Fame Coming at Ismail Faster Than a Rocket

Outside the window was a Christmas card come to life.

Indiana was getting a winter preview from a storm that was expected to drop up to six inches of snow by Thursday night. The Notre Dame campus was blanketed with the flakes, leaving a scene of peace and serenity.

Inside, the young man stared at it almost wistfully as he spoke, seeming to search for some calm in the storm. Peace and serenity are the last things he has in his life right now.

No, this is not another story about a kid going down the road of drugs or gang warfare to ruin. This is a story about a kid who has taken the high road to fame and glory.

But sometimes, that journey can be almost as harrowing.

As in this case.

Meet Raghib Ismail. Age: 19. Background: deeply religious. Nature: modest, soft-spoken.

Now meet Rocket, brightest new star to streak across the media sky, with his faithful companions, Missile and Bomb, and his mom, the Launching Pad.

Sound like a Saturday morning cartoon crew?

That’s what life sometimes seems like for Ismail, alias the Rocket, American sports’ new super hero.

No secret identity for this guy. No Clark Kent alter ego.

Everybody knows who the Rocket is.

Everybody .

In the last month, he has been mentioned in a speech by President Bush, featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, profiled by major media outlets across the country and linked by name and deed to a select few, such as Magic and Bo, who can be instantly identified with a single word.

Ismail is trying to keep it all in perspective. As the nation’s premier kickoff returner, he may have no trouble keeping his balance, but standing on a pedestal can be a little trickier.

He tells people that, at Notre Dame, he is just one weapon of the defending national champions, that Saturday’s showdown here against USC is just another big game in a season full of big games and that he is just another student who needs his education because he might not it as a pro. “Many people have done some pretty good things in college,” Ismail said, “and they have not even played in the pros, even if they were drafted. So I’m not thinking about it.”

But he can’t avoid thinking about his newly acquired fame when it stares at him from the cover of a national magazine.

“At first, I was shocked when I saw my picture on the cover,” Ismail said. “But then, I started thinking, ‘I hope it doesn’t bring on more than I want. Now, everybody knows your business. Everybody wants to be your friend.’ ”

Even those he considers friends don’t always understand his new life.

“A couple of weeks ago, I was sick,” he explained, “and I had to study for midterms. So, I didn’t eat lunch with the people I usually do. But not knowing what was going on, they started saying, ‘Now that he’s been on the cover of that magazine, he can’t eat with us. He’s too good for us.’ ”

The nation discovered just how good Ismail is in Notre Dame’s second game this season, a nationally televised contest against Michigan. Ismail returned two kickoffs for touchdowns, one for 89 yards, the other for 92.

Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler said Ismail was “faster than the speed of sound.”

Bush, in a speech on the obligation to use one’s talent, picked Ismail as an example.

“Perhaps some of you saw,” the President said, “this amazing Notre Dame sophomore. . . . not once, but twice returning kickoffs for record-breaking touchdowns--the best use of speed since Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier.”

Notre Dame fans discovered Ismail a year earlier when he first pulled off this double-barreled feat against Rice, returning kickoffs for touchdowns of 87 and 83 yards.

But they’ve known about the Rocket in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., for several years.

It was there that he and his brothers, Qadry and Sulaiman, moved after the death of their father, Ibrahim, from kidney problems.

Their mother, Fatma, working two jobs just to survive, worried about the bad environment in the schools of Newark, N.J., where they lived. So she sent her kids to live with her mother-in-law, Laura Bauknight, in Wilkes-Barre.

It was there that the Ismail kids expanded their religious horizons. Bauknight, a devout Christian, introduced the boys to her beliefs with a simple rule--no church, no food.

It was there the legend was born.

A track coach, Jim Cross, watching eighth-grader Ismail race out of the starting blocks, said, “He has the thrust of a rocket.”

And who at Meyers High School could disagree?

Before he left, Ismail rushed for 4,494 yards and 62 touchdowns, caught 57 passes for 858 yards and five more touchdowns and gained 2,024 additional yards and scored seven more touchdowns on kickoff and punt returns. Grand total: 7,376 all-purpose yards and 74 touchdowns in 26 games.

Ismail gained 313 yards rushing in one game, scored six touchdowns in another. And he still found enough energy to be a star on the track squad as a sprinter/triple jumper/long jumper, and play guard on the basketball team.

Rewriting the Meyers record book is one thing. Doing the same at Notre Dame is quite another.

But Ismail is working on it.

His four kickoff returns for touchdowns are already enough to break the school record of three, set by a pretty good player by the name of Tim Brown.

Ismail is only two behind the NCAA career mark, set by USC’s Anthony Davis. Two of Davis’ were against Notre Dame in 1972.

Ismail was so impressive last year that the NCAA made a rare statistical decision, awarding him the kickoff return title even though he didn’t qualify.

Ismail averaged 36.1 yards on a dozen kickoffs. The NCAA required minimum is 14. But he was ruled the winner anyway when it was determined that he would have finished ahead of the runner-up, Chris Oldham of Oregon, even if he hadn’t gained a single yard on his next two returns.

His average this year is even higher at 39.9 yards a runback.

You can always kick away from him, as teams are doing. But Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz is countering by using Ismail and his 4.28-second, 40-yard dash speed more and more in his game plan:

--Ismail has been used as a split end, and he leads the Irish in receiving with 17 catches for 333 yards, a 19.6-yard average.

--He has been used as a ballcarrier out of a full-house backfield.

--He has been used as a punt returner. In only his second punt return of the season last week against Air Force, Ismail went all the way on a 56-yard run.

--And, the ultimate horror for opposing coaches, Ismail is now running at tailback.

Against Air Force, Ismail rushed for 92 yards in 10 carries, including a 24-yard touchdown on a reverse.

“I just felt we had to do something to be more productive,” Holtz said. “He didn’t know the blocking schemes that well, but when he saw a hole, he just accelerated. I don’t think you’re going to see him eight, nine, 10 times at tailback. I don’t think we can afford to do that. But he is stronger for his size than we were led to believe.”

At 5-10 and 175 pounds, Ismail may not look imposing. But after the Rocket receives his payload and takes off, afterburners roaring, there are no more doubters.

Behind him, fueled and ready, are Qadry (nicknamed Missile), a Syracuse freshman who has already returned a kick 56 yards this season to set up a touchdown, and Sulaiman (Bomb), still at Meyers.

Fatma placed the nickname, Launching Pad, on her own head.

All this stuff only serves to make the spotlight on Ismail even brighter, but he’s still managing to have fun in the pressure cooker.

When he scored his first touchdown as a collegian against Purdue last season on a 54-yard pass from Tony Rice, Ismail kept going, right into the stands to a hug a few folks.

“Hey, son,” Holtz later told him, “if you want to go up in the stands, I’ll get you a ticket.”

The Rocket roared, with laughter.

And, why not?

It looks as if he’s got a ticket that will take him a long way.

Peace and serenity will have to wait.