Gault So Deep He Has Disappeared : Raiders: Receiver was supposed to bring back the team’s famed long passing game. But he has come up a bit short.

Anyone seen Willie Gault?

About 6-1, 180? World-class speed, movie-star looks? No. 83 in your Raider program, and almost that far down on the pass reception list?

He was supposed to be a prime threat for the Chicago Bears, who drafted him No. 1 out of Tennessee, but that never quite happened.

He was supposed to be a prime threat for the Raiders, who traded Nos. 1 and 3 picks for him, but that didn’t happen with Mike Shanahan as coach.

He was really supposed to be a prime threat under new Coach Art Shell, whose tenure began amid veritable chants of “We’re going deep to Willie Gault.”

And it still hasn’t happened.

In Shell’s two games, Gault has caught three passes for 47 yards, and it’s not because he can’t beat defensive backs, either. Every week, there he goes, zipping past them, running free.

Welcome to the bittersweet saga of Willie Gault, who has gone so deep, no one can find him.

What has happened recently is no mystery. Opposing defensive backs have backed up into the next county to prevent the long strike. Not everyone is so cowardly, however. The Raiders are headed for Philadelphia, where the macho Buddy Ryan blitzes, plays man-to-man defense and dares you to beat him.

Gault’s Raider career is 18 games old and he has 25 receptions. For a $750,000-a-year gamebreaker, that’s a little light.

“I just can’t get tied up into feeling selfish as far as the team goes,” Gault said Wednesday. “I think my role on this team is more than catching footballs, but unfortunately that’s what I’m looked at as. I want to catch the ball, but I think my role has been--I’m blocking a lot the last few weeks. I’ve opened it up for Mervyn Fernandez, who had a great span of five weeks.”

Actually, his role is to wind up his motor and catch footballs deep. The mastermind who made the Bear trade was Al Davis, who has doted on few Raiders in recent seasons as he does on “Will.”

Davis didn’t go to all this trouble for a decoy, so if they’re having a little trouble making contact with their man way out there, stay tuned. They’re still looking for him.

“I’ve been so close but so far all year,” Gault said. “I’ve had guys beat by four-five yards. Sometimes the ball was overthrown, sometimes the ball was underthrown. Last Monday night, I had the touchdown basically, but the ball soared out of bounds, and I went too far to get it and I had one foot in and one foot out.”

One foot in and one foot out. . . . indeed.

In Chicago, he also danced with the civic ballet, went out for the Winter Olympics and came to be regarded as an opportunist.

Ask Gault, and he’ll say he wasn’t following any pack.

“Well, controversial might be the word for it, but it wouldn’t be the word I’d use,” Gault said. “I think I’m intelligent. I have something to say. I’m not a person that’s a follower. I’m a leader. There might have been some uproar because I didn’t go with the flow. When someone told me to jump, I didn’t say, ‘How high?’ I said, ‘Why do you want me to jump?’ ”

This, of course, produced strains in his relationships with two men.

One was Coach Mike Ditka.

“We had our times, but Mike and I got along fine,” Gault said. “When he had his heart attack last year, I called him. I sent him cards.”

The other was Jim McMahon.

McMahon once accused him of saving it up for national TV and noted, “He’s on his way to Hollywood, or so he hopes. He’s just stopping off in Chicago and playing his role as a football player.”

Gault and McMahon had problems going back to 1983, Gault’s rookie season. He says he and the punky quarterback worked things out but admits to a shorter correspondence with McMahon than with Ditka.

“I look at all those things he said,” Gault said. “People are going to be people. No one’s perfect.

“I didn’t do any more than anyone else. You look on TV, and Jim McMahon had every commercial available. So did William Perry, so did Walter (Payton), so did Dan Hampton, so did Mike Ditka. Why was what I was doing so outrageous? I was out for myself? I didn’t see any of the guys doing the commercials splitting it with the guys. I thought that was just the way it is.

“It didn’t really bother me, what anybody said. I don’t have an identity problem. I know who I am, I know where I come from, I know how to get back there. I’m a fighter. I give it 150%. I want to be the best football player I can be and I want to help the Raiders win a championship.”

Where is he going?

He is taking acting lessons in the off-season and does hope to crash show biz.

Where is he going?

Straight down the sideline, and it’s not just to open up the underneath routes. This role as a deep threat is getting old; Will needs the ball.

Raider Notes

Coach Art Shell said strong safety Russell Carter, the starter last season, will be reactivated, and Derrick Crudup will be waived once more. . . . The Raider bid for cornerback Tim McKyer of the San Francisco 49ers ended up short. “We tried and just didn’t get it done,” Shell said. With Terry McDaniel and Lionel Washington playing well and the mouthy McKyer on the 49ers’ suspended list, Raider owner Al Davis was probably loath to give up the No. 2 pick that San Francisco was asking.