SAN DIEGO YEAR IN REVIEW : THE TOP 10 SPORTS STORIES : 1 : THE MARSHALL PLAN

San Diego’s newest Faulk hero--er, folk hero--arrived wrapped in a red and black uniform on the night of

Sept. 14. A freshman from New Orleans who figured to redshirt this season, Marshall Faulk entered San Diego State’s game against Pacific with about four minutes remaining in the first quarter after starter T.C. Wright suffered a thigh bruise.

It was kind of like introducing Arnold Schwarzenegger three-quarters of the way through a movie. Terminators deserve an earlier entrance.

Faulk set an NCAA single-game record that night with 386 yards--it’s since been surpassed--and he scored seven touchdowns. Afterward, he said he didn’t get the sense that anything special was happening until after his third touchdown.

“I was like, ‘Golly, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen much to freshmen,’ ” Faulk said. “I guess all you do is dream of stuff like this. Tonight, it just happened to come true.”

The thing was, the improbable kept coming true. He gained 114 yards the next week against Air Force . . . 212 two weeks later against Hawaii . . . and by season’s end, he was shaking hands with Bob Hope as the first SDSU player--and only the third freshman--ever selected a first-team Associated Press All-American.

He is the first freshman ever to lead the NCAA in rushing or scoring, and he did both at 158.8 yards rushing per game and 15.56 points per game. Despite missing 3 1/2 games with two fractured ribs and a punctured lung, his 1,429 rushing yards were the third-highest freshman total in NCAA history--behind Herschel Walker and Tony Dorsett.

The man who received one small paragraph in SDSU’s football media guide was the cover boy for the school’s Freedom Bowl media guide. Inside, one entire page was devoted to Faulk.

And what once seemed like a forbidden fruit to SDSU--a Heisman Trophy winner--now seems within reach.