The Little Train That Could : Even James Has to Pinch Himself After This Season

He’s as hard to dislike as a Teddy bear, and not much bigger. He weighed 8 pounds at birth, but quickly fell behind in the race. He finally caught up, thanks to a list of virtues usually associated with test pilots or brain surgeons.

He attracts the sort of raves you see on the back of best sellers: “Totally fearless”--Pat Dye . . . “A magnificent person”--Al Saunders . . . “No limits on what he can do”--Dan Fouts . . . “My favorite opposing player”--Vince Dooley . . . “Could be the first black president”--Gil Brandt.

The truth is, Lionel (Little Train) James is all this and a little bit more. The truth is, he’s also a little sneak. Football comes first, but the opposite sex isn’t far behind.

“I’m very single,” he said.

In his undergraduate days at Auburn, where he served as a blocker and role model for Bo Jackson, James showed all the right moves.

There were nights when the urge to find female companionship overcame his innate tendency to play the dedicated team man. About 2 a.m., when the scholars had fallen asleep with their noses in books and the dorm was quiet at last, Little Train would tiptoe down the hall toward the exit.

He knew it was wrong. One time he started feeling so guilty he had to reverse his tracks and sneak back into the dorm.

Another time he was less fortunate. Auburn played Texas earlier that day and lost. Feeling low and in need of sympathy, James sought his girlfriend. Somehow, Dye, the Auburn coach, found out. Even though he adored the little running back, Dye came down hard on James.

The punishment for a player missing curfew was to rise at 6 a.m. and report to the stadium.

“For every minute you were late, you had to run all the way up and down the steps,” James said, wincing at the memory, “and you had to carry a cinder block under each arm. Man, those things would cut and scratch your forearms to pieces.”

Lugging 50 pounds of cement, he might have pushed 200. Now that he’s all filled out, James packs about 172 pounds on the National Football League’s shortest frame, 5-feet 6-inches. In a year replete with physical freaks in pro sports--Manute Bol, William Perry, Spud Webb--James is the unchallenged leader in terms of real accomplishment.

Going into the season’s final game Sunday at Kansas City, he needs 170 combined net yards to break Terry Metcalf’s record of 2,462. He already set a record for receiving yards by a running back in one year with 985. And if he manages to make 11 catches against the Chiefs, he would break the league mark of 88 receptions by a running back, held by Rickey Young.

Not bad for a fifth-round draft choice who might have wound up an undersized trumpet player if he hadn’t persuaded his mother to let him leave the band and go out for football in eighth grade. “I was afraid he’d get hurt, but he fussed and cried so much, I had to give in,” she said.

She wasn’t in the habit of giving in. Mrs. James, a school teacher, was strict with her kids. She always put an index card listing the day’s chores at their bedside, and never settled for excuses. If Lionel, or one of the others, fell asleep on the couch watching TV, she’d wake up the culprit at midnight to scrub dirty dishes.

James was part of an extended family residing on 100 acres of a south Georgia farm about 15 miles from Albany. “It was sort of like ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ ” he likes to tell interviewers.

Well, sort of. In the TV serial, there was no backyard trampoline. James could do a couple of back flips by the time he was 6, and still has some acrobat in him.

“I could always twist and turn, and I always had decent hands,” James said, describing qualities that helped when the Chargers decided to make him a wide receiver last spring.

He had been basically a kick returner during his rookie season, and when the coaches told him of the decision to make him a receiver, he was stunned.

“I didn’t have much confidence,” he said. “I thought, ‘Geez, I wonder if this is my ticket out of San Diego?’ ”

Coaches Ernie Zampese and Al Saunders had no intention of divesting the team of James.

“He started running routes like he’d been doing it forever,” Zampese said. “He has the same body lean as Charlie Joiner and a way of running that looks like everything is the same speed, so the defender can’t judge when he’s going to break off and cut in another direction. It’s a gift, something you can’t coach.”

Zampese is honest when discussing James.

“No question, we got lucky with Lionel,” Zampese said. “Coming out of college, nobody could have envisioned him doing all this. Heck, the computer should have spit him out. For every guy with his dimensions, not one in 500 could do what he has.”

