Wheels of Fortune : Wordin Gliding After Move From Heavyweight to Cruiser

John Wordin, all 6 feet, 5 inches of him, shows the video tape to anyone who will sit still long enough to watch it. It features him, circa 1983, with a neck the circumference of an average man’s thigh, tossing a hapless San Francisco State quarterback on his ear.

After inserting the cassette into a VCR, Wordin, a former defensive end at Cal State Northridge, gets a gleam in his eye as he watches the tale of the tape.

“This is the only part I ever watch,” he said.

Northridge defeated San Francisco State, 30-0, that evening, but for Wordin, 25, the highlight of his college football career was captured in a flurry of superlatives from a Valley-area cable television broadcaster. His words on Wordin:

“The quarterback scrambles wide, he gets away from one tackler and OHHHHHH, is he knocked down hard at the 31 yard-line by somebody whose number’s going to be a decal on his uniform. That was John Wordin, a defensive end for the Matadors, and he reeeeally popped him.”

The quarterback, wobbling like a cheap coffee table, attempts to stand up.

“That looked like the San Diego Freeway at about 5 o’clock. You could hear that one from up here.”

Almost five years later and 60 pounds lighter, Wordin still gets a chill at the thrill of the kill.

“That quarterback left the game three plays later,” he said as he flicked off the television. “But I got jumped on by the coaches for being out there in the flat where I wasn’t supposed to be. I saw the running back scoot outside, so I thought I’d go over and intercept the pass. I’m a glory hog just like anybody else.”

Today, Wordin seeks glory in another sport. Just 2 1/2 years after taking up long-distance cycling, he seeks a berth on the U. S. Olympic team in two events at the Olympic Trials in Spokane, Wash.

Wordin was tired of playing pick-up basketball, and jogging hurt his football-scarred knees and ankles. Yet the prospects of turning into a quarter-ton tub of goo did not sound appealing, either.

“When I got out of school, I didn’t want to be one of those guys who played at 240-250 and ballooned to 300,” he said. “All through my career, I’d see a guy who’d played the year before and they’d come back for a visit and I’d wonder, ‘Geez, what’s this guy been doing? He’s a slob.’ ”

A friend suggested he try cycling for exercise.

“He took me out and was dusting me, he was just kicking my butt,” Wordin recalled, smiling at his awkwardness at the time. “He took his bike-riding seriously. He had the shaved legs, tight black shorts and everything. I’m thinking, ‘Shaved legs, no way, that’s for sissies.’ I was in my football mentality.’ ”

That frame of mind shifted faster than Wordin moves from fifth to 10th gear. But before his startling success as a cyclist came a series of flameouts. Wordin first goofed around with other versions of exercise, like triathlons.

“I did a couple of triathlons at Castaic Lake and almost drowned,” he said. “I took on a lot of water. It was brutal, I got clubbed.

“In the end, I did OK, but I’d be about dead last coming out of the water. I was making up all my time on the bike. I started thinking ‘Man, maybe my future is right here.’ ”

He was soon introduced to Tuesday-Thursday rides at Northridge, where as many as 100 area riders meet to take a 30-mile loop through the Valley and surrounding foothills. The group featured such riders as John Tomac of Chatsworth, a favorite to earn an Olympic berth, as well as several other riders rated among the best in the nation.

“First time out, I got dropped like a rock,” he said. “Then I went out again Thursday and lasted a little longer than I did on Tuesday. Every Wednesday I’d be thrashed, but I was having fun. I thought, ‘I have to investigate this.’ ”

He filed for a license with the U. S. Cycling Federation and began competing in sanctioned events all over Southern California. He quickly moved up the USCF rating system and is now a Category 2 rider--less than 100 cyclists in the nation are Category 1. Meanwhile, the pounds continued to disappear. Compared to his playing days, he looked like a spoke. His times increased in inverse proportion.

“Cycling melts the pounds off you like you wouldn’t believe,” he said.

At Category 3, Wordin torched the competition, reeling off a streak of 12 consecutive races in which he finished in the top 10--even though he was still in his first year of riding. He was reluctantly promoted soon thereafter.

“They didn’t give me much choice,” he said, laughing. “They kicked me up because they thought I was cherry-picking. I was making pretty good money. I had one weekend in San Francisco where I made $500 for two days on a bike--at the same time I was making about $300 working five days at Hughes.”

Living in Woodland Hills and commuting to a Hughes Aircraft facility in El Segundo--where he started work upon graduating from Northridge in 1985--soon became taxing. As he became more serious about the sport, the commute cut into his training time, especially during the winter. Midway through 1987, Wordin approached his superiors about modifying his work schedule, but they balked at the idea, he said.

“I went to the vice president of human resources and asked if they could make some special considerations so I could train,” he said. “I talked to my supervisor. They all said no. I decided I could either work at Hughes or train for the Olympics.

“I went for the Olympics and started looking for another job.”

In early 1988, Wordin, who earned a bachelor’s degree in finance, started work as a purchasing agent at Rocketdyne, a Rockwell International subsidiary located in Chatsworth. A few weeks later, he noticed a story in the company newsletter about a swimmer who was working for Rockwell and training for the ’88 Games through the Olympic Job Opportunity Program. He called the swimmer, started the paper work through the USCF and was soon working 20 hours at Rocketdyne while being paid for 40. The benefits of additional training time were immediate.

“As soon as I found out about the program, I started riding better,” he said. “It was just what I needed, now I’m able to put in 425 miles a week, which is what I need to be doing. No way I’d be here without that support.”

