As Time Goes By, UCLA’s Green Presents Some Strong Evidence

Question: In what movie did Humphrey Bogart say the immortal lines , “Of all the gin joints in all the cities in all the world , she (Ingrid Bergman) walks into mine . “ Answer: In “Casablanca,” of course. Q: In what movie did Bogart say , “Drop the gun, Louie . “? A: None. He never said it. Q: In what movie did Bogart say , “Play it again, Sham!”? A: None. He never said that, either. If you are not a Humphrey Bogart buff, and missed any or all of the above questions, you can rest easy. The young man who may be the best football player in the country, in this year of the runner in college football, knows the answers to all of them. In fact, he knows almost every line Bogart uttered on camera.

Gaston Green is the ultimate Bogart cultist. He has seen “Casablanca” 60 times, at last count. He can recite scenes from “The Big Sleep” by heart.

Some football players take game films home with them. Gaston takes a Bogart film festival. He’d rather re-run “The Maltese Falcon” than the Arizona game.

He’s such a dedicated Bogey buff, classmates expect him to show up on campus wearing a felt brim hat and a trench coat and speaking with a Bogey snarl. His room is decorated with posters from “The African Queen.”

But where Bogart won an academy award, Gaston Green will settle for the Heisman. It’s football’s Oscar.

Like his idol, Gaston has been made to wait. It is a matter of record that although “Casablanca” won the Oscar in its year, its star did not. “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” won two Oscars but its star, Bogart, won neither of them. He finally got his Oscar for his role in “The African Queen.”

In 1986, Gaston Green was to the gridiron what Bogart was to Raymond Chandler movies. He rated above-the-title billing. He rushed for more yards, 1,405, than any UCLA back had in history. He scored more touchdowns, 17, than any UCLA back in history. He had eight 100-yard games.

He virtually demolished the USC Trojans, running for 224 yards and 4 touchdowns. He tore up BYU in the Freedom Bowl, rushing for a collegiate bowl record 266 yards and 3 touchdowns.

And yet, he got almost no votes for the Heisman Trophy. Not even in the Far West where he was, unaccountably, out-polled not only by ultimate winner, Vinnie Testaverde, but Temple’s-- Temple! --Paul Palmer, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, Oklahoma’s Brian Bosworth and Fresno State’s Kevin Sweeney. He knew what his idol, Bogart, felt like after “Casablanca” and “Treasure.”

Green shrugged--and went home and put “High Sierra” and “The Harder They Fall” on the VCR.

The Bruins call him G-Man, or G-Force or just G.G. He is wide-eyed, somewhat shy and polite off the field and given to a lot of “y-e-e-ahs!” in conversation. But on the field he is swift, destructive, elusive. He came by it naturally. Dad, Gaston Green II, was a hurdler at Arizona State.

Gaston III would rather run over people than sticks. He has the straight-ahead speed of a world-class sprinter. He ran the 100 meters in 10.5. He ran a 200 in 20.7 and a 400 in 48. Just running in those events is a feat.

But, running with a football is not merely a function of speed. You have to have a little con in you.

“You have to deceive that man trying to tackle you,” Green notes. “You have to trick him as to where you’re going and how fast you’re going to get there, y-e-e-ah.”

Before an injury forced him out of the Arizona State game early Saturday, Gaston had already put his Heisman credentials in place. He had rolled up his third 200-yard game, against Cal, and his 19th career 100-yard game. He had scored a school-record 38 touchdowns and gained a school-record 3,559 yards in his career. So, if his injury permits, he should be in the thick of the Heisman balloting.

But when it comes to the Heisman ceremony this year, will he get only as far as “And the nominees are . . . “? Will he fade to dark when “The envelope, please,” comes into focus?

Well, his screen hero, Bogey, lost to Bing Crosby (“Going My Way”) the year of “Casablanca” and to Laurence Olivier (“Hamlet”) the year of “The Treasure of Sierra Madre.” Even his co-star, Claire Trevor, got an award the year they made “Key Largo” together.

Will Gaston Green lose his award to Notre Dame’s Tim Brown? Well, in a sense, Notre Dame transcends traditional geographic boundaries in the Heisman voting. In some contexts, it is America’s team, college level. Its Paul Hornung won the Heisman one year with a 2-8 record. No one has been able to do that, before or since.

Basically, as your team goes, so goes your Heisman. And Brown’s Notre Dame is having a vintage year--as is Notre Dame’s Brown.

But, would Tim Brown be a Heisman front-runner if he went to, say, Syracuse, and did the same things? Probably not.

In the first place, Tim Brown is a flanker, not your typical Heisman high-profile ball carrier. But, at Notre Dame, water boy is not out of the question. Backup quarterbacks may get votes there, and have.

Eastern voters consider Notre Dame as theirs, territorially. So do Midwestern voters. The mystique of Notre Dame envelops the Far West and even elements of the Deep South and Texas.

Gaston Green should out-poll Lorenzo White or Jamie Morris or running quarterbacks from Oklahoma or Nebraska. But, can he buck the shade of George Gipp, the mystical pull of Rockne and the ghostly memories of the Four Horsemen?

Gaston may be out-Greened. But, even if he is, he can take comfort in what Bogart would probably tell him: “Never mind, kid, it’s only a statue. A paper weight worth 20 bucks, and you can’t hock it.”

After all, in Gaston’s favorite lines from “Casablanca,” Bogey’s character, Rick, in response to a question as to what he did last night, replies, “I can’t remember that far back,” and when he is asked by a girl whether she will see him that night, he says, “I don’t plan that far ahead.”

If he loses, Gaston can be just as fatalistic. And just go and have Sam play something sentimental for him and remember that the fundamental things apply as time goes by. A kiss is still a kiss, but the Heisman’s just a high.