Dice on a Roll : Alemany Standout Hears the Calls as Colleges Try Their Luck

Dead air crops up repeatedly in telephone conversations with Alemany High receiver Richard Dice, as though strategic words have been edited out by a cosmic censor. Words disappear in mid-sentence.

Everyone knows that there are no blank spots on a pair of dice, but there are plenty in a phone pairing with Dice. A sample:

Rich, so you clocked 4.5 seconds in the 40-yard sprint at the Washington summer camp, eh?

“Yeah, I . . . few 4.55s and a 4.52,” Dice said. “They didn’t . . . could run it that fast. They thought . . . more like a solid 4.6. Uh, hang on a second.”

There goes another caller beeping through on Dice’s second phone line. Dice implored his mother to have call-waiting installed a few years ago, figuring there soon would be days like this. If not weeks.

Recently, in a span of 15 minutes, Dice was interrupted four times by outside callers, two of whom were NCAA Division I football recruiters.

At this very moment, a college coach probably is picking up the receiver with the goal of picking up a receiver. In this case, one named Dice, who is perhaps the most coveted college prospect in the region.

Teammates call him the Diceman, but Mailman is more like it. Dice said his home “looks like a mail room,” as coaches--who know that Dice can deliver--bury him under an avalanche of letters.

Dice (6-foot-3, 205 pounds) estimates that he receives two or three recruiting calls nightly. Since each college is allowed to contact a prospective player only once a week, the volume of calls paints a graphic picture of how many schools are interested in Dice.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again--he’s the best athlete I’ve had,” said Coach Pat Blackburn, who is entering his 11th season as a high school coach and fourth at Alemany.

Dice, who averaged 19.4 points and 11.4 rebounds last season as a center-forward on the basketball team, will have the opportunity to prove Blackburn correct beginning at 7:30 tonight, when Alemany opens its season against Servite at Gahr High.

For each of his first two seasons, Dice played tight end. Last year he emerged as a game-breaking threat, catching 50 passes for 818 yards in just nine games, despite drawing consistent double coverage.

Over the summer, Dice was moved to wide receiver. Playing that position, he is expected to get his hands on the ball more often. Along with tailback Terry Barnum, who rushed for 1,158 yards last year and already has committed to play at USC, Dice gives Alemany an air-to-ground attack.

In fact, the ball could find its way into the hands of either Barnum and Dice scant seconds after the opening whistle; the pair are the deep receivers on Alemany’s kickoff return team.

“You put your best two athletes back there,” Blackburn said. “And they’re our best guys.”

Of that there is little doubt, especially in light of Dice’s big-play propensity. During intrasquad practice this week, a play was called with the ball at the 20-yard line. Dice lined up wide right and was thrown a quick pass in the flat. He jumped, caught the ball with one hand, broke two tackles and sped down the right sideline with a pack of defenders in his rear-view mirror. Cutting back all the way to the left sideline, he again shifted gears and headed toward the middle of the field. After a 70-yard gain that must have measured at least 100 yards in actual distance, he was dragged down by a half-dozen dogged defenders at the 10.

Dice went coast to coast, almost. Blackburn turned toward a group of bystanders and flashed the first of what surely will be many ear-to-ear smiles.

Dice has been selected to several preseason All-American lists by publishers of national high school scouting publications and is held in such high esteem that he is considered among the best in the nation at wide receiver, even though he has not officially played the position.

Max Emfinger, who writes a Houston-based recruiting newsletter, considers Dice the top receiver in the state. In fact, ask Emfinger to examine his chart on Dice’s biographical and physical attributes and the accolades fly.

“I would say that if he has four good years in the right kind of college, with that kind of height, weight, speed and ability, he might be a top draft choice in the NFL,” said Emfinger, who has never seen game film of Dice but said the player is routinely praised by college recruiters.

Blackburn said Dice’s conversion to wide receiver is designed to “spread the defense” or move defenders off the line of scrimmage and away from Barnum. Dice predicted the defenses will quickly become spread-eagled.

“If teams double-team me, we’ll just run Terry the other way,” Dice said. “And believe me, it’s six. We’ve got a very balanced attack.”

OK, enough with balance. When Dice goes one on one with a defensive back, it’s going to be a mismatch. Very few members of the secondary, often the domain of smaller players, can look Dice in the eye. And even if they can, a heartbeat later, they’ll be looking at the eyes of his shoelaces.

Dice’s three-step vertical leap isn’t measured in inches but in yards. At 37 inches, Dice can out-sky just about anything in pads. And he has.

Last season, Alemany trailed league foe St. Bernard by two points with under a minute remaining. On third and eight from the St. Bernard 30-yard line, Alemany quarterback Adam Romandi threw the ball high in the air toward Dice, who outleaped two defenders and pulled in the ball.

“They all jumped at the same time, but their guys smacked into each other and got knocked down,” Blackburn said. “Dice walked into the end zone.”

Dice had rolled another seven, giving the Indians a 30-25 victory. It was his 12th reception of the game. Everyone in the house knew Dice was going to get the ball, and still he was unstoppable.

The play was no aberration: Romandi threw 13 touchdown passes in 1990, 10 to Dice.

“He’s the kind of player who’s capable of changing a game real fast,” Crespi Coach Tim Lins said.

If not changing defensive game plans. Blackburn predicted that it will be difficult to corner Dice with just any defensive back.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of teams put their best athlete at the corner just for one game,” Blackburn said.

Dice welcomes the challenge of his new position.

“What I like best about being a receiver is going against people half my size,” Dice said. “Then again, a lot of them are just as quick as me. It should be different.”

One constant will be the recruiting. Dice may be receiving mail and phone calls by the dozen, but he has a few scholastic hurdles left to clear. Dice said he recently scored 620 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test--80 points shy of the NCAA-required minimum to play as a Division I freshman under the guidelines of Proposition 48--but he plans to take the test again at midseason.

“It’s been rough, what with the attention we’ve been getting,” he said. “There have been a lot of distractions.”

For second and third parties too. The telltale gap that appears in another of Dice’s sentences indicates that yet another recruiter is ringing through, this one from Colorado.

Others schools making headway are Washington, UCLA and Miami, the latter a late but intriguing entry. “I’m keeping the door open,” Dice said.

Phone lines are another matter. All of the recruiters, of course, are looking for a “yes” from Dice. More than likely, they will hear him utter, “Hang on a second, I have another call.”

Good luck, gents.

Dice is difficult to get a line on.