THE NFL DRAFT : IRONHEAD PLAYS BY HIS RULES : Bigger-Than-Life Ex-Pitt Tailback Challenges System

As a football player, Craig (Ironhead) Heyward isn’t unique, but he’s rare.

It is a fact that:

--There aren’t many Ironheads.

--There aren’t many 260-pound tailbacks.

--And normally, good athletes don’t have to fight their way into pro football.

But all of the above applies to Heyward, and when the pros draft this morning, he will be drafted--in a high round--because he took them on this spring and won.

Four years after enrolling at Pitt, where he was something of a one-man team last season, Heyward successfully challenged three institutions at once--the National Football League, the National Collegiate Athletic Assn., and his own university.

Their leaders all told him that under NCAA rules, as honored by the NFL, he was stuck at Pitt for five years because the university had red-shirted him as a sophomore. He told them that under Ironhead’s rules, four years of college were enough.

And in time, it was the Establishment people, fearing a lawsuit, who backed down.

After thinking over his long, unhappy struggle against the three well-organized institutions, Heyward has decided to recommend a novel change in the NCAA’s athletic code.

First, he proposes identical eligibility rules for all in college sports.

And second, he proposes a mandatory four years of college for all before they may turn to pro basketball, baseball or football.

“I just did what I had to do,” Heyward said of his struggle against the NFL and NCAA. “But that isn’t the big thing.

“I think the big thing is to make the NCAA treat all students the same--in every (varsity) sport.

“You can play pro baseball or basketball with little or no college. Football is a lot different. The NCAA says the college can hang onto you for five years if they want to, if you don’t fight back.

“I don’t think that’s fair. In a college, why shouldn’t the rules be the same for all students?”

Heyward was reminded that down through the years, thousands of young baseball prospects have turned pro as soon as they finished high school.

“I don’t know about that, but I know they’d be a lot better off with an education,” he said. “Don’t they know that this is a tough world? If you don’t make it in baseball and . . . haven’t been to college, you’re in trouble.”

Why is Heyward recommending four years of college for all athletes instead of, say, two?

“With four years you’re on your way (to a degree),” he said.

“(After two), you really aren’t mature enough to get on in the world. I know I wasn’t.”

A Stanford baseball player made a similar point this month. After turning down a $300,000 major league offer, Mike Mussina said: “I have to grow some more, and experience other things.”

Said Heyward: “We’d do a real favor to baseball players and basketball players with more college. Five years (of college) are ridiculous for athletes, but three or four are good for everybody.”

Should hardship rules be scrapped?

“Everybody who plays sports is a hardship case,” he said. “We’re all from (ghettos) and rural (regions).

“I was a hardship case two years ago when my son was born. I was a hardship case before that. I went to Pitt as a hardship case.”

He went from a fatherless family of eight whose mother was a domestic worker in Passaic, N.J., where Ironhead was born.

“It’s a hard world,” he said.

“But I love it.”

Ironhead.

“That’s a great nickname,” Charger executive Jack Teele said from San Diego. “It will make him a lot of money if he has the talent.

“People don’t always remember names, but they never forget nicknames. A good one sticks because it’s so descriptive--Magic Johnson, Crazylegs Hirsch.

“No one knew George Ruth. Everyone knew Babe Ruth. Everyone will remember Ironhead Heyward if he gives them anything to remember.”

Ironhead.

“I call him Craig,” his mother, Ann Heyward, said from her home in Passaic. “I’m the only one. Everybody else, they called him Ironhead since first grade, or maybe before.

“It has nothing to do with his (intelligence). (He’s) always been a very bright kid, the brightest kid in the neighborhood. He made good grades at Pitt.

“He just big. He weighed 200 pounds when he was 11 years old. He always had that big, spread-out nose, that big, hard rump, that big, round head.”

Accordingly, Craig was called Big Head in early childhood, when he set a Passaic neighborhood record for most fights, ages 5 and 6.

One day, his mother said, another child apparently considered himself overmatched with fists alone and attacked her boy with a pool stick, which shattered when it landed on the crest of Craig’s round head.

