Love at First Flight : Maddox Needed Only One Look at UCLA to Know It Was Where He Wanted to Be

Wayne Maddox recalled Bo Schembechler sitting in his living room in Bedford, Tex., watching “Monday Night Football” on television.

Schembechler was there to recruit Maddox’s son, Tommy, to play quarterback for Michigan.

Then Schembechler heard Dan Dierdorf, whom he had once coached, say on TV: “Jim Harbaugh is from that great quarterback factory, Michigan.”

Wayne Maddox said it was a facetious remark but it got a response from Schembechler, who said, “I’m going to kill that Dierdorf.”

The elder Maddox said, though, that Schembechler had been a convincing, charming recruiter with plenty of company in the Maddox endeavor.

Louisiana State, Texas A&M;, and Brigham Young were among the other schools that recruited Tommy Maddox.

Wayne Maddox said that Tommy was leaning toward Michigan until he visited UCLA.

“When he got home from California, Tommy said, ‘I know where I’m going to school--UCLA,’ ” Wayne said.

So that ended the recruitment of Tommy Maddox, who as a star athlete at L.D. Bell High in Hurst, Tex., had scholarship offers in basketball and baseball as well as football.

Wayne Maddox said that he and his older son, Mark, worked “quietly in the shadows” screening prospective schools for Tommy.

“But the final decision was his,” Wayne said.

That decision has already been rewarding for UCLA as it prepares for its final regular-season game Saturday against USC at the Rose Bowl.

Maddox, who is only 19 and a redshirt freshman, has demonstrated his skills though 10 games this season.

He has completed 54.4% of his passes for 2,273 yards, 14 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He is the Pacific 10 Conference’s total offense leader, averaging 238.5 yards a game.

He is also the league leader in passing yards per attempt with 7.92, and in yards per completion with 14.57.

Statistics, however, don’t reveal his poise, his awareness and the snap-like delivery he has on his passes.

“He can throw a perfect overhanded delivery and a side-arm delivery and all things in between,” said Homer Smith, UCLA’s offensive coordinator. “He throws like an infielder throwing a baseball.

“He has natural arm strength, and it will become stronger when he acquires more muscles.”

Wayne Maddox said that Tommy didn’t consider staying home and playing for a Texas school because many of them were on probation at the time and ran veer or wishbone offenses that weren’t suited to his son’s talents.

“Now (Southwest schools are) throwing the ball all over the place,” Wayne Maddox said.

Even so, Wayne said, UCLA is the perfect school for his son in his maturation as a quarterback with Smith as a teacher.

Wayne said that Tommy Maddox was very tall and slender, but never clumsy as a youngster.

“However, he had more talent in basketball than football,” Wayne said. “When he was 10 or 11 years old, he played basketball in an international sports festival in Orlando, Fla.,” Wayne said. “His football development didn’t start until his junior year in high school.”

As a senior, Maddox averaged 35.8 points a game in basketball, had a 7-1 record as a baseball pitcher and passed for 2,601 yards and 18 touchdowns in football. He is the leading passer and basketball scorer in the history of his high school.

Wayne and his wife, Glynda, live in what is called the mid-cities area of Texas, the tri-communities of Bedford, Hurst and Euless midway between Dallas and Ft. Worth.

High school football is immensely popular in the area, as it is all over the state, and Tommy Maddox played before relatively large crowds.

“In high school you’re put in a lot of pressure situations and you have to get used to handling it,” Tommy said. “It’s something that you have to learn to love, or tell yourself to love. I just look at pressure as something that comes along with the territory. I don’t worry about things. I have a lot of confidence in my teammates, and myself.”

Wayne, Glynda, and brother Mark are his biggest boosters.

Mark was an outstanding high school quarterback who enrolled at, then left, Southern Methodist his freshman year when the football program was temporarily canceled. He transferred to Texas Christian where he became a pitcher on the baseball team.

Now the family is seemingly devoted to Tommy’s career.

Wayne is an agency sales manager for an insurance company, and Glynda works in the international relations office for an airline.

“Glynda didn’t work for 25 years until Tommy went to UCLA,” Wayne said, but one of the perks of Glynda’s job is reduced air fare on flights to all parts of the country. So, Wayne and Glynda fly from Texas for every UCLA game.

Wayne said he and his wife intend to be here today in time to attend UCLA’s final practice before Saturday’s USC game.

Wayne, who played football in high school and junior college before he suffered a knee injury, said that he and Mark have coached Tommy, working on such things as a quick release on passes.

He added, though, that Tommy was not pressured into a daily regimen of athletics.

“He hunted and fished and had fun and was just an average, red-blooded American boy,” Wayne said.

Tommy Maddox has already out-played such highly regarded quarterbacks as Oregon’s Bill Musgrave and Washington’s Mark Brunell.

Now he will be matched against either Todd Marinovich or Shane Foley in his first experience of the cross-town rivalry.

“It’s my first USC game and I’m looking forward to it,” Maddox said. “It will be just as tough and maybe tougher than the Washington game. They’re a great team and they’re going to a bowl game and it’s going to be highly intense.

“I’m from Texas and I didn’t know much about (the rivalry). But when you come out here you feel it, and a lot of the players we have grew up with the USC players and played with them and against them.”