Bausley Is a Smash With the Football : Valley’s Principal Play Makes Tailback a Film Favorite of Division I Recruiters

Dondre Bausley grew up in Southwest Los Angeles watching Charles White and Marcus Allen rush to Heisman trophies by way of Student Body Right and Left--the staple of the USC offense during the Trojan glory years.

“I just fell in love with that kind of offense,” said Bausley, who plays tailback for Valley College. “It seemed like all you needed was the ability to move a little bit through the hole.”

Bausley, a 5-11, 190-pound sophomore, has some of that ability. He also has 36 Smash, the most frequently used play in the Monarch offense and one that has allowed him to rush for some glory of his own and a future in major college football.

The player teammates call “Boz” leads the state in rushing and is third nationally with 905 yards and 12 touchdowns. Bausley said he won’t even think about four-year schools until the season has ended. And if opponents can’t find a way to slow him down, Valley might finish unbeaten. The Monarchs (5-0, 4-0) travel to San Bernardino for a Southern California Conference game at 7:30 tonight.

“He’s a Division I player playing at the JC level,” said Coach Bob Stangel of Mt. San Jacinto College, whose team was victimized by Bausley for 249 yards and five touchdowns last week in a 45-20 loss.

Bausley, 20, is soft-spoken and articulate. Teammates say he can be motivated by a glance from an offensive lineman or the wink of a coach. “The only thing I have to say to Boz is ‘All-American.’ ” said Howard Howell, the Valley fullback. “That’s what he’s shooting for. He is on the uprise.”

Bausley is a glider. As he runs, shoulders lowered in the style of Tony Dorsett, his feet barely seem to touch the ground. Another distinctive attribute is his ability to accelerate from a dead stop to full speed in three steps.

Although recruiting coordinators are forbidden by the NCAA to speak publicly about high school or junior college prospects, phone calls to several Pacific 10 Conference schools indicated that top programs are well aware of Bausley. George Rush, football coach at San Francisco City College and director of a company that supplies four-year schools with JC game tapes, said the service has been inundated with requests for Valley reels. In each one, Bausley has star billing.

“Great tailbacks are hard to find,” Valley Coach Chuck Ferrero said. “People in this profession can look at film for five minutes and see the kid is great. It doesn’t take very long to recognize.”

It does, however, take time to develop.

Bausley was a multisport athlete at L. A. Lutheran High, which was a Southern Section 1-A school at the time. He didn’t play football until his senior year because his mother, Ruth Harris, was afraid her only child would get hurt.

Her decision to keep Dondre out of contact sports grew out of watching her son play at the Pop Warner level in Inglewood.

“At times I got so nervous, I would have to go sit in my car,” she said.

Those feelings were reinforced, she said, when she saw a defensive back for Long Beach State, Todd Hart, suffer an injury in a game against UCLA that left him a quadriplegic.

“That shook me up quite badly,” she said.

For three years, Bausley played basketball and ran track at L. A. Lutheran and pestered his mother to let him play football. Finally, Harris said, she relented because it was her son’s last chance.

Bausley rushed for 972 yards and led L. A. Lutheran to the playoffs, but his performance didn’t attract the attention of major college recruiters. He surmised that his football playing days were over and planned to pursue a collegiate career in basketball, which had become his best sport.

L. A. Lutheran won the 1-A basketball title during Bausley’s junior year and he was named All-Southern Section as a senior. But during a summer league game at Azusa Pacific, it dawned on Dondre that he missed his calling. He said he lost his jumpshot--and his interest in basketball.

“I was missing so many shots, I just said forget it,” Bausley said. “That one game changed my mind about basketball and to this day I don’t know why. I’d had some bad games before, but for some reason, that was it.”

Bausley enrolled at Valley and began his collegiate football career inauspiciously as a redshirt. Ferrero described him as “a thin, spindly kid” who played quarterback for the scout team in practice so he could become familiar with the complexities of a sophisticated offensive system.

“Most kids from those small high schools don’t pan out because the competition level is so much more drastic here and at the four-year level,” Ferrero said. “But every once in a while you get one that sticks. Dondre was one of them.”

Last season, Bausley was rotated with several other backs and was still named first-team all-conference. He rushed for 682 yards and nine touchdowns, including a school-record 316-yard performance against Antelope Valley.

This season, he has continued where he left off. Despite nursing a hip pointer and bruised calf, Bausley has been virtually unstoppable.

“He’s more patient this year,” Coach Ray Adams of College of the Desert said. “He’s running with his head and his eyes. He’s waiting for things to form. When he gets a little bit of daylight he’s gone.”

Bausley has broken off a number of long touchdown runs this season, including a 62-yarder on the first play from scrimmage against Mt. San Jacinto. Even more impressive, however, was a seven-yard scoring run in the same game during which Bausley ran over one would-be tackler at the line of scrimmage and carried another defender into the end zone.

“He wasn’t strong enough to do that when he first got here,” Ferrero said. “He’s always been fast and shifty. Now he has power.”

He also has a proud mother in the stands cheering him on.

“Dondre told me that another team’s players said they were going to kill him and I thought, ‘Oh, God, why did he tell me that?’, “ Harris said. “But I’m glad he’s successful and enjoying it.

“It’s great for me, too,” she said. “Especially since he has such a good offensive line.”

Still, the teammates who make it easier for Bausley to run for touchdowns are of little help on the occasions when the defense stops him. Opponents who spend the evening chasing Bausley in vain aren’t usually in a jovial mood when they have the running back in their clutches. Bausley said he is regularly scratched, twisted and spat upon by defenders. He takes the abuse in stride.

“It’s no big thing,” he said with a smile. “I understand why they do it.

“I mean, it’s got to be frustrating.”