Dupree’s Dream Nears Reality : Rams: Running back says he’s approaching old form. Team is close to activating him.

Marcus Dupree did not come back to be mediocre, not after waiting five years.

The moment he thought he wasn’t going to be the player he once was--a running back who dominated every game he ever played--Dupree says he would have chucked his dream on the spot.

Even after the Rams signed him a month ago, ending his injury-induced exile from football, Dupree, 26, says he was ready to quit if the magic was gone.

“I wouldn’t even think of trying to play if I didn’t think I could run the same way I used to,” Dupree says. “I would’ve stopped.”

This Sunday or, more likely, the next, Dupree will get a chance to show why he didn’t stop, when the Rams activate him off injured reserve.

“I’m back to where I was, I think,” Dupree says. “(Back to) when I was going to Oklahoma, except a little lighter.”

Although the Rams are doing their utmost to downplay the fairy-tale aura that follows Dupree, if he is back to where he once was, that is something to see. At 222 pounds, he is lighter, certainly, after having weighed 245 five years ago.

If he is sound, Dupree says, or when he is sound, he will be a star in the NFL.

“No doubt,” Dupree says. “When you play at Oklahoma and you play people like Nebraska, to me that’s kind of like pro ball.

“I feel like I’m close to 100%, and if I do get back to 100%, there’s no doubt. And with a lot of luck, the right breaks, maybe I can be.”

No one in recent sports history has returned from such a long layoff to this type of violent activity. Perhaps Muhammad Ali’s 3 1/2-year absence from boxing came closest.

Dupree could soon be playing organized football for the first time since blowing out his left knee in the spring of 1986 while playing for the Portland Breakers of the U.S. Football League.

When Dupree was in high school, he created such an intense atmosphere among the colleges recruiting him that a book was written about the situation. At Oklahoma, he played one full season, rushed for 905 yards--including a 237-yard Fiesta Bowl performance--then transferred to Southern Mississippi because he was feuding with then-Sooner Coach Barry Switzer.

He finished the 1985 season with the New Orleans Breakers, moved with them to Portland, and suffered what was considered a career-ending knee injury.

For five years, he did nothing but stay at home in Mississippi, living off his insurance settlement with the Breakers.

Early this year, prodded by former star running back Walter Payton and his own dream of playing in the NFL, Dupree began working out again, trimming his weight from 270 pounds. He tried out and was signed by the Rams.

“Sometimes, I sit down and wonder about things that have happened so far,” Dupree says. “My life has been really fast. I just look at it and laugh. Some people don’t get a second chance. And I have. I’ll just try to capitalize on it.”

Dupree is still on injured reserve but was moved Wednesday to the practice squad, enabling him to work out with the team for the first time. His first drill was non-contact, and afterward, Coach John Robinson indicated that Dupree probably would not be activated this week.

The Rams want to be sure they are not making Dupree’s transition any faster than it should be. “Probably the one thing I am still uncertain about is his instinctiveness, having not played,” Robinson says. “But we’re going to activate him at some point; we’re going to use him.

“To make (his comeback) work, we can’t tend to look at it as a miracle. I wish I hadn’t used the line (when Dupree tried out), ‘It’s like “The Natural.” ’

“It isn’t. Robert Redford hit a home run as soon as they put him in the game. We know it isn’t going to be like that.

“But it might .”

It might. With Dupree, nobody knows for sure.

“I know it won’t be like I want it to be at first,” Dupree says. “It will take a lot of breaks and a lot of luck.”

On a team that is 2-5 and sinking out of the playoff picture, Dupree’s comeback has suddenly become one of the brightest happenings at Rams Park.

“It’s a situation where I can help the team out, and I’m all for it,” Dupree says. “Now I just have to wait and see.”

Said quarterback Jim Everett: “It’s unfair to put a man on a pedestal until you’ve seen him in pads and let him have a chance to work. Give him an opportunity to do well, to fail, to go through the rare situation of coming back.”