Happy Ending to a Rocky Career : Palamara: The Cal State Fullerton receiver disproves doubts about his speed to become the Big West’s top pass-catcher.

A sign along the tree-lined road leading to Rocky Palamara’s boyhood home reads “Shadow Hills.” His parents still live in the neighborhood, but Palamara moved to Fullerton two years ago, leaving the shadows behind.

Since then, he has emerged from the cloud of doubt surrounding his ability in football to take a place in the sun as a standout receiver at Cal State Fullerton.

A couple of years ago, after two record-setting seasons at Glendale College, Palamara lobbied for a Division I football scholarship but found that most coaches viewed him as too slow. He attended UCLA for a year after graduating from Notre Dame High, but red-shirted. There, he got the feeling the Bruin coaches saw him as another not-ready-for-prime-time player.

Scores of frustrated defensive backs, who discovered running down Palamara was nearly as difficult as catching their own shadows, might beg to differ. Those guys were happy to see Palamara’s collegiate career come to a close in Fullerton’s final game last month.

One San Jose State defender, most likely duped by an inaccurate scouting report, tried in vain to keep up with Palamara on a streak pattern this season. The pass was overthrown, but as Palamara made his way back to the huddle, the incredulous defender inquired about his speed. Palamara said he ran the 40-yard dash in about 4.6 seconds, which, by football standards, is not earthshaking.

“Damn,” the victim wheezed. “I guess I’m getting slower.”

Probably not. Palamara is just deceptively fast. Subscribing to Joe Paterno’s theory, Palamara wore solid black cleats at Glendale to appear slower. He switched to white cleats at Fullerton, but the “slow” stigma clung to him like a sweat-soaked T-shirt.

“That time that he times in the 40 has no correlation to his time in football,” Fullerton receiver coach Jim Chaney said. “He changes speed so fast that you never know if he’s running slow, or super slow, or fast.”

All opposing coaches knew is that he ran over, around and through their defensive coverage. Even after Palamara led Fullerton in receiving last year, some persisted in assigning him a single defender. He answered that insolence this season by catching 69 passes in 11 games for 1,024 yards (best in the Big West Conference in both categories), including a school-record 12 catches against Northern Illinois.

Palamara finished the season in eighth place on the national Division I receiving list, an especially impressive feat considering that the Titans’ main weapon was running back Mike Pringle, who ranks second in the nation with 1,727 rushing yards.

Quarterback Dan Speltz, Palamara’s roommate, threw for 2,671 yards and finished with the third-highest quarterback rating (156.1) in the country.

A diamond lies somewhere on the Fullerton football field, probably pounded beneath the surface by now. Call it a diamond in the rough.

It’s not large. It could fit neatly into a Cheerio hole.

But if you find this rock, return it to Rocky.

The gem used to be on an earring that Palamara wore under his helmet. After a particularly nasty pop in practice, the stud broke off and the post stuck in Palamara’s neck. The injury was not serious, but it reminded him to forgo the glitz on the field.

That is not to say his play lacks flair. He has been known to electrify the Fullerton faithful with a spectacular grab now and then.

“He’s usually good for about one a game,” Speltz said. “He catches the ball when there is no way you think he can. He’ll reach behind him and catch it with one hand right as he’s getting hit.”

Palamara admits he does not shrink from the spotlight.

“I like to be the center of attention,” he said, flashing his seemingly ever-present smile. “When I go out with my friends I don’t just sit there. I’m kind of more vivid than some of the other people.”

Upon Palamara’s graduation from high school, his parents bought him a red 1985 Corvette. The license plate reads “ROCSVET.” He had to get new plates once after someone swiped the originals. “I think they thought it was Sylvester Stallone’s (car) or something stupid like that,” he said.

Palamara’s hair, which is spiked during the season, has grown out. He has five enormous, rather nasty-looking German shepherds with names like Diablo and Thor that roam his parents’ back yard.

His real name is Rocco, after his father, but Rocky seems more appropriate.

“I think it’s a great name--kind of fits my personality,” he said. “The Mikes and Tonys and Johns are going to get forgotten, but if you meet me, you’ll never forget it.”

