For USC’s O’Hara, Dream Goes Sour

The dream began every night as Pat O’Hara dozed off.

He was hunched over center on a bright, warm afternoon, calling signals. The ball slid easily into his hands, and he began to roll left, looking for a receiver.

But something was wrong. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to get out of slow motion. As he neared the sideline, he turned to look for his favorite target, John Jackson.

There was no Jackson to be found, and an uneasy feeling began to come over O’Hara. The play is taking too long, he told himself. Something’s going to happen. Do something! Do something!

If only he could get out of slow motion.

Desperate by this time, aware of trouble bearing down on him, he got rid of the ball as if it were a hot potato, tossing it into the void.

Too late. He felt an incredible force, like a careening car, crash into his right knee.

He sat up straight in bed, trembling, his sheets soaked in sweat.

He looked down at his knee, aching from the reflexive actions caused by the dream.

Then he looked around. He was in a hospital room. His nightmare was real.

It has been nearly two months since O’Hara suffered a season-ending, knee-shattering injury in a USC intrasquad scrimmage at UC Irvine.

It was the last full scrimmage before the season opener, and O’Hara, after waiting three years for Rodney Peete to graduate, appeared to have won the job as starting quarterback.

But a few plays into the scrimmage, O’Hara rolled left and was hit by several players just after letting the ball go. He hit the ground screaming, ligaments in his right knee torn and the tibia broken.

“A week before the game,” O’Hara said, “you’re wearing a gold jersey in a scrimmage, which means you’re not supposed to be touched. Someone comes out flying and puts a helmet right on the outside part on my knee. It’s real hard to deal with. Now, it’s just me and my knee.”

Originally, it was thought that several linemen had been inadvertently blocked into O’Hara, but he doesn’t buy that theory.

“I don’t think so,” he said, “because my foot didn’t get caught underneath anybody and twist. It was a direct hit. I don’t blame anybody. Sometimes people make mistakes or get a little too excited. I don’t think anybody did it on purpose.”

But that hasn’t eased the pain, either physical or emotional.

“I still have a lot of bitterness inside me,” O’Hara said. “It’s not directed at anyone in particular. It’s just bitterness. Sometimes, it comes out verbally. Sometimes, I snap at people and that’s not me at all. Why do I say those things?”

It was not just the injury, but all of the circumstances surrounding it that made the incident so bitter for O’Hara to swallow.

O’Hara arrived at USC after a brilliant career at Santa Monica High School. Peete was at the controls, so O’Hara dutifully put in his time on the scout team.

“That’s a challenge, mentally,” O’Hara said, “putting up with that for two years.”

Then along came Todd Marinovich, the pride of Orange County prep football, to challenge for the role as Peete’s successor.

“People told me, ‘Oh, you should transfer,’ ” O’Hara said. “Everybody was talking about, ‘Todd, Todd, Todd.’ I had been here two years, waiting my turn, and everybody was telling me Todd was going to be the future.

“No way I ever thought about transferring. That’s not me. I felt if I had left, it’d be a cop-out. I’m not one to quit or cop out of anything. If I’d left, I never would have known if I could have competed or beat him out.”

Instead, O’Hara worked out all spring and summer. He ran under the direction of track coach Jim Bush. He threw, sometimes twice a day, with Jackson, completing passes, reviewing patterns, perfecting timing.

And it seemed to have paid off. Coach Larry Smith indicated that O’Hara would be his starter against Illinois in the season opener.

“In the summertime, I would dream about playing,” O’Hara said. “I was so excited. It seemed too good to be true. I don’t know, maybe it was an omen or something.”

Even after O’Hara’s dream had turned into a nightmare, the horror wasn’t over. He immediately underwent surgery to repair the torn ligaments, but even after he got home several days later, the pain persisted.

He would lie on the couch in his parents’ Santa Monica home and cry from the pain. Finally, he called his doctor, Richard Diehl, and asked, “Am I a wimp or something? I can’t take this.”

It turned out to be a lot more than just being a wimp. A bone chip had slipped and was resting on a nerve. The solution was a second surgery to graft a bone from the hip into the damaged area to secure it.

More pain. More recovery time.

“I couldn’t get out of bed for four weeks,” O’Hara said. “I lost 30 pounds. I was on all these drugs. And then when I got off the morphine, I actually went through this withdrawal period. I was on morphine for only four days, but I was getting it every three hours. And after a while, it didn’t work. I needed even more, and they couldn’t give me any more.”

O’Hara is back in school now, and in the apartment he shares with his roommate, linebacker Brian Tuliau. Tuliau waits on him at home and drives him to school. Once there, O’Hara gets around on crutches or one of the many carts on campus.

His days are long. After class, he goes in for rehabilitation. Then he works out with weights to get back his strength and the pounds he lost. By the time practice is over and Tuliau can drive him home, night has fallen.

The hardest thing for O’Hara was going back to the Coliseum to watch the Trojans, who have won four consecutive games under Marinovich since losing their opener. When O’Hara was on the sidelines before, he was watching Peete, confident he’d get his chance. Now he must watch Marinovich, knowing he may never get a chance.

“I’m very happy for Todd, but I’m human, too. I could lie and say it doesn’t bother me at all, him being Pac-10 player of the week two weeks straight. But deep down, it kind of hurts.”

Many have tried to soothe the hurt. O’Hara has gotten a mountain of letters, including ones from former President Reagan, ex-USC coach Ted Tollner and his high school coach, Tebb Kusserow. O’Hara’s parents and sisters, Carole and Kim, have offered support. Smith’s wife, Cheryl, has talked about how she lived with her own career-ending injury, a back problem that cost her the chance to be a professional dancer.

Through it all, O’Hara has maintained the same resolve he showed while waiting the past three years. “I’m going to work hard, going to work my rear end off to get my knee back to where it was,” he said. “The doctor told me I should have a stable knee. I’m just going to have to wear a knee brace.”

O’Hara is still several weeks away from even being allowed to bear weight on the injured leg and walk on his own. He hopes to be running by spring.

“I’m going to come back for my fifth year,” he said, “and give it everything I have. I don’t expect to come in and be a starter. I don’t even know if I’m going to be back for spring football. The doctors say they are not sure. I think I’ll be able to drop back and throw routes, but in terms of scrimmaging, I don’t think the doctors will let me do that. I’ll just come back next year and do whatever I can. I don’t know what to expect.”

The nightmares have long since gone, but in the quiet moments when he is alone, O’Hara stills searches for an explanation for that dark day.

“Sometimes, you think someone is punishing you for something you did,” he said. “Sometimes you say, ‘If I hadn’t done this bad thing, or that bad thing . . . ‘ But you can’t think like that, that you deserve this. It’s torture. Things like that happen, and unfortunately, it happened to me.

“God, I had it right here in the palm of my hand. Such a great team, and you wait so long to play. Finally, you get the chance and it’s just taken away from you.”