This Second-Round Draft Selection Is Really a First-Rate Player : Raiders: Pass-rush specialist Aaron Wallace was irate when he wasn’t drafted higher, but now he is glad to be in L.A.

When Raider rookie Aaron Wallace recorded his ninth sack of the season last Saturday in Minnesota, his mind raced back to April, when he stormed out of his house in Dallas after being bypassed in the NFL draft’s first round. He headed for the border, car stereo blasting, in indignation. What border? What difference?

The Raiders, who took Wallace in the second round with the 37th pick, had to flag him down via car phone. The other choice was Highway Patrol.

Foolish child. Wallace was so much younger then. To think he made such a stink about a few pegs--OK, a lot of dollars--on a draft ladder. But what’s first-round draft money, really, if you have to spend it as a New England Patriot?

Seven months after Wallace carved out a new Chisholm Trail on the Texas landscape with his tire tracks, he has come to realize that there is life after draft day.

Listen to Wallace in late December:

“I can’t think of anyone else I’d like to play for at this point,” he said. “I would have done my best anywhere I went. When I found out I was in the second round, I was upset, but when I found out I was coming to the Raiders, everything didn’t seem so bad. It’s just the mystique. It’s hard to explain. I guess it’s Mr. Davis, Art Shell, the organization. I’m just really happy to be here.”

Wallace was flattered when owner Al Davis took an immediate interest in him during his first days at camp, when Wallace was still brooding over his draft selection--”I’d read and heard that I was going to be as high as a top-10 pick.”

Wallace said “Mr. Davis” made him feel as though he belonged. “He told me he thought I was going to be a great player,” Wallace said. “I had just got here and wasn’t too confident how good I could really be in the pros. One thing he always tells me: ‘Make me proud of you.’ I try to come out here and do it.”

Davis is unique, of course, in that he attends every Raider practice and isn’t afraid to offer on-the-field advice. Players who don’t call him “Mister” sometimes refer to him as “Coach.”

Wallace said he knew it was serious business when he walked into camp. “Football is their game, from what I can tell,” he said. “I mean, the man (Davis) doesn’t have to be out here. A lot of owners probably aren’t. But he’s out there every day offering his advice, telling you what to watch for.”

Wallace didn’t know what he was in for. The Raiders are on the brink of winning their first division title in five seasons, and Wallace is in the thick of it. His nine sacks are remarkable in that he’s only a part-time player, a so-called pass-rush specialist. Wallace calls himself “a-third-and-long guy.”

He’s rubbing elbows and learning the trade from such defensive line luminaries as Howie Long, Greg Townsend and Bob Golic, who marvel at Wallace’s speed and quickness at 6-feet-3 and 235 pounds. Long said Wallace can chase down anything with a heartbeat. They believe he’s only scratching the surface.

“I get in there and I want to do the things they do, like the rip techniques,” Wallace said. “But they say my biggest asset is speed. I guess they see something that I have, something that could be great, I guess, the way they act.”

With one game remaining, Wallace has a chance to join some elite company among pass rushers. The NFL record for sacks by a rookie is 12 1/2, set by San Diego’s Leslie O’Neal in 1986. The San Francisco 49ers’ Charles Haley had 12 sacks as a rookie in the same season.

“I had no idea what the record was,” Wallace said. “I had no idea I was that close.”

Wallace had three sacks in an exhibition game against the Chicago Bears last summer, so the record is not out of reach in Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Chargers at the Coliseum.

Raider Coach Art Shell said Wallace reminds him of a young Townsend, who burst upon the scene in 1983 with 10 1/2 sacks as a rookie. Townsend was considered a pass-rush specialist at first, too, but eventually developed into a menacing full-time player.

Wallace presently serves as Townsend’s backup. And heir apparent?

“Eventually, yeah,” Shell said. “He’s going to be a big man. He’s still young. By the time he’s finished, he’ll probably be a 250-pounder. When Greg Townsend got here, he was a 230-pounder.”

Townsend acknowledges some similarities between himself and Wallace but disavows others.

“Aaron is much faster than I was,” Townsend said. “Plus, he was picked higher, too (Townsend was a fourth-round choice). Aaron has raw talent, as I did as a rookie. I played on pure hustle, and some of the things I was just born with. By the same token, Aaron is unique. If you see him out there on the field, when he gets his sacks, he very seldom makes contact with the (blocker). I was all physical. Aaron is more finesse. I think he has a magnet, because when the quarterback gets close, he just jumps on the guy.”

Townsend and Wallace also share a disdain for being labeled one-dimensional players.

“I had this crazy attitude about being a pass-rush specialist,” Townsend said. “I hate that title.”

But Wallace was drafted strictly as a pass rusher, for now. In his Texas A&M; career, he recorded a school-record 42 sacks. His nickname has been “Sackman” since high school.

“Go back and check his college record,” Shell said. “The guy was a pass rusher. He was a sack guy. With the kind of speed he has, and the kind of quickness he has, there’s no doubt in our minds the guy will be a good pass rusher in this league.”