He Puts Irish Running Game in Good Hands : Sugar Bowl: Notre Dame’s Jerome Bettis hasn’t let injuries keep him from exceeding even his own expectations.

Nathan Uy, do you know where your red 10-speed bike is?

At the moment, it’s trying desperately to support 248-pound Notre Dame fullback Jerome Bettis, who borrows his roommate’s two-wheeler whenever duty calls. In this case, Bettis, the Irish’s leading rusher, has a cross-campus appointment with team trainers.

Watching Bettis pedal the bike, its tires smooshed nearly flat against the pavement, is a sight to behold. Uy would cringe if he saw man and machine-- his machine--working their way toward the Irish locker room in the school’s Convocation Center.

“Hey, (Uy) knows I’m taking care of it,” said Bettis, whose teammates call him Chocolate Thunder. “That’s because if it breaks down, I’ve got to walk. It’s my baby Benz.”

On this day, Bettis is getting treatment for an assortment of injuries, beginning with his hands, which look as if they have been slammed in a car door. They are the hands of a fullback.

During games, Bettis wears soft casts over his thumbs to ease the pain of battered tendons. He hurt both thumbs against Purdue last season and aggravated the injuries against Tennessee this year. As for his ring fingers, well, put it this way: Bettis’ mom, who never wanted him to play football in the first place, would swoon if she saw her baby’s mangled digits.

The fourth finger of his left hand is slightly swollen and the fingernail is hanging on for dear life, all courtesy of a collision with a USC helmet.

“I think it should be falling off, though,” Bettis said, glancing absently at the bloody mess.

The other ring finger is almost without a nail--again, thanks to a helmet smacking against it. This one happened in the Purdue game.

“It’s very small, so I just picked at it,” he said, explaining his peculiar medical methods.

So much for the hands. Against Stanford, he hurt his right wrist. It’s still puffy “and it hasn’t been right since,” he said.

Against Michigan State, Bettis was twisted and tackled in a way that injured a tendon stretching from hip to right knee. “It swelled up my whole leg,” he said.

Of course, there are happy endings to each of these injury stories. The Michigan State game? Bettis finished with 93 yards. Purdue? He scored twice. Stanford? Try 179 yards rushing and three touchdowns. USC? Trojan Coach Larry Smith won’t forget: 178 yards and two touchdowns. For that performance, Bettis earned a game ball.

On and on it goes--125 yards and two scores against Pittsburgh . . . two touchdowns against Air Force . . . a touchdown against Navy . . . 64 yards and a touchdown against Tennessee . . . a score against Penn State . . . two touchdowns against Hawaii--until even Bettis acknowledges that it has been a season to remember. Still left is a Sugar Bowl appointment against No. 3-ranked Florida.

“Coming in, I wasn’t expecting to do that well,” he said. “I thought (the coaches) would put more emphasis on the other guys.”

They did. A year ago, Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz emphasized the immediate need to find a place for Bettis in the starting lineup. Beginning in spring practice, Bettis found himself the No. 1 fullback and Rodney Culver, the previous starter, was moved to halfback. So much for the other guys.

Bettis thanked the coaches by rushing for 20 touchdowns, a Notre Dame single-season record. He was fourth in the nation in scoring. He gained 972 yards and averaged 5.8 per carry. His teammates selected him and quarterback Rick Mirer as co-MVPs.

Bettis was grateful. Holtz was stunned.

“I never had any doubts that Jerome would be good, but I’ve got to be honest with you--he’s better than I thought he would be and he’s a complete football player,” Holtz said. “I had no idea when we recruited him, he was as good a fullback as he is.”

Bettis isn’t slow, but then again, no one gasps at the stopwatches after he completes the 40-yard dash. He runs fast enough to leave linemen and linebackers grasping at air and slow enough to allow defensive backs to carom off his body.

“He’s not a real spectacular individual,” Holtz said. “You watch him run and you don’t think he’s that good. But then you watch him do it over and over again. . . . “

Holtz ought to consider himself lucky. If Gladys Bettis had had anything to do with it, Jerome never would have worn pads and helmet. She didn’t like football, thought it was too dangerous.

She tried steering her youngest son to something more passive--such as bowling. That way, she reasoned, the only things that could get hurt were the pins.

So Bettis bowled. At one point, he pushed his average to 176. But what’s more fun, converting the 5-10 split or converting on fourth and goal from the one-yard line? Bettis, much to the disappointment of his concerned mom, chose football.

To help ease his mother’s worries, Bettis did what he could. If, during one of his Mackenzie High games in Detroit, he took a particularly hard hit, Bettis stood and gave his mom a thumbs-up sign. He did the same after a long run or long drive, the better to show that he was breathing OK. After all, he does have asthma.

Bettis’ parents have always been protective that way. When he was growing up on the tough west side of Detroit, his mom and dad insisted that Bettis do his homework before going out to play.

“That would give you about an hour and a half before the street lights came on,” Bettis said. “When the street lights came on, we had to go back in.”

That’s because there are better places to be than on Detroit’s west side after dark. Drugs, crime . . . you name it, Bettis said, and it was there.

“I’m just thankful I was able to do what I had to do to get out of there,” he added.

He got out by vowing to become the top-rated high school player in Michigan. Corny as it might sound, he made that promise one day at Mackenzie when offensive lineman Matthew Amacker was named the No. 1 player in the state. On the day Amacker signed with Michigan State, Bettis watched the ceremony with fascination.

“They were opening the doors for him, there were cameras on him and I’m thinking, “Hmm, well, OK.’ So once all those people left, I went up to him and said, ‘I’m going to be the No. 1 player in the state.’ ”

Amacker, two years Bettis’ senior, simply grunted with amusement.

“Yeah, sure, OK,” he said.

Two seasons later, after lifting weights in solitude, after increasing his leg strength by pushing cars up driveways, after gaining 1,355 yards and scoring 14 touchdowns that final season at Mackenzie, Bettis got what he wanted. Today, you can find the trophy back home. It reads, “Top Prospect.”

Bettis was no less dedicated when it came time to choose a college. He made the allowed visits and finally whittled his choices to nearby Michigan and Notre Dame. One day he would favor the Irish. The next he would envision himself in a Wolverine uniform. Back and forth it went until he could take it no more.

“My dad had bought me a Michigan hat and a Notre Dame hat,” Bettis said. “He told me, ‘Sleep on it. It will come to you.’ ”

The next morning, Bettis awoke, walked toward the dresser and the two caps, and put the Irish cap on his head.

“Something just told me to take that Notre Dame hat,” he said. “Then I looked in the mirror and that was that.”

A star he wasn’t during his freshman season at Notre Dame. By year’s end, he had 15 carries for 115 yards and one touchdown. Truth is, he never had a chance. Bettis hurt his leg in a Michigan high school all-star game, didn’t take part in Notre Dame’s fall two-a-day practices and was later assigned to special teams duty.

“It took a long time for me to come back from that,” he said. “For me not to be able to practice, it’s like they scratch your name out.”

This year would be different, he vowed--and you know what that means. Bettis jotted his goals on paper: at least 700 yards rushing . . . lead the team in rushing . . . catch at least 250 yards’ worth of passes . . . be consistent . . . earn at least second-team All-American honors . . . have a 2.8 grade-point average or better.

Oddly enough, Bettis forgot to include touchdowns rushing. As it turns out, it became his claim to fame and the main reason he was named to several second-team all-star lists.

What next? Well, Bettis hasn’t penciled in those numbers yet. For the moment, he enjoys a season in which everything, except his hopes of a Notre Dame national championship, went as planned. All in all, a year to cherish.

Now then, if he can just save enough money to buy his own bike.