COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Tough Nose Tackle Has Tough Past

When Chris Zorich, Notre Dame’s All-American junior nose tackle, goes home to Chicago’s South Side, he is quickly reminded of his troubled childhood in the ghetto.

“It’s funny how things worked out,” Zorich said. “The same guys who used to beat me up and extort money, at least the ones who are still around, are still standing on the same corner all drugged up and still asking me if I’ve got a buck.

“They’ll say things like, ‘Chris, you doing great, man, you an athlete now--big-time. We’re following you on television, man, all the time. You ain’t forgetting us or anything, are you, man?’

“I don’t answer most of the time because there isn’t much to say. The only thing they know is the four blocks around them, and I’ve learned there are other things in this world.”

Zorich’s world includes the lakes and woods of the Notre Dame campus, but the memories of his younger days, still painful, are with him even when he plays.

“There’s almost always a double team against me,” Zorich said, “so I can’t afford to focus on anything but the center and the snap of the ball because that’s my only chance to get the upper hand . . . to tear into the center before he’s ready to handle me.

“But somewhere in the back of my mind, I remember all the things I’ve been through, that my mom went through. That, more than just about anything else, makes me play the way I do.”

Zorich has never met his father, who is black, and the task of rearing him in a predominately black ghetto went to his mother, Zora Zorich, who is white and of Yugoslav descent.

There were muggings, and Zorich recalls times when he and his mother worried whether they would have enough to eat.

But he survived and earned a scholarship to Notre Dame. He’s from Chicago Vocational High School, where Dick Butkus, the former Chicago Bear All-Pro linebacker, once played.

Coach Lou Holtz switched the 6-foot-1, 268-pound Zorich from linebacker to defensive lineman, then worked on calming him down.

“We had a scrimmage last year, and I remember after every play he was looking for somebody to fight,” Holtz said. “Well, finally, he found the one guy who would fight him, and that was me.

“I was so upset that I grabbed him by the facemask, and we had quite a few words--all one-sided, of course. I told him I didn’t want him getting thrown out of games, that he was going to be a great player for four years.

“What he didn’t understand at the time is that his performance would speak for itself. He’s never been in trouble since.”

Zorich was frustrated last Saturday night when Air Force guard Steve Wilson scored a late touchdown on a “fumblerooskie” play, a version of the old hidden-ball trick.

“I looked at the quarterback and said, ‘Where’s the ball?’ ” Zorich said. “Then, all of a sudden I see this big fat guard going in for a score.”

Holtz said the touchdown shouldn’t have been allowed, but the Irish, who won 41-27, had a 41-14 lead at the time.

“Both of his knees were down when he picked the ball up,” Holtz said. “I told an official that it was a downed play because his knees were on the ground. The official said, ‘I didn’t see it.’ I said, ‘Fair enough. Neither did any of our players.’ ”

It’s doubtful that USC will try to fool the Irish with such a gimmick in Saturday’s game at South Bend, Ind.

Football players endure aches and pains, but Tulane quarterback Deron Smith lives with the constant fear of recurring, blinding headaches that last as long as three days.

“He has what are called ‘cluster’ headaches, similar to migraine headaches, but, as the name says, they come in clusters,” Tulane trainer Scott Anderson said. “It’s caused by a combination of things. They’re stress-related, or seem to be, but it also has to do with the balance of chemicals in the brain, and there’s some evidence they’re hereditary.”

Said Smith: “I take medicine every day for it, but the only thing that seems to help is breathing pure oxygen. It cuts the length of the headache down some.

“It’s a throbbing pain. It’s something you don’t like to talk about. It just stays there. Nothing cures it at the time. It’s like someone pounding on your head with a hammer.

“Sometimes it’s twice a day. Sometimes they don’t come for two or three weeks, then they come every day. Sometimes it’s three times a day.”

Smith, who has been suffering the headaches since the seventh grade, says his mother once suffered from the same type of headache and that his sister still does.

“If I was to catch one during a game, I’d have to come out. There’s no way I could play,” he said.

Tulane Coach Greg Davis said the headaches are incapacitating.

“All you have to do is look at him, and you know he’s in extreme pain,” he said. “His eyes show it.”

A few years ago, USC’s players complained about the Omniturf at Oregon’s Autzen Stadium in Eugene, saying that they slipped repeatedly.

Now Nebraska is making a similar complaint about the same artificial surface at Missouri.

“We probably had 10 to 12 crucial slips in the game,” Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne said. “Missouri probably had three or four because they know a little more about how to play on it. Their coaches admit it’s kind of hazardous to play on. We’re glad we don’t have to go back to Missouri for two more years.”

Although he wasn’t recruited by any major schools, Kirk Baumgartner is attracting the attention of NFL scouts. Baumgartner plays for Wisconsin Stevens Point and last week he became the NAIA’s career total offense leader with 10,965 yards. He has also thrown 139 consecutive passes without an interception, an NCAA Division III record.

“He’s not a sleeper anymore,” said Tom Braatz, the Green Bay Packer vice president for football operations. “He’s got too many yards and and he can throw the ball too well. He has a big league arm.”