Fear of Failure Makes Tucker Success at USC

Mark Tucker might be the most dominant lineman in college football, but he never could have played for the University of Miami. He doesn’t brag enough. He won’t gloat about how good he is. Instead, the USC guard speaks of things some 270-pound, All-American football players would be too insecure to discuss--like his insecurities.

Take his fear of lightning.

“Back when I was living in Texas, when I was--what?--7 or 8, I’m sitting in my living room watching TV when a news flash comes on saying that some guy nearby just got struck by lightning, right while he was out playing football. That just freaked me out.

“Later on, I came to realize that anybody can be struck by lightning, anytime, anywhere. But at that age, you’re real impressionable. I thought it was playing football that could get you hit by lightning--you know, standing out there that way in an open field. My opponent never scared me, but the sky’d get dark and I’d start looking up.

“Gave me the willies.”

He can laugh about it now. Penn State, coming Saturday to the Coliseum, unnerves Tucker considerably more than cumulus clouds.

“Hey, it never even rains out here,” he said. “We used to have hurricanes blowing in off the Gulf Coast. Texas A&M; and Alabama canceled their game one year because of that.

“I’ll take California. All we got is earthquakes.”

If there is one subject Tucker, a Navy brat, knows, it’s geography. His family has lived in Alaska, in Brooklyn, in Japan, in Dallas and in the Pacific Northwest, beneath weather balloons, across from air strips and alongside shipyards. Mark can still recall seeing his mother drape green military blankets over the windows of their home in Kodiak to blot out six months of nonstop Alaskan sunlight.

After his father retired from the service and his parents separated, Tucker dropped anchor at Banning High School in Los Angeles, helped win two City championships, then went to USC to become All-American by his junior year, principal bodyguard to Todd Marinovich and one of 12 announced candidates for this season’s Lombardi Trophy, symbolizing college football’s top lineman.

No wonder he excels as a pulling guard. Mark’s been pulling his whole life. He’s a mover and a shaker.

Running interference is his favorite thing. In fact, Tucker is still tingling over an escort block he made in the Syracuse game on opening night. Early on, USC ran an option play. Ricky Ervins took a pitch. Tucker took a look. He spotted a little cornerback with big ideas. He hit him like lightning.

“I have to admit, that one felt good,” he said. “That one gave me a thrill. I got back to the bench, and guys were saying, ‘Whoa, man! You killed that little sucker!’ ”

Yet, Tucker is not overconfident. If anything, he is refreshingly underconfident.

While watching an NFL game on television the other day involving the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles, Tucker was reminded, even at 270 pounds, not to get too big for his britches.

“Judging by what I saw, I’d better be thinking about getting bigger and getting better,” he said. “You see Reggie White or Jerome Brown coming at you, you’d better brace yourself. Courtney Hall from the San Diego Chargers is somebody I know, and he weighed 230 in high school. He’s 280 now. There’s food for thought right there. I was in the Ram locker room once, saw Jackie Slater and some of them. These people are enormous!”

Tucker himself is in fine shape. His body fat is way down from a year ago. He replaced the 20 pounds he lost when tonsillitis kept him out of spring practice. He continues to be USC’s strongest man, bench-pressing 415 pounds. Yet, he is so quick, they say he runs 40 yards in 4.8 seconds.

Coach Larry Smith considered Tucker to be so invaluable to USC’s line, he said before the season: “Everything will be built around him.” It scared both coach and player at Tuesday’s practice when Tucker suffered a pinched nerve in his neck, causing his arm to go numb. But Tucker said he expects to play against Penn State.

What motivates him as a football player? Few linemen are as straightforward as this.

“Fear of failure,” Tucker said.

What motivated him to become a football player in the first place?

“Because I didn’t want to be a mama’s boy forever,” he said.

There is a sensitivity here--that of a strong young man who doesn’t want to come on too strong. Tucker mentions that the day next May when he obtains his degree at USC will be the day his mother’s life is complete. Then he catches himself in time to say: “Not that her life has been incomplete up to now.”

Mark Tucker, on guard.

Around football you run into so many guys who think they are such hot stuff. Maybe that’s why people enjoy USC offensive line coach John Matsko’s story about Tucker’s first collegiate start.

Against California in 1987, the first time Tucker came back from the field, he yanked Matsko’s shirt. The coach had no time for this. But Tucker kept tugging until Matsko finally could ignore him no more.

“Mark, what? “

“Hey, coach!” Tucker said. “I can play college football!”

“That’s good, Mark,” the coach said. “That’s why we put you in there.”