Rucker Develops Special Relationship : Prep football: Junior tailback, part of sports-minded family, carves 1,000-yard niche at Glendale.

Pathon Rucker calls the Glendale High football team his second family.

“If I have a problem, I can go to the coaches or anyone on the team and tell them what I feel,” the junior tailback said. “If I have homework to do, the coaches will let me leave practice and use their office.

“Everybody helps one another and knows each other.”

Rucker, however, has not been able to say the same of his own extended family. It’s not that they aren’t friendly. He simply hasn’t met them all.

On his mother’s side, Rucker estimates he has more than 100 cousins.

“When I’m walking down the street and I see people, I wonder if it’s somebody I’m related to,” said Rucker, the third of five children. “We try to keep in touch with as many as we can, but there’s just too many.”

Rucker himself is quickly becoming identifiable.

In the Dynamiters’ Pacific League opener at Arcadia on Friday, Rucker, a 6-foot, 180-pound back, rushed for 284 yards and five touchdowns in a 56-7 rout of the defending league champion.

In six games, he already has eclipsed last season’s total of 893 yards and is the first area player to break the 1,000-yard barrier with 1,108 yards and 20 touchdowns.

Glendale, ranked eighth in the Southern Section Division II poll, has a 6-0 record--its best start in more than 20 years--and is in contention for its first league title since 1980.

Rucker’s parents were separated when he was 12 and his mother remarried and moved from Cleveland to California. Rucker originally lived with his father, but later joined his mother in California.

However, reports of Rucker’s exploits last season prompted his father, Ronald, to visit in September to watch a game during what was intended to be a seven-day stay.

The visit has become a season-long one and might become permanent.

At first, Ronald stayed with Rucker’s stepfather, Robert Walton, and Rucker’s mother. He has since moved to a next-door apartment and lives with a few of Rucker’s cousins.

“I’m thinking about staying in California for good now,” Ronald said. “I haven’t seen him for such a long time and I missed him. His mom was sending me clippings and I had to come to see him play.

“He’s my son and I’m very proud of him.”

Ronald said that no complications have arisen with the living arrangement.

“They’re my family,” he said. “There’s no problem. It’s three people with an understanding.”

Walton agrees. “We get along fine,” he said. “There aren’t any problems.”

Especially on game night. Both men, each of whom claim to be Rucker’s No. 1 fan, have attended all but one of Glendale’s games together this fall.

Ronald is easy to spot. He’s the one wearing Rucker’s letterman’s jacket. And both are even easier to hear.

“Usually the only voices you hear on the field are the players and you don’t hear anything from the crowd,” Rucker said. “I can block anything out except for their yelling. I can’t believe some of the things they do. They even dance in the stands when the drill team performs at halftime.”

Said Glendale lineman Alberto Ocon: “They have a ball. Once, when Pathon broke a long one, his father ran alongside him in the bleachers. Everybody’s parents get a little excited at games, but they go nuts. They have a great time.

“They’re together every time I see them.”

If more of Rucker’s relatives dropped by to see him play, it wouldn’t take long for the family to accumulate frequent-flier mileage.

“I know there’s a lot of my family in Alabama, Tennessee and in Ohio,” Rucker said, “There might be some in Canada, but they’re all over the place.

“Who knows? There might be some on the moon.”

What Rucker does know is that talent runs deep in his family.

His father and mother ran track and his stepfather played football and basketball in high school.

His cousins, Reggie Rucker and Dale Crawford, played professional football. His uncle, Abdula Mohammed, was a professional boxer.

Reggie played wide receiver for the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns and Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s and early ‘80s. He led the Browns in receiving in the 1975, ’76 and ’80 seasons and ranks fifth on Cleveland’s all-time reception list.

Crawford was a starting quarterback for the Memphis Showboats of the now-defunct United States Football League.

Another cousin, James Swengeneren, played basketball at Memphis State and now is playing in the Continental Basketball Assn.

Wait, there’s more.

Another cousin, Abdul Zaid, was an All-West Valley League lineman for El Camino Real High last season and Zaid’s brother Mohammed played at Van Nuys High and Grambling State.

And still another cousin, Stephan Crutchfield, was an All-Pacific League tailback for rival Muir High last season and helped lead the Mustangs to the Southern Section Division II co-championship.

Pathon Rucker (pronounced PAY-thon), was named after his godfather. The name has its origins in Greek mythology with Phaethon, the son of the god Helios. Rucker also has a a relative named Pathonia and an older brother named Famous.

Rucker began playing football in youth leagues when he was 9. During his ninth-grade year, he moved from Cleveland to live with his mother and his stepfather in Sun Valley.

Rucker said that it was an experience the summer before 10th grade that brought him to Glendale.

“I was walking by the school and I just saw the ‘G’ painted on the auditorium and the sun was coming from behind it and it looked so sweet that I wanted to go there and play football,” Rucker said. “My mom would have moved anywhere for me to play, but I wanted to go to Glendale.”

Rucker had never seen Glendale play and knew nothing about the program or the coaches.

“He just showed up one day during the summer and said he wanted to play,” Glendale Coach Don Shoemaker said.

At first, it was at wide receiver on the scout team. An injury to Danny Pardo, who now plays inside linebacker and tight end, forced Shoemaker to place Rucker at tailback in a game against La Canada.

The results were not impressive.

“I just did terrible,” said Rucker, who rushed for 12 yards in six carries in his debut.

In the next game, against Bell-Jeff, Rucker gained 237 yards and had an 88-yard kickoff return. The starting position has been his since.

Rucker already has received letters of interest from several NCAA Division I schools, including USC, Washington, Washington State, Tennessee and Colorado. Rucker would like to play in college, but he doesn’t like the attention he has been getting in the newspapers.

“It bugs me,” Rucker said. “After the Arcadia game, I looked in a newspaper and saw ‘Rucker runs over Arcadia’ in a thick, two-inch headline. It makes it sound like I’m the whole team, but I’m not. We had 426 yards and I only had 284. I don’t care who scores points as long as we win. I couldn’t do anything without the line.”

Shoemaker credits Rucker’s adherence to a rigorous off-season conditioning program of weights and running and a change in his mental outlook for his rapid improvement.

“He’s much stronger, bigger and faster,” Shoemaker said of Rucker, who is 20 pounds heavier than last season, when was a Times All-Glendale selection . “He’s a very deceptive runner and it doesn’t look like he’s running as fast as he is.”

Burroughs Coach Butch McElwee tried isolating a defender on Rucker in a 35-6 loss.

“He’s not going to run into people, but he doesn’t have to,” McElwee said, “He just runs around them. The guy we put on him had 18 tackles, but (Rucker) still scored four touchdowns.”

Rucker, who is averaging 185 yards a game, is on a pace that will break Shawn Hardy’s 1979 single-season school record of 1,750 yards. But he has set a different goal.

“We want to win the league championship,” Rucker said. “People don’t give us the respect we deserve. Every time we win. People say ‘Oh, Glendale played a weak team.’

“When Fontana blows somebody out, nobody says anything. It irritates me. People don’t realize we’re improving.

“We just hope that our performance speaks for itself.”

Rucker’s already has.