Emotion in Motion : Moorpark College’s Standout Tailback Shows Big Heart and a Feel for Goal Line
Freddie Bradley does not cry often, but when he does, it is a gully-washer.
It is the kind of outburst one would not expect from one of the top junior college running backs in the nation, a back so durable that he led the nation in scoring last season as a Moorpark College freshman, a back so tough that he refuses to show fear on the field, a back so physical that he hunts for defenders to punish.
It is the kind of sob, though, that one might expect from a man who has bottled up the emotions of a life that has been far more difficult than anything he has ever faced in football.
This tough guy does not cry on the field, but his talent at a violent game masks a gentler side of Freddie Bradley.
“He’s a softie. I’m sure if he watched ‘Wuthering Heights’ or ‘Where the Red Fern Grows’ or even ‘Flipper,’ he’d cry,” said George Machado, Bradley’s high school coach and the man who took Bradley into his home four years ago.
Bradley might be the kind of person who would cry after watching “Terms of Endearment,” and terms of endearment break him down in real life as well.
Once, Machado lectured Bradley for staying out late and then, “I said, ‘Fred you have to understand I love you,’ and that was it. That turned on the faucets.”
Said Bradley: “I have the same feelings for him.”
Tonight, though, when Bradley leads Moorpark against Bakersfield in a game that could have national-title implications, don’t expect any tears to be shed between the teams.
Bradley is attempting to help Moorpark win the mythical national title and also is closing in on the national junior college record for career rushing touchdowns in the regular season, which is held by O. J. Simpson and two other players. With 31 regular-season rushing touchdowns, Bradley is 12 short of the record and has six games remaining.
Bradley has a nose for the end zone like the swallows have a notion for San Juan Capistrano. He had 23 touchdowns last season to lead the nation in scoring.
Goals. The goal line has defined Bradley’s junior college career and a national title would cap it. It is quite a departure from a past in which Bradley’s main goal was to have a good time.
“When I was younger, the only thing I wanted to do was have fun,” Bradley said. “I didn’t want to do anything else, no responsibilities, going to class or anything. I just wanted to go out and party and chase girls. (I’m) still chasing girls and stuff, but I know when to party and when not to party.”
Bradley grew up in Helena, Ark., a small town on the Mississippi River. His mother died when he was 3, and he moved in with his maternal grandmother. He essentially has lost contact with his father and says “I don’t really worry about it.”
He accompanied his sister to California when he was in the seventh grade and by the time he hit high school, he was a surly kid who would rather pick a fight than pick up a pencil.
As a teen-ager, Bradley was the man of the house. He says his older brother has drifted in and out of jail and has been merely a ghost in his life.
The misdirection might be one of his best plays now, but in those years misdirection simply described the path his life was taking.
“Just went out and partied a lot, didn’t go to school,” Bradley said of his younger years. “I was drinking, smoked a little bit.”
Bradley says he has put marijuana and cigarette smoking behind him and he never got in trouble with the law. “I got lucky on that one,” he said.
In 1987, before his junior year at Hueneme High, Bradley made one of those across-the-grain cutbacks he does so well on the field. With one move, he began to turn his life around.
The sister Bradley was living with moved back to Arkansas, and Bradley showed up in Machado’s office with his worldly possessions stuffed in a pair of trash bags.
“I’m bringing him home for dinner, and he stays four years,” said Machado, who was beginning his first season as Hueneme coach.
To outsiders, the arrangement looked like the kind of deal that gives high school football a bad name. Here was a coach taking in his star player, seemingly just to keep him on the team. Machado even moved his wife and daughter from Camarillo to Port Hueneme to keep Bradley within school boundaries.
Machado jokes that “Freddie looks at me for advice, and I looked to Freddie for touchdowns,” but Machado provided the male role model and disciplinarian Bradley never had.
“When I started going to Hueneme, I started realizing that I could go to college and that was one of the main things that turned it around,” Bradley said. “Then, living with coach, he helped me a lot telling me I could make it and it started sinking in.”
Machado has pledged to pay for Bradley’s college education and take care of him even if Bradley never plays another down.
“He’s not boarding at my house. He’s a part of the family,” Machado said.
It was an adjustment for both parties, but now Bradley calls Machado a father and says he and Machado’s 12-year-old daughter Lindsay “fight like brothers and sisters.”
Machado constantly hectored Bradley about school, responsibility and the like, but he mixed a strong dose of humor with the discipline.
So many girls were chasing Bradley that Machado put a chart like a tournament bracket on the refrigerator. The list peaked at 13 girls. When a girl fell out of Bradley’s favor, she would be eliminated from the bracket.
Bradley’s female admirers called so frequently that Machado was forced to get an unlisted phone number.
Once a month, the Machados would have a soul food night in an attempt to bridge the cultural gap. Gradually, the shy youngster came out of his shell.
For the duration of this football season, Bradley has moved in with Larry and Laura Felix, a Moorpark family, to cut down on the commute. He plans to return to the Machados after the season and perhaps finish his last semester at nearby Oxnard College.