Craig was undismayed, carrying on and easily winning another fight.

“That ain’t Big Head,” an awed eyewitness said later, reporting to Craig’s family. “That Ironhead. No way you can hurt that kid.”

Ironhead.

“He’s one tough cookie,” a former coach, Sid Gillman, said. “He’s a smart cookie, too, and he can run. In fact, he has too much speed to play fullback. Ever hear of a 285-pound halfback? Meet Ironhead.”

Gillman last year was on the coaching staff at Pitt, where in 12 games, including a bowl game, Heyward had 12 100-yard games.

“It isn’t often that you see that much talent with that much durability,” Gillman said. “He has the speed to get outside and the power to knock you down--but the best thing he does is catch the ball. If it hits his hands, he’s got it. If I were drafting, I don’t know who I’d take ahead of him.”

In the lobby of a Phoenix hotel Thursday--three days before the draft--representatives of nine NFL clubs showed up for a public weigh-in. Ironhead Heyward stepped forward and pushed the scales to 251.

“You’d think we were getting ready for a fight,” his agent, Bruce Allen, said. “We’re having a lot of fun here.”

All spring, there has been as much interest in Heyward’s size as his ability. Many scouts have thought of him as an overweight underachiever. He reportedly weighed in the 290s last winter. At Pitt last fall, he was a 265-pound tailback, and he has played in the 280s.

But that’s much too much on Heyward’s broad, 5-foot 11-inch frame. “His optimum weight is in the 250s, I’d say 260 at most,” Gillman said.

According to Charger General Manager Steve Ortmayer, there’s no question about his talent. “The question is his weight.”

Joel Buchsbaum, Pro Football Weekly’s personnel specialist, said: “He is a tremendous power runner (with) great stamina and staying power, but he has a weight problem.”

Does he?

“I don’t think so,” Heyward said. “I was stressed out at Pitt. I had some problems that I don’t have (now). . . . Dieting is discipline and good habits, and I’ve shown that I’ve got that, since I came to Phoenix.”

He went there three months ago because Phoenix is headquarters for the Sportsworld player agency, run by Allen. A nine-man agency, it includes a lawyer, financial adviser, and trainer, among others. At the moment, Heyward is working most closely with a trainer, Warren Anderson, formerly of the Chicago Blitz and Arizona Wranglers.

One of the few full-time trainers in the employ of an NFL player agent, Anderson applauds Heyward’s work habits.

“Iron does anything you ask him to,” Anderson said. “He realizes that his body is his future.”

Heyward’s new associates are so sure about all this that they want a weight clause in Heyward’s NFL contract.

“We’ll bet any team a bonus clause of $50,000 to $100,000 that Iron will make any weight mutually agreed to,” said Allen. “Our only condition is that Warren take care of him (in the off-season).”

Heyward’s coach at Pitt, Mike Gottfried, could never get Ironhead under 260. “You know the belly series?” Gottfried asked. “He gave us a real one.”

One day last year, having tried everything else, Gottfried said he would go on a diet himself if Heyward would.

They shook on it, and the results were eagerly awaited.

Several weeks later, according to the Associated Press, Gottfried had lost 45 pounds, and Heyward had put on 5.

“He gives a broad new meaning to the word tailback,” a Pittsburgh writer said at the time.

Next, the university put Heyward on an all-tuna diet, which worked beautifully, Gottfried said, “until the day he ate 22 cans of tuna.”

Allen and Anderson say they have had no such trouble with their growing boy.

“The difference is that at Pitt, Iron didn’t have any competition,” Anderson said after working him out one day at Scottsdale Community College. “Nobody pushed him there. He’s the kind who has to be motivated.”

Allen said: “The Heyward story simply isn’t a weight story. I don’t mean it’s a phony issue. I mean it’s no issue--no problem.”

A Pittsburgh coach agreed. “His weight was no problem to the team,” said Tommie Liggins, who handles the Panther running backs. “Ironhead is effective at any weight. The reason we wanted it down is because it’s better for him. He’ll last longer with less weight.”

