EMANUEL WORKING IT OUT : With Hatfield Incident in the Past, He’s Ready to Play Football Again

Considering the circumstances, it would have been understandable if Aaron Emanuel had transferred to another school.

Get out of town, away from the notoriety that wasn’t attained on the football field, but for punching a female student.

Emanuel said he considered not returning to USC, where he might be constantly reminded of what he says was a mistake.

“I was upset about what happened and the way things unfolded,” Emanuel said. “(Transferring) was one of the first things I thought about.”

Instead, Emanuel has returned to school and is now in the final week of spring football practice at fullback, an unfamiliar position.

Why, he was asked?

“Sometimes you can’t pinpoint it,” he said. “Your mind is telling you one thing and your heart is telling you something else.”

Emanuel was convicted last August in Pasadena Municipal Court of misdemeanor simple battery for striking USC hepathlete Sharon Hatfield at an off-campus party in May.

The jury found Emanuel not guilty of hitting another female student, Tammy Baird, in a barroom in December of 1986.

Emanuel was sentenced to 15 days in the Los Angeles County jail and ordered to perform community service.

“I went to jail for about three or four hours and they let me go,” he said. “I didn’t have to stay the night.”

Emanuel served his time on a work-release program and only for nine days.

“It was just general labor type of work,” he said. “Sometimes you would be (working) on the freeways, or in the YMCA. You were picked up at a park-and-ride in the morning and were taken to a place where you worked from 10 to 2. Then, you went home.”

Emanuel said that his fellow workers were mainly people who had been sentenced for having excessive traffic tickets, or for drunk driving.

He was suspended from school last fall by a student review board for his altercation with Hatfield. The suspension was lifted to enable him to return to USC for the spring semester.

Emanuel said he is not bitter, or frustrated, by his experience.

“I’m looking ahead to better things and not dwelling on the past,” he said. “I can’t think about what happened and have it drag me down. I just can’t do it. There is no such thing as staying the same. Either you get better, or you get worse.”

Emanuel said he had been told that he would be subjected to pressure and, perhaps, unfavorable remarks if he returned to USC. He said that hasn’t been the case.

“I’m really impressed,” he said. “All I’ve heard--and from people I don’t know--is, ‘Aaron, we’re glad to have you back,’ girls and boys alike.”

Emanuel, however, is at least slightly bitter about coverage of the incident and the trial. “They were almost portraying an individual that wasn’t me,” he said. “You make a mistake and everyone has you tabbed as someone who goes around beating up women. It seems to me that people who scream the loudest have the most to hide. After a while, I just didn’t read the papers or watch the (TV) news.”

Emanuel, 21, emphasized again that he is not bitter toward Hatfield, who brought charges against him, the university or the courts.

“I don’t see it as anything different than someone who has made a mistake in his life and had an obstacle slow him down,” he said. “I’m not different than anyone else. I just think I was exploited a little bit more.”

Emanuel’s football career has been on hold, not only because of his suspension from school, but also because of a lingering foot injury.

A much-acclaimed running back at Quartz Hill High School in Palmdale, Emanuel was hampered by injuries as a freshman and sophomore in 1985 and ’86.

What was believed to be a minor toe injury that prevented him from playing late in his sophomore season became a more serious injury after extensive examinations.

“They called it turf toe at first, but I knew it was something more than that,” Emanuel said.

X-rays showed that a bone in the ball of his right foot had fragmented in three places and was irritating a tendon.

Emanuel had surgery for that problem Dec. 23, then later had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee to remove torn cartilage.

As a result, he missed contact work in the opening weeks of spring drills. He was in full pads last week and said he is more satisfied than dissatisfied with the mending process of his foot.

A tailback his first two seasons and all through high school, Emanuel is a fullback now. The tailback position belongs to Steven Webster, provided he recovers from major knee surgery, or Scott Lockwood or Ricky Ervins.

“I don’t mind playing fullback if that’s what the coaches want me to do, even though I’ve been a tailback all my life,” Emanuel said. “As a fullback, you’re closer to the line of scrimmage and everything happens so much quicker, and I’ll have to adjust to becoming a blocker.”

Emanuel was relegated to third-string tailback in spring drills a year ago, when Coach Larry Smith said that he didn’t like Emanuel’s work habits, his habit of holding the ball with two hands and his straight-up running style.

“He was put down on his work habits, but now 99% of the team has good work habits and he has fallen in with the rest of the team,” Smith said. “He seems to be adapting pretty well at fullback, and his concentration is much better than it was a year ago.”

Smith has also told Emanuel that he is in a fishbowl and only his attitude will repair whatever damage has been done to his reputation.

“Some people look at me as if I’m an awful person,” Emanuel said. “The people that know me understand and say, ‘Aaron, that’s not you.’ But people that don’t know me will always think what they want to think and you can’t change that.

“If there is a perfect person who hasn’t made a mistake in life, then you can come and talk to me. If not . . . “