Palamara does not take a jugular-bulging approach to football. It is hard to imagine him working himself into a frothing frenzy for a game.

“A lot of people think you’ve got to be intense, bang your head on a locker or smack people in the head before games,” he said. “Everyone harps on having a game face on. Being serious. I go walking out smiling. Joking around. Laughing.”

Palamara has a way of boiling away all of football’s nastiness, distilling the game to its purest form--pleasure.

“There’s about 5,000 people that think they can flip it on and go out and do that,” Chaney said. “And one or two of them that can.”

After outrunning the Cal State Long Beach secondary on a 55-yard scoring play this season, Palamara stood in the end zone and laughed with Long Beach safety Jay Carballo, a former teammate at Glendale.

“I could have caught you,” Carballo puffed. “I let you score.”

Palamara has a rapport with most of the defenders he lines up against. Harsh words are seldom exchanged. He has never been in a fight on the field.

“Some of the other receivers are blocking up front with their man,” he said. “Maybe I’ve earned their respect, but I’m usually talking with the guys.

“I’m happy all the time. I try to avoid contact whenever I can. Why run into someone when you can run around them?”

A fine philosophy, but the Titans kept to the ground toward the end of the season when Pringle started to run wild. Palamara caught only 15 passes in the final three games and was asked to block a lot.

After a film session, coaches noticed that he was not flattening defenders. Unlike the blocks administered by his older brother, Tony, who played guard for Cal State Northridge and the L. A. Cobras of the now-defunct Arena Football League, Rocky’s hits were listless.

Granted, at 6 feet, 190 pounds, Palamara is not imposing, but he’s not exactly a jockey either. His lack of aggressiveness drew comment during the team’s film session.

Palamara laughed it off. When showed up at practice the following Monday, coaches and teammates howled, too. Palamara had borrowed a lineman’s shoulder pads, gloves and arm pads. He attached an extra-long, lineman’s facemask to his helmet. Armed for combat.

“I thought it was kinda cute,” Chaney said. “I let him wear it.”

Palamara commanded enough respect this season to have carte blanche to joke with teammates and coaches. “You don’t respect him because he’s a big, tough guy, but just by watching him play,” Speltz said. “From there on, he lets his personality go.”

A 33-19 loss at Fresno State with four games left in the season effectively knocked Fullerton out of the conference title race and dropped the Titans into their typical postgame funk. The players rode home in one bus and the coaches in another.

Midway through the trip home, Palamara walked to the front of the players’ bus and used the citizen’s-band radio to page Chaney on the other bus. Chaney, who had to be awakened to answer the page, was greeted by a Palamara comedy routine.

“I told him to get his . . . off the (radio) and get back to sleep,” Chaney recalled with a laugh. “He’s a different breed of a person. He’s real special to me. There’s a pretty deep person in there.”

But Palamara isn’t ready to watch his career end with his college eligibility. Although he has yet to commit to an agent and was not invited to any senior bowl games, he thinks he can make an impact in the pros.

Frankly, however, the slow label is not helping his cause. Even his mother, Millie, is aware of this.

“It’s scuttlebutt garbage that everybody thinks he’s too slow,” she said. “And it’s depressing him.”

If it is, he’s the happiest depressed guy you will ever see. He knows his limitations.

“I’m not going to sit by the TV waiting for a phone call on the first day (of the draft),” he said. “I don’t think I’m going to go in the first four rounds.”

But even if he never plays another down, Palamara has proved himself to the doubters.

“The coach from Long Beach came up to me after the game,” Palamara said. “He said, ‘You’ve had a great career here. I made a big mistake.’ That makes me feel a little better.”

Said San Jose offensive coordinator Rick Rasnick: “In retrospect, we certainly should have recruited Rocky, but it was the same old deal. We were looking for the fastest guy in town and he wasn’t one of them.

“He’s always going to run the right route and do the right thing and get to where the ball is.”

Furthermore, the road has been paved for recruits whose 40-yard times are not so distinguished.

“There’s not going to be another Rocky,” Glendale Coach John Cicuto said. “But if we’re real realistic and place kids in Rocky’s class, it carries a lot of credibility.”