Heyward said he asked Sportsworld to represent him on the recommendation of a Pitt friend, linebacker Tony Woods, who as an Allen client last spring became Seattle’s first-round choice.

Allen, who 10 years ago was the youngest assistant coach in the country when he was on Frank Kush’s staff at Arizona State, has 11 players in today’s draft, including college football’s top two rushers--Elbert (Ickey) Woods, who gained 1,658 yards for Nevada Las Vegas last season, and Heyward, who gained 1,655.

After the Pitt-Navy game last year, which the Panthers won, 10-6, a Middie linebacker named Mark (Bimbo) Pimpo was asked what he thought of the thick, swift Pitt tailback who had gained 140 yards that day and scored the winning touchdown.

“Tackling Ironhead was like tackling the USS Iowa,” Pimpo said.

Other opponents agreed. Craig (Ironhead) Heyward Sr., 21, customarily inspires respect, or concern. Even without the ball.

Even off the field. Some would say, especially off the field.

During Heyward’s brief Pittsburgh career:

--He had two scrapes with the law, one involving firearms (not his) when another student was shot.

--Craig Heyward Jr., 2, was born to a school friend he decided not to marry.

--Periodically, teammates tore their hair out waiting for Ironhead to take a few pounds off for big games.

--And this spring, he bit the hand that had fed him, hurting Pitt’s football program by dropping out of school with a season of eligibility remaining.

In short, Ironhead has an undesirable public image, particularly in Pittsburgh. Is it justified?

“He has to accept the blame,” said Jim O’Brien, former sports information director who now directs the school’s outreach program. “He should know that public figures can’t do some of the things he’s done.

“But his image isn’t Heyward. Not at all. It’s just an image. What he is is a good kid who has sometimes shown poor judgment. He’s one of the most enjoyable athletes I’ve ever been around. Fun loving, and likable.”

Said Liggins: “He isn’t an angel, but he’s not the way he’s been written up.”

Allen said: “He isn’t a choir boy--he’s tough. The thing I like is that both times when the police were involved, Iron was coming to the defense of friends.”

The first time, in a Pitt dorm in 1984, the argument was between Ironhead’s roommate and another student over some loud music. An arthroscopic knee surgery outpatient at the time, Ironhead couldn’t give chase, so he hit the other guy with his crutch.

The penalty? Suspension from the football team, which red-shirted him.

Next, at a school dance early this year, an argument between two students evolved into an argument between Heyward and a campus policeman. One student was shot, another jailed, and the policeman’s glasses were broken.

Ironhead’s penalty: $150 restitution for the glasses and 50 hours of community service work.

“The thread that runs through all his (trouble) is that Heyward stuck his nose in when he didn’t have to,” said O’Brien.

“He could have walked away both times while things were heating up. He didn’t give enough thought to the fact that he was getting involved as a celebrity--that he would be the one that people talked about.

“It’s worth noting that Heyward has never been accused of anything serious like drugs or alcohol. He’s a kid who gets high on pizza. All he has to do is learn to walk out when trouble starts.”

That isn’t always easy. One day in New Jersey, when Heyward was a high school senior, two rival motorcycle gangs started fighting in the first quarter of a big football game. By the second quarter they were shooting at each other across the field.

But the battle didn’t interrupt the game, which went on as planned and finished on time.

“That’s the kind of town that Ironhead was raised in,” O’Brien said.

And Pittsburgh, of course, is the kind of town that can be hard on athletes. Quarterback Dan Marino lost a close game there one year as a Pitt senior and was marked down from first in the NFL draft to 27th after someone had started a drug rumor about him.

Even so, in Ironhead’s view, four years of college were very good for Marino.

They were also very good for Ironhead, said O’Brien, who added: “He’s taken on a heck of a lot of polish in his years as a college man even if he doesn’t have his degree yet.”

He plans to get it someday.

“A degree, the polish, and playing football are three good things about college,” Ironhead said.

He recommends all three. But not necessarily in that order.