Rocket Man : Speedster Ismail Provides the Irish With Good Returns

It is generally the Notre Dame custom to credit only the system, not the individual. But every so often such a talent gleams from within their indistinguishable, black-cleated midst that the Irish must sigh and grudgingly acknowledge it. Raghib (Rocket) Ismail is one of those, an unmistakable name with a laugh like the clinking of trophies.

Ismail would like to assume the self-deprecating plainness that is the Notre Dame way, just as he prefers to be known by his real, given name rather than the one bestowed on him for his searing gift of speed. If it weren’t for an essentially giddy personality and the ability that so obviously spills from him, he would succeed.

Ismail has so regularly accomplished feats of highlight quality as only a sophomore that the wraps have fallen from him; he is no secret anymore and neither are the defending champion Irish (2-0). With his 4.28-second time in the 40-yard dash, and a habit of kneeling with bowed head in the end zone after a touchdown that has become a fashion among Irish upperclassmen, he may be college football’s most watchable new star, no matter how distasteful the term is to him.

“That word,” he said, pained, “is not in my vocabulary.”

Nevertheless, when Ismail returned two kickoffs of 88 and 92 yards for touchdowns in just a little over a quarter against No. 2 Michigan last week, he irrevocably made his reputation. Last season he was the leading kickoff returner in the nation, a skinny stick of 5-foot-9, 175-pound explosion who caught everyone by surprise, including USC when he pulled in a bomb from quarterback Tony Rice on the first play from scrimmage. This season he may well become their game-breaker.

“Now I look back on last year and I wonder how I got through it,” he said. “I thought I knew what I was doing. I didn’t know at all.”

He was given the name Rocket in the eighth grade when a track coach watched his takeoff from the starting blocks.

“I was coming out fast, low and hard,” he said. Thus he was dubbed, and the varsity track stars began kidding him, calling him “Rockette.”

The theme has burgeoned in his family since. Speed appears to be inherited among the Ismails: brother Quadri is a red-shirt freshman at Syracuse, called Missile, and the youngest, Sulaiman, a 17-year-old in high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., is called Bomb. His mother, Fatima, once told a CBS reporter, “I guess I’m the launching pad.”

He is fleet enough that he also was a major contributor to the Notre Dame track team, competing in last winter’s indoor season. Despite a lack of real training, he was unbeaten in the 55-meter sprint and won the IC4A title. His best time in the 55-meter was a 6.26, about a tenth of a second short of qualifying for the NCAAs. He also dabbled in the long jump, getting along on sheer natural ability. But it is not as natural as his football instincts, according to Coach Lou Holtz. He needed only 11 seconds for his 88-yard return against Michigan, following all the right lanes downfield.

“There are a lot of track guys who play football,” Holtz said. “Rocket is a football player who runs track.”

There was a period when Ismail was not certain he would be a football player of any kind, a frail teen-ager who searched for a way to be noticed, to draw enough attention that his size would not matter to college recruiters. Born in Elizabeth, N.J., he lost his father when he was 10, and his family moved to Wilkes-Barre when he was 13, in part because his mother, who works as a secretary in a law office, was seeking better schooling and potential scholarships for him and his brothers.

“I didn’t know if I’d be playing,” he said. “I was so small, I was tiny. Football was the thing, and if we knew someone who was planning on playing, we’d say, ‘Wow, college ball.’ I always felt we wouldn’t have the money. My mother said, ‘Well you’ve got to go to a good school and try to get noticed, football or no.’ Football was at least a chance. I knew it was going to pay for my education.”

Since arriving at Notre Dame, he has slipped easily into the muffled atmosphere, even if his talent betrays him. For the most part he does the right thing. His Pentecostal rite of kneeling in the end zone (“I’m just giving thanks,” he said) is seen as appropriately humble. When Holtz presented him with the game ball after the 24-19 defeat of Michigan, he tried to give it back. “I wish you could find it in the budget to give all 11 guys one,” he said. That kind of remark makes Holtz smile.

There is a deliberate downplaying of Ismail by Notre Dame, and it is not just a philosophical matter. They would prefer that he not be so keyed on by opposing defenses so early in his career, and on the team bus back to South Bend, the coaching staff already was discussing alternate ways of getting him the ball. Eventually, he will be used at running back as well as flanker, the same sort of wingback role played by 1987 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown.

One indication of the esteem in which Ismail is held is his presence on the return team, a role not taken at all lightly by the Irish: they practice it 45 minutes a day. The first team is called All State; the second team, the South Bend-Mishawaka Great Metroplex team. The members are handpicked, and it is an honor he earned as a freshman. His role is sharply defined: “Catch the ball, secure it, make someone miss, find the crease and hit it as fast as I can.”

Since Holtz arrived, Notre Dame has scored 11 touchdowns via the kickoff or punt return: five by Brown, two by Ricky Watters and four for Ismail. He scored two in one game against the Rice Owls last season.

“We see it as another offensive play,” Ismail said. “They only put people back there they can depend on. It’s something you take with high regard.”

Ismail is held in high regard also for his part in remedying the Irish’s passing game. At the start of last season, Rice was a source of skepticism, an option-oriented quarterback with what was said to be an erratic arm. But with Ismail he combined to form one of the most fatal deep threats in the country. Passing teams considered far superior found themselves outplayed, Ismail making key long receptions against Miami and Steve Walsh and company, USC and Rodney Peete, and West Virginia and Major Harris in the Fiesta Bowl.

“Last year everyone was knocking him, saying he couldn’t pass,” Ismail said. “We both kind of went through the hard knocks together in the passing game. We worked hard on it and we feel it’s going to pay off in the end.”

The result is a bond between the two, one of those intangible senses of where one is looking and the other is going. Ismail calls the quarterback T-Rice. Says Rice, “I love him.” In practice one day they tried an experiment; Rice told Ismail to race downfield as far as he could go. Rice then hurled the ball as far as he could. “I thought I’d overthrow him by 10 yards,” Rice said at the time. “But he got there.”

Ismail: “He has the hardest part. I just run as fast as I can.”

As usual. Of course, now that opponents know exactly what Ismail can do, it is likely to get harder. But he is not likely to get slower, and in a system based on precision, he is a factor of wild improbability.

“I’m fortunate, very fortunate,” he said. “A lot of people would like to be in the position I’m in.”