Machado and Bradley still talk frequently on the phone, and Machado attends as many Moorpark games as possible.
It is a strange combination, Machado a raspy-voiced, machine-gun talking man who wears his emotions on his sleeve and Bradley, a quiet person who generally hides his feelings under a manhole.
Bradley keeps his strutting between the white lines. Quick to credit his offensive line, Bradley has even turned down opportunities to be Moorpark’s captain. “He just wants to be part of the team,” Moorpark Coach Jim Bittner said.
He might want to blend into the team, but any time Moorpark enters a stadium, the buzz is about Bradley. He is a standout in what Hank Ives, editor of J. C. Grid-Wire, calls “an incredible year for running backs.”
Bradley and Estrus Crayton of Rancho Santiago are regarded as the best junior college running backs in California and perhaps the best in the nation.
“Freddie has a little more power,” Ives said. “They’re both exceptional. Coming along in the same year, that’s something else.”
Last season, Bradley was a little rough around the edges, surviving on raw physical talent and running through defensive players rather than around them.
Known as a “north-south” runner, Bradley does not waste much time running laterally but simply heads upfield.
“One time against Valley, we ran a dive play with him, and I don’t think anyone got out of their stances,” Bittner said. “He was by them before they even blinked.”
He still runs too upright and could use work on his blocking, but Bradley is becoming more of a running back and less of a runner.
“He’s big, strong, fast and tough,” said one major college assistant, who added that Bradley would play tailback at the Division I level. “He’s got everything you look for.”
Bradley carries 195 to 200 pounds on his 6-foot frame like Pat Riley wears an Armani suit. He says he has a best of 4.38 seconds in the 40-yard dash and can bench-press 375 pounds.
In the first 15 games of his Moorpark career, Bradley has rushed for 2,015 yards. That’s slightly more than a mile, but few men could run a mile in his shoes.
Bradley takes, and gives, a fearsome pounding in games. He played most of his senior season in high school with an injured Achilles’ tendon. “He was in such extreme pain, it hurt me to watch him run,” Machado said. “Fred is probably one of the most courageous players I ever coached.”
Last season, against L. A. Southwest and its giant defensive ends--Chris Mims (6-foot-6, 235) and Bernard Dafney (6-7, 290)--Bradley carried the ball 10 times on the opening drive alone.
“The more I carry the ball, (the more) I get into a good groove and I know I’ll break one after a while,” said Bradley, who has 681 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns this season.
Bradley shrugs off pain and fear like he shrugs off tacklers. Before the Santa Monica game this season, freshman fullback Jamal Anderson approached Bradley. The players knew Santa Monica would be the most physical team Moorpark had faced thus far, and Anderson confided that he was a little nervous.
After calming Anderson, Bradley shredded Santa Monica for 178 rushing yards and four touchdowns.
The Monday after that Santa Monica game, Bradley showed up at school with a banged-up shoulder and sporting abrasions, chips off his body, the size of nickels and dimes. On his knee was an open wound the size of a silver dollar. Such is the price he pays.
However, Bradley exacts a toll in return. “If you hit Freddie hard, he’s going to come at you harder,” Anderson said. “He remembers who you are.”
Bradley considers most defensive backs the football equivalents of Yugos. Against Southwest this season, Bradley virtually put his fist through a defensive back’s face mask with a straight-arm that sent the dazed back spinning away while Bradley completed a 58-yard touchdown.
Barring catastrophic injury, Bradley will find that the football takes care of itself. At this stage of his career, the AA appellation he needs is on an Associate of Arts degree rather than an All-American certificate.
The AA degree is Bradley’s ticket to ride. As a Proposition 48 non-qualifier out of high school, he needs the degree to matriculate to a four-year school.
Drawing nationwide recruiting attention, Bradley is considering Arkansas, Colorado, Tennessee, Nevada Las Vegas and USC among others. With only two years of eligibility remaining, Bradley is most interested in playing immediately.
Bradley’s approach to school is no different than that of many athletes or even much of the Moorpark student body. He simply is more honest than most when he discusses school.
“I just go because I have to,” Bradley said. “I don’t like school, I like going there and seeing the girls and stuff like that, but I don’t like school much.”
Currently carrying 15 units, Bradley already has completed 32 and is on track to finish the required 60 units for an AA degree in the spring.
“Now I know if I go to classes, I can get a full ride to a university,” said Bradley, who said he is not bothered by the pressure of having to fulfill academic requirements.
Bradley struggled academically last spring. After wrecking Machado’s truck one day on the way to school, he was dependent upon other students for rides. The precarious ride situation was one factor behind a slew of missed classes, and Bradley ended up flunking two courses.
“I say he’s been educationally deprived. Not by any means does he lack intelligence,” Machado said. “He’s becoming now, I think, a more dedicated student.”
Bradley took U. S. history and speech over the summer and passed both classes, but again it followed another tough talk from Machado.
After the spring problems, Machado sat Bradley down and told him that if he did not buckle down and pass the classes during summer school, there would be no football that fall.
At the end of the speech, Machado said, “Fred, I love you too damn much to let you screw up.”
Bradley wept.