Conway Takes Long Way on a Short Trip : USC: Prep All-American from Hawthorne, after taking SAT test five times, is finally eligible to play.

He followed a more circuitous route than the others, but Curtis Conway will report today, along with 16 of his adopted classmates, for three days of freshman football practice at USC.

A prep football All-American and state sprint champion two years ago at Hawthorne High, Conway probably thought at one time that he’d never make it.

He needed about a year and five attempts to score the NCAA-mandated minimum on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, finally earning a passing grade last fall.

And so, he is coming to USC, ready to contribute.

He is expected to make a quick impact, perhaps as early as Aug. 31, when the Trojans, three-time defending Pacific 10 Conference champions, open the season against Syracuse at East Rutherford, N.J.

A two-time All-Southern Section quarterback at Hawthorne, where he ran or passed for 62 of the Cougars’ 82 touchdowns in his last two seasons, Conway will be used as a running back, wide receiver and kick returner at USC.

The basic idea is to put the ball in Conway’s hands and watch him run with it, said Clarence Shelmon, who recruited Conway and coaches the Trojan running backs.

What will Conway bring to an offense that already includes quarterback Todd Marinovich, college football’s freshman of the year last season, and senior tailback Ricky Ervins, last season’s Pac-10 rushing champion and most valuable player in USC’s 17-10 victory over Michigan in the Rose Bowl?

“World-class speed and the ability to make big plays,” Shelmon said. “He’s one of the most gifted athletes I’ve seen in 15 years of major college coaching. Maybe I shouldn’t even say that because it might put pressure on the kid, but that’s how long I’ve been coaching and I have not run across very many guys who possess his type of God-given talent.

“You could throw a five-yard pass to him and he could very well go 90 yards with it. He has the ability to elude the defenders and make them miss, and then has the speed to run away from people.”

For a short time last summer, Conway ran away from USC.

A fan of former Trojan quarterback Rodney Peete, to whom he was often compared, Conway was so smitten by USC that he signed with the Trojans without visiting any other schools.

But since it changed its original policy two years ago, USC has not accepted athletes who do not meet the requirements of NCAA Bylaw 14.3, more commonly known as Proposition 48, which denies eligibility to freshmen who do not achieve a grade-point average of 2.0 or higher in a core curriculum of high school classes, and score at least 700 on the SAT.

Other schools, though, were willing to accept Conway, even though he would have had to sit out last season and would have lost a year of eligibility. He took recruiting trips to Hawaii and Nebraska and took calls, he said, from Michigan and Arizona.

Last August, he was sitting in a room at Nebraska, waiting for his name to be called to enroll, when he had a change of heart. Nothing against Lincoln, Neb., or the Cornhusker program, but Conway remembers thinking to himself, “What am I doing here?”

He thought of all the great veer quarterbacks who have wound up in the Canadian Football League. An only child, he thought of home and his mother, Anita.

“I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t the place for me,” he said.

Conway returned home to take another crack at the SAT and, he hoped, to end up at USC.

But while Conway studied for the test and worked at a construction site in downtown Los Angeles, Marinovich established himself as the Trojans’ quarterback, moving into sixth place on USC’s all-time passing list after only one season.

Conway, though, doesn’t mind making a position switch.

“I just want to get on the field and help the team in any way I can,” he said. “As I was growing up, I played receiver and running back--I wasn’t a quarterback until I got to high school--so basically I played a little of everything. So, where I’m needed the most is where I’ll play.

“I just love the game of football. Tailback, receiver, quarterback--it really doesn’t make a difference.”

Conway’s role in the offense will be unique, Shelmon said, in that he may never line up in the same position two plays in a row.

Shelmon sees Conway as the Trojans’ answer to Notre Dame’s multidimensional Raghib (Rocket) Ismail, who is used by the Irish at several positions.

“If you just put him in the backfield, defenses can zero in on him,” Shelmon said. “But when you move him around, you make the defense check signals and you can create confusion. If they’re too concerned with him, we can go somewhere else.

“He can give us a lot of latitude. A lot of times, he may be a decoy and never see the ball and still be effective because he’ll take two people with him.”

The offense won’t revolve around Conway but Shelmon said, “We want to create one-on-one situations where we can get him the football.”

What happens once he gets it, the Trojan coaches believe, will make the wait to get him worthwhile.

Trojan Notes

Three players who signed with USC last winter will not report. Jerome Casey, a tailback-cornerback from Sylmar High, and Norberto Garrido, a 6-foot-7, 282-pound defensive tackle from Workman High in the City of Industry, failed to score high enough on the SAT. Scott McClain, a quarterback from Atascadero High, signed a professional baseball contract with the Baltimore Orioles. A right-handed pitcher and 22nd-round draft choice, McClain is playing rookie ball in the Appalachian League for the Orioles’ affiliate at Bluefield, W.Va.

A late addition to the roster is freshman Donn Cunnigan, an All-Southern Section defensive back last season at Gahr High in Cerritos who accepted a scholarship after the letter-of-intent signing period. . . . Veterans report Wednesday, with the first day of practice scheduled for Friday. . . . USC is expected to fill an open date on its 1991 schedule with a game against Memphis State at the Coliseum. Memphis State is coached by Chuck Stobart, former offensive coordinator at Arizona and USC under Coach Larry Smith.