FAMILY MAN : Rick Calhoun Juggles Job and Home Life While Leading Cal State Fullerton Offense

Cal State Fullerton was two weeks away from its season opener when players gathered beneath a hot August sun for an intra-squad scrimmage. With a rare August game to prepare for, there was much work to be done.

Afterward, Coach Gene Murphy deemed the scrimmage a success. The hitting was crisp, and there were few of the mental mistakes usually commonplace at this stage. But there was something missing. Make that someone .

Rick Calhoun, who figured to be the Titans’ leading ballcarrier and was the only proven offensive commodity in 1986, was conspicuously absent.

“He’s on workingman’s sabbatical,” Murphy said.

Murphy explained that Calhoun had been excused from the scrimmage and some of the Titans’ preseason practices so that he could continue to work a summer job and earn a little extra money before reporting to training camp.

Hmmmm. The Titans’ star running back nowhere to be seen as his teammates sweat out a heat wave and two-a-day practice sessions. What to make of this? Special treatment? Perhaps. But then, these were special circumstances.

Calhoun had mouths to feed. Meet Rick Calhoun--star running back, husband and father of four. And with one of his four daughters hospitalized with a potentially serious complication from tonsillitis, Murphy felt he was in no position to prevent Calhoun from keeping the paychecks coming.

“Here’s a guy with four kids, commuting from Riverside, with bills coming out of his ears,” Murphy said. “What am I going to say? ‘No, you can’t work. You’ve got to be here?’ ”

So, Calhoun stayed on the job, filling vending machines for a soft drink company, hoping his teammates would understand. “It makes you feel a little left out,” he said. “I felt kind of bad because they had been out there all that time, and I just went right out there as first string when I came back.”

Murphy was sure there were no hard feelings. “Ricky’s probably one of the most popular players on the team,” he said. “Everybody knew his family’s personal situation. There was no animosity at all.”

It would be a little tough to hold a grudge against the guy Murphy jokingly refers to as Fullerton’s “most productive player, both on the field and off.” Calhoun admitted the absence left him a little out of shape for the Titans’ season opener Aug. 30 against Nevada Reno. But, in the games since, he has more than lived up to Murphy’s claim.

Entering Saturday night’s game against Cal State Long Beach, Calhoun has rushed for 786 yards this season, despite opening the season with only 28 against Reno. He is sixth in the nation in rushing, and fourth in all-purpose yardage. He needs 200 yards to tie Obie Graves as Fullerton’s career rushing leader.

Suffice to say, Fullerton’s strength has been Calhoun’s numbers. The only game the Titans have won this season, a 35-25 victory over Idaho State, Calhoun rushed for 204 yards in 31 carries. It is outlandish to suggest that Calhoun has to have that type of game in order for the Titans to win, but the statistics help illustrate his importance to an otherwise struggling offense.

Yards are becoming more and more difficult to come by, though. Opposing kickers, well aware of Calhoun’s ability to turn a game around with a long kickoff return, have been trying keep the ball away from him. It is his ability at returning kicks that Calhoun hopes will give him a chance at a pro career.

He entered the season as the No. 1-ranked player among active NCAA kickoff return specialists with a lifetime average of 31.2 yards. He has averaged 22.5 yards on 16 returns so far this season.

Nowadays, defenders follow him as if there were a bull’s-eye on the front of his jersey. “Yeah, they key,” he said. “Everywhere I go, they have linebackers follow.”

That has made for some rather busy nights for opposing linebackers. Calhoun tied a school record by carrying the ball 36 times against Nevada Las Vegas on Sept. 27, and is averaging 24 carries per game. Such a potentially punishing workload isn’t exactly what Murphy had envisioned for his 5-foot 8-inch, 190-pound tailback. But Murphy has found Calhoun to be not only productive, but tireless.

“We’ve always tried to alternate backs to keep them fresh for the fourth quarter,” he said. “But what we found out about Ricky at the end of last year is that he doesn’t get tired.

“He’s not the biggest guy in the world, and there’s always that concern that if you keep giving it to him, he’s going to get hurt. But Ricky’s got that innate ability that you try to teach all running backs--he keeps his feet moving all the time. His durability’s been amazing.”

Calhoun was surprised to learn that he carried the ball 31 times against Idaho State, and said it didn’t feel as though he had been called upon 36 times against Las Vegas. It may seem like a lot of work, but to Calhoun, this is all play. “It feels good,” he said. “It feels good to be wanted.”

Calhoun knows all about feeling needed. In August, his wife, Natela, gave birth to the couple’s fourth daughter, Tareesha. The Calhoun family now includes Taneika, Tyesha, Talentha and Tareesha. “(My wife) named ‘em,” Calhoun said, laughing.

“She wanted them to have names that nobody had. I still have trouble with them sometimes.”

Calhoun also has a little trouble maintaining the delicate balance between his roles as football player, student, father and husband. The demands are great. In the past, he tried to commute between Fullerton and his family’s Riverside home, but found he was spreading himself too thin. This season, he’s sharing an apartment near campus with two teammates, and sees his family on weekends. But, with the Titans playing nine of their 12 games on the road, that has become increasingly difficult.

“It’s hard,” he said. “Sometimes I have to skip a week or try to go home on Wednesdays, when I don’t have any classes.”

Said Murphy: “God bless his wife. She works part time and takes care of the kids. Ricky gets back as much as he can.”

Murphy has a snapshot of Calhoun and his family tacked on the bulletin board of his office in the Titan Football House. It serves as a reminder of why Calhoun was excused from those preseason drills in August. How can you deny a football-playing family man a little special treatment?

“He glows when he’s around those kids,” Murphy said. “He’s a beauty.”

CALHOUN’S STATISTICS

Year G No Yds Avg TD 1983 9 62 261 4.2 2 1984 12 53 240 4.5 1 1985 11 133 747 5.6 5 1986 6 144 764 5.3 7 Totals 38 392 2,012 5.1 15

Obie Graves holds the Cal State Fullerton career rushing record of 2,212 yards, set in 1977-78.