awakened by Duane’s girlfriend, Mary, who was honking her car horn in the street. They got to the agent’s house five minutes before the Baltimore Colts made the USC outside linebacker their first pick and the No. 5 selection in the country.

Fred remembered his brother throwing his arms in the air and smiling broadly. Then Duane called his parents in Australia, where they had moved after last January’s Rose Bowl, and told them the news.

“Duane was surprised and happy,” said Fred, at 17 the youngest of four brothers. The others are Don, 24, a pro basketball player in Australia, and Brent, 20, who attends USC.

“Everyone (in the media) was saying that he was going to go first round, but when I talked to him, he told me: ‘Fred, I don’t know if you can believe what the papers say.’ And I’m the type of guy who’ll say, ‘Well, if these guys say it, it’s gotta be true.’ So I had a feeling he was going to go first round, but not that high.”

John Brennan, football coach at Glendale during Bickett’s sophomore and junior seasons, was surprised that his former player was selected so early--especially before Jack Del Rio, Bickett’s linebacking partner with the 1984 Pac-10 champion Trojans. Del Rio, who was tabbed in the third round by New Orleans, was the 68th pick overall.

“I was very happy for Duane that he went that high,” Brennan said. “I’m kind of surprised that he did as well as he did. That’s a tribute to Duane. When he was here, he was just a tall, rangy guy who didn’t have a lot of upper body development. He was a three-sport guy and he never really had time to get in the weight room.”

Bickett, 6-3 and 185 when he played for the Dynamters, didn’t start a serious iron-pumping program until he entered college. Four years later, he is an imposing 6-5, 232 pounds and an NCAA Division I All-American.

“Duane was special at our level, but I don’t think anyone could have projected the success that he’s had both at USC and now in the NFL draft,” said basketball Coach Steve Keith, who witnessed every one of Bickett’s football games at Glendale High. “He didn’t have to be All-American at USC. He wasn’t any sure thing coming out of here, but he worked at it and he was ambitious enough to want to get to that plateau.

“Obviously the weights have made him what he is today in some sense. But the athletic ability is his key--not the fact that he’s lifted weights. A lot of guys have lifted weights who aren’t going to be the fifth pick. They can make his body in the USC weight room, but if you go into the weight room as a non-athlete, you’re still going to come out as a non-athlete. Duane was always an athlete in the natural sense.”

Bickett, who scored 673 points in 51 games over two seasons of varsity basketball, was a second-team all-Foothill League player as a junior. He ended his prep basketball career in 1981 with a 17.5 scoring average, helping lead the Nitros to the 2-A Foothill League championship and an undefeated season that was climaxed by a 59-58 victory over Blair High in the CIF Southern Section title game at the Sports Arena. He was named CIF Southern Section Player of the Year for his efforts.

“Duane was one of the great basketball players in the history of the school,” Keith said. “He had a competitive edge. You see it in all the guys who are successful. They’re just able to gather themselves up at the big moment and they play with very little fear factor. They’re not afraid to have the ball in their hands in the last minute. That’s a quality that’s hard to describe, but the great ones seem to have it.”

Football Wise Choice

Although Keith feels Bickett would have been successful if he chose basketball as a career, he agreed with his decision to play college football.

“Even though he was more of a reknowned basketball player up until he went to USC, I think everyone realized he made the right choice in signing a football scholarship,” Keith said. “I think all coaches are a little greedy. If a player has been that outstanding for you, you would like to have seen him go on and play basketball. He would have been successful, but realistically, he had greater limitations in basketball than in football.”

Speed was the only limitation Bickett had on the gridiron, but his instincts compensated for that inadequacy. He began his high school career as a tight end and was starting by the middle of his sophomore season. The following season he was playing both ways, as tight end and defensive end.

Bickett, who also played first base and pitched for the baseball team at Glendale, is the third player coached by Brennan to go into the NFL. The others are Brett Miller, a starting offensive tackle with the Atlanta Falcons, and Mike Black, who quarterbacked the Dynamiters and is now punting for the Detroit Lions.

Scored 7 Touchdowns

When Brennan left after Bickett’s junior season to pursue other interests, Bill Wild became coach and guided the Dynamiters to an undefeated league season and the 1980 Foothill League championship. That year Bickett caught 47 passes for 581 yards and seven touchdowns.

“He got better as the season went on in his senior year, but I think he still could have improved,” Wild said. “His biggest problem in high school was that he didn’t realize how good he could become. We told him, ‘Duane, you’re as good as you want to be.’ ”

Wild, who now teaches at the nearby Daily Continuation School, admitted that relations among himself, Bickett and defensive coordinator Tim Butler weren’t always smooth during games and practices in Bickett’s senior year.

“We got on Duane sometimes, but he could take it,” said Wild, who last saw Bickett in December at a going-away party for Bickett’s parents. “A couple of times we jumped on him and told him to get his butt in gear.

‘Nose to Nose’

“There were times when we went nose to nose--or nose to chin, I guess. In a playoff game against Quartz Hill that we won, Coach Butler was screaming at Duane. Duane made a critical mistake in a defensive call, and he came over and he got chewed out. It was like bam, bam, the two of us right into his face. Then he went out there and made some great plays.”

When Wild had him as a sophomore on the junior varsity squad, he explained to Bickett some diverse and innovative defensive formations designed to put pressure on the opponent’s running game and discovered the youngster had a natural flair for defense.

“When we brought the sophomore kids in, most of them would trip over their own feet, but Duane could do it perfectly after the first few tries,” Wild recalled.

Bickett was playing with calcium deposits in his right bicep during the latter part of the 1980 championship season. He was still hurting in a playoff game against Lompoc but caught 14 passes.

‘A Tough Kid’

“He was a tough kid,” said Wild. “A couple of times we had to peel him off the ground. But he played the whole game, scored two touchdowns and played on defense.”

Bickett, who did not play linebacker until he arrived at USC, was lightly recruited during his senior year. USC accidentally saw him in a game film while scouting another player. After that, other schools became interested--but not many.

“I think he had only two other options, the University of Pacific and Cal State Fullerton, which aren’t exactly heavyweight football schools,” Keith remarked. “So USC was almost throwing him a bone at the end of recruitment.”

Said Wild: “I think he was still a little bit in awe when he found out that USC wanted to offer him a scholarship.”

Neither Keith nor Brennan--who returned last season as head coach--has held Bickett’s career up to their players as an example of what hard work and dedication can do.

‘Few Duane Bicketts’

“That’s unrealistic,” Keith explained. “We tend to hold the overachievers up as an example; kids like Jan Svoboda, who weren’t great athletes but still got as much as they could out of their ability. There are very few Duane Bicketts walking in. He got a lot out of his ability, but he had a lot to work with, too.”

Bickett didn’t sever his ties with Glendale High after his 1981 graduation, despite his high visibility in college football. In 1982 he worked with the defensive ends on Wild’s squad and has attended numerous basketball and football games and track meets and has played in the alumni basketball games.

Said Brennan: “He has not put himself above Glendale High School.”