Dye, his college coach, could have told anyone who cared to listen. So could Jackson, who bestowed the nickname.

“I think Bo would tell you that pound for pound, Lionel is the best football player he ever saw,” Dye said. “He’s not the devastating talent Bo is, but he’s special. People identify with him as the underdog and Bo, goodness knows, loves him as good as his own brother.”

James, who often was used as a blocker to help free Jackson, performed other deeds on behalf of the younger player.

“When Bo got to Auburn, he was very shy and had a bad stutter,” James said. “He didn’t want to talk to anybody. He really went into his shell. Every Tuesday, when we had media day, Bo would skip lunch. He just didn’t like being around strangers.”

It didn’t happen immediately, but Jackson and James formed a friendship that remains quite close. Jackson is a frequent visitor to the James household in Georgia, and has become more at ease with the world at large. James said the biggest thrill he has had this year was seeing Jackson win the Heisman Trophy.

“Lionel’s interaction with people is extraordinary,” said Saunders, the San Diego receivers coach. “He’s a friendly, well-liked guy. Last year at our Christmas party, he went dressed as an elf, and everyone loved it.”

Saunders singled out another aspect of the player’s success--intelligence.

“People generally overlook how bright he is,” Saunders said. “But he’s truly one of the smartest and most coachable players we’ve ever dealt with. This guy was an engineering major at Auburn, and he’s been able to acquire a total understanding of our offensive package in less than a year.”

James showed a feel for the technical parts of running pass patterns that amazed most of the Chargers.

“I was surprised--pleasantly surprised by his development,” quarterback Dan Fouts said. “He was unsure of himself at first, and he had to turn to his coaches. He accepted their teaching and watched guys like Charlie (Joiner) and Wes Chandler. He did, and still does, exactly what he’s told, with no preconceived ideas on how to play the position.”

With 78 receptions, James is the most prolific pass catcher on a team with the deepest corps of receivers in pro football. Joiner gives him high marks for being studious and picking up little things from observation.

“His build probably causes other teams to underestimate him,” Joiner said, “but there’s more to it. Learning what’s going on is the key for a young player. You won’t be included in the game plan if you don’t know what’s going on. He’s really come on like gangbusters this year.”

A shorter player, like James or Joiner, has a lower center of gravity and can change directions more readily than a taller receiver, according to Saunders. James has exceptional cutting ability, and only needed to make some refinements to become an integral part of the offense.

“Right away, he was able to do advanced things, like running a post on a corner who plays an inside position,” Saunders said. “It didn’t take him long to conquer the tendency of most young receivers to make their breaks too far away from the defensive back. Lionel learned you want to get right up to a guy and almost step on his toes before cutting. That way, they don’t have time to recover.”

Shucks, it was nothing, is the essence of James’ explanation.

Catching a football is easy compared to what he caught in the spring of his freshman year at Auburn. That was when Dye was new on the scene and determined to prove who was boss.

“It was like boot camp,” Dye said, and James agrees.

“We practiced four hours a day for six weeks under that Southern sun,” James said. “There were 120 players when practice began. I think we were down to about 65 or 70 when it was over.

“One day Coach Dye got mad. He put the ball at the 1-yard line and made us drive it the length of the field. When we scored, we had to go back and do it all over, 99 yards. We had to repeat that drill five times.”

James makes no pretense--he hated it. He considered quitting.

“It was the hardest thing I ever went through,” he said. “It was like a marathon. I guess it taught me one important lesson--that you can always do more than you thought.”

He always has had a tolerance for pain, and that spring reinforced it, James said.

“I’m not afraid of anyone on a football field,” he said. “I have to think I’m as big as the rest. I could get hurt real bad if I started ducking my head or sliding to avoid a hit. I guess I could get my neck broke.

“Because of my size, it’s become automatic for me to go all-out everyday. Being small has always been motivation for me. To hear you’re too small when you know you’re as good as anyone else on the team, that is a powerful motivating force.”

He knew he was good. But, of course, not this good.

“I pinch myself everyday,” James said. “This year is the most fun I’ve ever had. It’s all been a total surprise to me.”