Wordin surprised himself by qualifying for the trials in two events at USCF’s California District event last month, held in the oppressive heat and dusty winds of Lancaster. Racing in a field of 500 in the 40-kilometer (24.9 miles) time trials, Wordin finished in 58 minutes, 45 seconds, well under the minimum trials qualifying standard of one hour. In the grueling 112-mile road race, he qualified by finishing 30th in a field of 320.

“The wind was blowing about 35 miles an hour and it was about 95 degrees,” Wordin said of the road race. “I didn’t think I’d have much of a chance.”

But Wordin stayed with the leaders throughout the marathon cat-and-mouse maneuvering and finished with what he calls the best performance of his young career.

“I still consider myself a neophyte in the sport,” he said. “There’s so much going on that I don’t understand. But that was probably the smartest race I’ve ever run in term of tactics. I actually recognized what I had to do, then I went out and did it.”

Wordin stayed with the lead pack, drafting off the shoulder of the rider in front of him as others, slowed by a physically draining cross-wind, fell off the pace.

“It’s called echeloning,” he said of the maneuver. “I used the wind to my advantage and saved energy.”

Today, in the 40-kilometer time-trial heats, he will attempt to move to the highest echelon an amateur can reach: the U. S. Olympic team. If he finishes in the top 50, he advances to the 50-kilometer (31.1 miles) two-man time trials Tuesday, with pairings selected by the national coaching staff. Those 50 then participate in four-man time trials Thursday. Two four-man teams will be selected based on those performances.

He races in one of three heats in the 105-mile road race July 30. The top 40 from each of the three heats advance to the final Sunday, from which three men will be selected for the U. S. team.

Wordin joins David Brinton of North Hollywood; Matt Rayner of Sylmar; Dara Rogers of Granada Hills; Steve Nicholson of Newbury Park; Maureen Namley and Jack Van DerVeen of Thousand Oaks; Kevin Cox and Cam Johnson of Westlake Village; and Tomac of Chatsworth as Olympic hopefuls from the area.

Despite his inexperience, Wordin’s presence at the trials is not surprising to some veteran riders.

“He’s moved right up through the program pretty quickly,” said Thurlow Rogers, a Van Nuys resident who finished sixth in the road race at the 1984 Games and who sometimes trains with Wordin. “But he still has a big step up to the national team.”

Rogers, 22 in 1984, is now a professional racer. He said Wordin should use the trials either as a stepping stone or as an educational experience to help prepare for 1992.

“He accomplished something that most people only dream of--making the trials. He’s already gone a long way in a short time and there’s really no pressure on him right now. If he takes what he learns, who knows, maybe he can go farther.”

Wordin admits he is a long shot--only three men make the road-race team and four qualify for the time trials--but said making the team for the 1992 Games is a realistic goal.

“I’ll be 29,” he said. “And they’re talking about having a 29-year-old, a 32-year-old and a 35-year-old on the team this year. The Goodwill Games are coming up in two years. My feeling is that I should have a chance, with four years of more riding, because each year I’ve improved drastically from the year before.”

“My boss probably doesn’t want to hear this,” he quipped, “because he just talked to me about when I was going to get serious about my job again.”

There are also serious differences between his past and present pastimes. Wordin--a three-sport star at Calabasas High from 1977-81--quickly realized that there are pronounced differences between quarterback sacking and cycling.

“In cycling, you try not to let the other guy see how tired you are, because everybody’s tired,” he said. “But you try to psyche a guy out by getting to the front and pulling away in a breakaway. You try to make a move and make him quit; to where somebody says ‘It takes too much energy to chase that guy down.’ ”

What works on the football field doesn’t work on the highway, as Wordin has learned through experience.

“In football, you try to intimidate through physical rather than mental means,” he said. “In football, on the very first play, you try to knock snot bubbles out of the guy’s nose. If you can do that three times in a row, pretty soon the guy puts his head between his legs and you own him for the rest of the game.

“That was always the philosophy of the defensive line. . . to knock the snot right out of the guy.”

Of course, cycling provides thrills--and spills--that football doesn’t.

“The speed thing is the same as racing cars,” he said. “It’s quite exhilarating to go down a hill at 60 miles an hour on a tire that’s 19 millimeters wide. You have to concentrate quite a bit.

“I don’t care what those guys think at Indy, going down a hill at 60 is great. The bike hums. We go down Mulholland sometimes, on the real windy parts where you can’t really see what’s coming the other way. You take some chances, but you usually hear the cars coming. I’ve haven’t been hit head-on yet.”

Yet? Somebody once said there are two kinds of cyclists--ones who have wrecked and the ones who will. Wordin doesn’t exactly disprove that axiom.

“The other day, I was going about 40 miles an hour down this hill by Louisville High, blew a front tire, and this is what happened,” he said, flashing a skid mark on his leg that looked more like a road map in Braille. “It was not pretty. This never seems to heal. I rip it up every once in a while.”

When Wordin first started cycling competitively, he was routinely shredded by more experienced riders, which was to be expected for a guy who, prior to 1985, last rode a bike as a gangly teen, when he was all elbows and knees.

Now, however, the cyclist has gone full circle. Last month, while sitting at his desk, Wordin received a phone call. The caller had seen a story on Wordin in the company newsletter.

“He goes, ‘Are you the John Wordin that was in the paper?’ ” said Wordin, imitating the caller’s anxious enthusiasm. “He says ‘I work in the Canoga office. You don’t know me, but I’m a bike rider too and I saw your article and I want to know where I can find a good place to ride.’

“Pretty soon he was asking me for training tips, dietary information, how I find time to train and all that stuff. He just rides to have fun and it’s his way of keeping in shape--he doesn’t like to jog, either. It was kind of wild.”

Sound familiar? Next thing you know, the caller will be shaving his legs and wearing tight black shorts. You know, all that sissy stuff.