A MAN IN MOTION : Canyon’s Randy Austin Can Always Be Seen on the Run, or Pass, or Punt, or . . .

The heat is on in college recruiting. Scouts are watching. And Randy Austin is putting on a show. He has been playing like an all-world linebacker and tight end for unbeaten Canyon High, the No. 1-ranked football team in the Valley area this season. Every time he makes a great play, Brigham Young sees it on film, Nebraska’s phone bill goes up and Terry Donahue gets a lump in his throat.

“There’s no question that Randy is a bona fide big-time prospect,” said Tom Hayes, defensive coordinator at UCLA. “He’s a tremendous linebacker and he’ll do nothing but get better and better. He stands out in every film I’ve watched.”

Austin’s latest exploits will shortly be flickering from movie projectors on college campuses everywhere. Last Friday night, Canyon played Antelope Valley with a league championship and 33-game winning streak on the line. Austin lived up to his scouting reports and Canyon scored a 30-6 victory. It was one of those games that always wind up in the school yearbook.

In the first half, the Antelope Valley offense took a timeout to try to come up with a solution to the menace wearing No. 45 on the other side of the line. An Antelope player glanced over at Austin. What he saw was an intimidating 6-3, 210-pound senior resting his hands on his hips and glaring defiantly. Even when standing in the middle of the field with nothing to do, Austin looked like a football hero.

The timeout is over and the Antelope Valley players come up to the line. Austin bends in a crouch and prepares to do as much damage as possible without getting arrested. A running back takes a handoff on a sweep to the right. Smart move. It’s going away from Austin’s side.

Normally, a linebacker will run parallel to the line and hope to meet the ball carrier at the sideline, but not Austin. Too easy. He would catch him from behind .

Austin takes off like a heat-seeking missile. Whoosh! He is across the line of scrimmage and past startled offensive linemen. The runner takes evasive action. Whoosh! Austin is on him for a three-yard loss.

The play would have been a career highlight for a lot of players. For Austin, it wouldn’t even be remembered by the third quarter. You want to hear about big plays? Listen to Canyon Coach Harry Welch:

“We were behind, 7-2, against St. Joseph’s in the playoffs last year and hadn’t got in sync all game,” he said. “I was preparing my first-loss-in-two-years speech. Then on three consecutive plays Randy made three consecutive tackles. It was like everybody was in slow motion and he was going full speed. Wherever the ball was, he was there.

“They went to punt on fourth down. He went by everyone. Nobody blocked him. He got right in the punter’s way and the punter didn’t even attempt to punt. We got the ball and our team caught fire and we won. I’ve never seen anything like it. Randy just took over.”

Scouts have been getting writer’s cramp trying to keep up with Austin during his career. As a linebacker, tight end, punter and special teams player, he’s seldom off the field--which is a major reason why Canyon has lost only once since he became a starter as a sophomore. Last year, he made All-Southern Section at both linebacker and tight end. With Austin leading the best defense in the Valley this season, the Cowboys are 10-0 going into tonight’s Northwestern Conference playoff game against Serra High.

“He manhandles people,” said teammate Chad Zeigler. “The hit I’ll always remember was in the Palmdale game. He was on the outside rushing the punter. It was a fake punt and Toney Edwards was going to run the ball. Randy hit him and drove him back eight yards. He can really get after them.”

It will be hard even for Austin to forget some of his feats. Like the time he and Zeigler made a game-saving tackle at the goal line on the last play of the season-opener against Hart this year. Or when he set a school record this season by turning a 15-yard pass from quarterback John Watkins into a 98-yard touchdown against Crespi.

Whatever he was asked to do, he did it not only well but “exceptionally,” Welch said. Welch asked him to return kickoffs this season in addition to his other duties. Austin responded by returning one of them 89 yards for a touchdown, and another 85 yards for a score. Then there’s his punting. Hardly anybody ever mentions it. Maybe that’s because he only averages 42 yards a punt. And talk about hang time. You could go out and buy a hot dog before the ball comes down.

Austin is being discussed in the board rooms of some very influential college football factories. According to his father, Doug, a two-foot stack of recruiting letters sits in their living room, and UCLA, Brigham Young, Utah, Washington, Arizona State, Cal and Colorado are serious pen pals. When the recruiting season shifts into overdrive shortly, Doug Austin said, he expects USC, Nebraska and Stanford to join the chase.

