Lineman Eric Banducci Is Latest in a Family of Blockbusters

Three generations of Banduccis have put their shoulders to the blocking sled as football linemen. Though they keep injuring their shoulders by blocking and tackling, they have kept on playing--and playing well.

The first of the line was the late Bruno Banducci, who played with legendary quarterback Frankie Albert on Stanford’s 1941 Rose Bowl champions. He played a couple of years with the Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL and later blocked for Albert with the San Francisco 49ers in the early years of the All-America Conference.

Bruno’s son, Russ, also played for a Rose Bowl winner. He blocked for another star quarterback, Garry Beban, when Coach Tommy Prothro’s “gutty, little Bruins” upset powerful Michigan State, 14-12, at Pasadena in 1966.

The latest Banducci to carry on the family tradition is Russ’ son, Eric, who starred as an offensive and defensive lineman at Santa Monica High. He hopes to emulate his father and grandfather by playing for at least one Rose Bowl winner after he enrolls at UCLA this fall.

Eric will emulate his father when he plays in the 39th Shrine All-Star Football Game Saturday in the Rose Bowl. Russ played in the 1962 Shrine game.

But Eric hopes the Banducci tradition of dislocating shoulders on the football field came to an end when he suffered such an injury as a sophomore lineman on the Santa Monica varsity.

Russ Banducci said shoulder injuries are “a family trait. My father had three operations for dislocations and had scars you wouldn’t believe; they were an inch-and-a-half wide. I dislocated my shoulder at Menlo Atherton High School.”

Eric, The Times Westside prep lineman of the year in 1989, said he hurt his right shoulder when he collided with a couple of opposing linemen in his team’s first league game of his sophomore season.

Although surgery was prescribed, he missed only one game that year, electing to have an operation at the end of the season. He continued to play both offense and defense with his shoulder in a harness. He learned to center the ball with his left arm because his right arm and shoulder were tightly strapped and immobile.

His days as a center will be over if he makes his mark at UCLA at defensive guard, the position that the Bruin coaches want him to play. He said that he has always preferred defense to offense and was able to show UCLA Coach Terry Donahue and his staff that he can play defense when he attended Donahue’s summer camp after his junior year in high school.

“My real love is defense,” he said. “It fits my temperament and attitude. In the first half of (Donahue’s) camp I played offensive line, and in the second half I played defensive line. They really liked what they saw.”

Liked it well enough to offer a scholarship to Banducci as a defensive guard, which he quickly accepted.

He had narrowed down his list of schools to those in the Pacific 10 Conference, but his first choice was always UCLA.

“Both my parents went to UCLA, and I was raised on UCLA football,” he said. “My mom (Sandy) and dad didn’t push me, though. I loved UCLA and wanted to play for the Bruins.”

Banducci made an oral commitment to UCLA in December, long before the period in which football players are allowed to sign national letters of intent.

Russ Banducci said that he thinks his son “was almost dangerously set on UCLA. It’s been his goal for a long time.”

He said that he took Eric on trips to the universities of Oregon and Washington in an attempt to “expand his horizons,” but that his mind wasn’t changed by scholarship offers from those schools.

Russ Banducci said that he doesn’t think that Donahue was influenced to give Eric a scholarship because he and Donahue were teammates at UCLA and roomed together briefly.

“It didn’t help, believe me,” he said. “UCLA is all business in its recruiting.”

Eric said that the relationship between his father and Donahue “didn’t have any impact on the situation at all. (In a UCLA dormitory), he just happened to get stuck with my dad--unfortunately for him.”

He is eager to take on college offensive linemen and ballcarriers when he plays defense for the Bruins. “Defense gives me an advantage; I can hit rather than be hit,” he said. “I feel a higher intensity when I’m on defense; I can use more of my natural ability.”

He was the leading tackler on the Santa Monica defensive line last season, with 42. He also had six quarterback sacks and two fumble recoveries. He was Santa Monica Coach Tebb Kusserow’s top nomination for The Times All-Westside prep football team, and Kusserow said that Banducci was “an excellent blocker (with) great strength and quickness.”

Kusserow said he thinks that Eric “certainly has the mental attitude to play defense; you sort of have to get yourself motivated to be a defensive lineman. I would not be surprised if he gave a good showing of himself at UCLA. On defense you can be a little bit more reckless; you don’t have to be quite as precise as on offense. The younger player can play more and sooner on defense than on offense.”

Eric said he thinks he acquired the tools necessary to play defense when he got involved as a youngster in a wrestling program run by the late Fred Jackson, whose sons Lawrence and Greg won several CIF-Southern Section wrestling championships when they competed for Santa Monica. Lawrence also won three state wrestling titles.

Wrestling, he said, “gave me the athletic skills for the defensive side: balance, body control and strength. Wrestling teaches you what comes naturally, and a lot of defense is second nature. When you don’t have to think on the football field, that’s when you know you’ve got it right.”

He said that he is eager to play in the Shrine game, not only because he will be associating with the best performers in California but also because of the opportunity to see the crippled children whom the game benefits.

Playing in the game, he said, will be “a big challenge. It will be a lot of fun, and I’ll be able to challenge myself at the same time. I can’t wait. It will be the experience of a lifetime.”

“It will also be great because you get to visit the children in the hospital. I’m really looking forward to it.”