Lawrence’s Big Game, Big Choice Haven’t Made for Big Pressure

Not long from now, Teddy Lawrence will step into a world where the players are a little faster, a little stronger, a little bigger and a little better.

And everybody will expect a lot.

Lawrence is the quarterback of the Morse football team, the team many think is the best in San Diego County history.

Morse is a team of good players, but Teddy Lawrence is something altogether different.

When he runs, spectators smile, even shake their heads. He has been a starter for three seasons, two at quarterback and one at defensive back. His teammates sometimes watch him from the sidelines, chuckle, slap each other on the shoulder pads and say: “Look at Teddy.”

His coach, John Shacklett, worries when Lawrence stands in punt formation. That isn’t because he doubts Lawrence’s ability to kick the ball. It is because Lawrence is such a crafty runner that sometimes he decides to scrap the punt and take off up the field. That makes a coach’s heart jump, even though Lawrence hardly ever gets caught.

Saturday night Lawrence will play the final high school game of his career when the Tigers (13-0) take on Orange Glen (9-4) in the 3-A championship at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. Really, Lawrence and his teammates have less to gain than they do to lose. Few expect Orange Glen to win.

After the big game, there will be the college recruiters, the ones Shacklett diligently kept away from Lawrence until the season is over. These are the men who will use every ounce of persuasion they possess to put Lawrence in their school’s uniform. They will play a part in taking the kid out of Teddy Lawrence and helping him graduate to adulthood.

Lawrence has pared his choices down to six: UCLA, USC, Stanford, Washington, Michigan State and Notre Dame.

Stanford looks pretty good to him. Up to now, the Stanford coaches are the only ones he has met. Besides, Stanford is closer to home than Washington, Michigan State and Notre Dame, and it’s not in Los Angeles. Lawrence’s mom, Kathy, doesn’t like Los Angeles. It scares her, although she says it probably wouldn’t scare Teddy.

With the big decision ahead, and the big game Saturday, Lawrence should be feeling some extra weight on his shoulders.

But that’s what is odd. He is a high school senior, and he is worried about the same things that all other high school seniors are worried about. Football, in high school, college, or otherwise, is the least of his concerns. He knows how to play football.

It is the rest of growing up that makes him uncertain--leaving his friends, leaving Morse, leaving San Diego and leaving his mom.

“I’ve never been on my own, really,” he said. “I don’t know what to expect. I’m excited, but I’m also scared.”

Football should help. It doesn’t bother him that the class of competition will be so much higher.

“If anything, I feel more secure going out because I’ll have guys on the team that I can be around that can help me out,” he said. “If I was just going in as a regular student, I would be on my own and have to go out and basically do everything on my own.”

Lawrence isn’t easily rattled by anything that happens on the football field. If there was ever a time for that to happen, it would have been last weekend, when Morse trailed Chula Vista, 28-13, at halftime in the 3-A semifinal. Suddenly, the season looked as if it might be a week shorter than planned.

Sitting in the locker room, waiting to return to the field, Lawrence had to tell teammate after teammate that he was OK. Players kept approaching and urging him to settle down. That puzzled him.

“I wasn’t really worried,” he said. “Everybody else was worried about me. They thought I was going to break down in the second half. They didn’t think I was going to come through. Everybody was just coming over telling me to settle down, but I don’t know why. I didn’t feel any pressure or anything. I didn’t feel like I couldn’t come back in the second half and do better.”

He hadn’t done well in the first half, not by Teddy Lawrence standards. He made two errant pitches on option plays and had one pass intercepted. Maybe that’s why everybody was worried. It isn’t often that he makes mistakes.

Anyway, things were back to normal in the second half. Morse came back, tied the game, 28-28, and then Lawrence ran 44 yards for the winning touchdown.

Lawrence says he never gets nervous in difficult situations. A put-on? No, says Shacklett. As someone once said about Joe Montana, Lawrence is as cool as the other side of the pillow. The publicity doesn’t appear to faze him.

“I really don’t think he does get that affected by it,” Shacklett said. “I think, to be honest, Teddy prefers to keep a low profile. He’s very quiet, especially with people he’s not familiar with.”

Maybe that’s why he’s uncomfortable when his mom brags about him. One time, she was buying him a pair of cleats and the salesman asked him what team he plays for.

“Morse,” he said.

Then Kathy spoke up.

“This is Teddy Lawrence,” she said, the way a proud mom will say those things.

Teddy cringed, the way a son does when he is embarrassed by his mother.

“I was like, ‘Oh, don’t be doin’ this,’ ” he said. “I hate when she does that. She’s not humble like me.”

Other times, it’s hard to be humble. Shacklett has him run the scout team in practice so he doesn’t disrupt things. He can be a real clown.

Yet he can also be serious, such as when he plans for his future in college football. Lawrence, 5-feet-9, 175, has decided he will switch from quarterback to either defensive back or wide receiver. He wants to play a position that will help him get a crack at the NFL, and he doesn’t think quarterback will do that.

If you think he’s shy, put yourself in the place of a college recruiter and try telling him you want him to come to your school to play quarterback. He’ll tell you to forget it. That’s what he did to Notre Dame.

“He can be stubborn,” Shacklett said. “He is a very strong-willed person and he has a very strong self image. He knows what he wants to do.”

So when someone from Notre Dame called and said something like, “How about playing quarterback for us?” he gave his answer immediately.

“He said, ‘No,’ ” Shacklett said. “Right then. Boom. He’ll tell Notre Dame that. He’ll tell the Pope that. He’ll tell anybody.”

That is his tough side. The other side is the one his mom sees, the one who comes home from practice, goes straight to the refrigerator and says: “Hey mom, we ain’t got nothin’ to eat.”

He is still a high school kid.

He will be for one more game.