Hayes sees Austin as a replacement for one of the Bruins’ two starting inside linebackers who will graduate by next fall. At BYU, Austin is being projected as a tight end. Welch calls him “the best blocking tight end I’ve ever seen.” Austin also probably could get a scholarship on his punting ability alone, although a lot of scouts may not have seen him punt because the Cowboys have been forced to kick only 16 times this season.

If Austin had a choice--and he probably does--he would prefer to play linebacker. “Defense is more fun,” he said. “I love to hit people.”

This season, Welch has been taking Austin out of the game on defense when the Cowboys are comfortably ahead, and on offense when Welch thinks he needs a breather. Austin, of course, doesn’t have fun unless he’s playing. He even fidgets during the national anthem. When the reserves are mopping up, he paces the sidelines and fights the urge to run back on the field.

“It kills me not to be in there,” he said. “I really get frustrated. I can’t sit down and watch them play. But I don’t complain. Those guys are out there practicing all week, too, and they deserve to play.”

Although two-way players are virtually extinct in college, Doug Austin feels that his son could do it. “When he was a freshman, he never came off the field--they had to bring water out to him,” said Doug, who has missed seeing Randy play only once in four years.

What makes Randy so good? Aside from being big and fast, Welch said, “he has great balance and the ability to accelerate and change direction. Plus, he has a very good sense for playing football.” His father credits Randy’s “natural ability and the fact that he plays hard all the time” for his success. Austin’s range also creates problems for opposing offenses.

“He’s a big, dominating linebacker who’s hard to block and quick enough to make tackles all over the field,” said Steve Silberman, coach at La Canada. “When we played Canyon I felt the best thing to do was go right at him. We didn’t have much luck.” But La Canada did manage to score, which is something five of Canyon’s opponents this season weren’t able to accomplish. Only Notre Dame scored more than one touchdown against the Cowboys, who yielded only 38 points all season.

It’s hard to imagine the Canyon defense without Austin, but there was the possibility a few years ago that he wouldn’t be playing football. In the early 1960s, Doug Austin was a sergeant in the Army, stationed in Gelnhausen, Germany. He met and married Annelie Zeller. When Randy was in grade school, his mother wanted him to play soccer and his father thought young boys were too brittle to play football. So Randy concentrated on soccer. But when he became a freshman, he was already as tall as his 6-2 father and his bones were ready to take on a pulling guard.

So Doug and Annelie made Welch a happy man--they let Randy play football.

“Randy didn’t know football, but he learned quickly,” said Doug, a three-sport letterman at Hart and a former member of the National AAU swimming and diving team. “That’s what he’s done with everything. He was above everyone else in soccer. In baseball he’s got a good glove. He picked up skiing in one day.”

Austin has been playing football as long as Welch has been coaching at Canyon. Asked to rate Austin on a scale of 1 to 10, Welch said, “In skill, he’s close to being Bo Derek. On attitude, on being the best there is, I have to give him a 7. He just hasn’t had to work as hard as others to be as good as he is, but his college potential is so much greater than other athletes playing now.”

Despite his status as a football leader, Austin says he doesn’t have “a big head.” His father makes sure of that. At home, Randy is just another kid, treated no differently than his brother, Eric, a junior who doesn’t play football. Randy does chores, his father said, like mowing the lawn and taking out the garbage. What little spare time he has is spent with his girlfriend, Alyse Ferguson.

After high school football, Austin said he wants “to get a good education and play on a good college football team.” Even with the demands of football, Austin got 3 A’s and three Bs this quarter, and right now, he said, a college degree seems more important than grooming himself for a professional football career. Doug Austin, a deputy sheriff in Santa Clarita Valley, knows the value of getting the best education possible, which is why he’d like Randy to go to Stanford.

Just so recruiters don’t get sweaty palms, Doug added, “But it’s his decision.”

And Randy isn’t in any hurry to make it. “I’m going to take my five trips and see what kind of programs everybody has,” he said. “It’ll be like a little vacation.”

Welch smiled when he heard about the remark.

“The world’s right there for him,” Welch said. “If he gets the right direction, he’ll gobble it up.”