Maddox Refuses to Look Back : Football: Leaving UCLA for the NFL draft is history. Ahead lies an uncertain future.

As bachelor parties go, this one was pretty tame.

The groom-to-be, former UCLA quarterback Tommy Maddox, and about a dozen of his friends gathered last month in the gym at L.D. Bell High in Hurst, Tex., and engaged in an evening of basketball and hockey.

“We were going to play kickball, but we never got around to it,” said Mel Fuller, one of Maddox’s friends. “That’s just Tommy.”

Just your average kid who wants to play kickball one day and be a quarterback in the NFL the next.

Three months after announcing he was leaving UCLA with two seasons of eligibility remaining, a move he attributed simply to a “gut feeling,” Maddox has arrived at his judgment day, Sunday’s start of the NFL draft.

If he is drafted in the first round--as his agent, Leigh Steinberg, predicts he will be--he will have won a measure of vindication, perhaps muting the criticism of his decision to leave school early.

However, if he is picked in one of the later rounds, as conventional wisdom suggests, the chorus will start again: “We told you so.”

Given the comments coming out of draft rooms around the NFL, Maddox may want to cover his ears. The consensus seems to be that he is, at best, a second-round pick.

“We studied him, and I’ve studied him on film since he declared (his intention to enter the draft),” said Bill Tobin, vice president of player personnel for the Chicago Bears. “And I’m telling you I don’t think he’s ready for our league yet. Maturity-wise. Stability-wise. He would improve more playing for UCLA than he would sitting on some NFL bench.”

ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper has gone so far as to rate Maddox as only the fourth-best quarterback in the draft, behind David Klingler of Houston, Mike Pawlawski of California and Matt Blundin of Virginia.

According to Kiper, Maddox is “a major gamble if selected in the first two to three rounds of the draft.”

The drumbeat began as soon as Maddox announced on Jan. 31 that he would not return to UCLA for what would have been his red-shirt junior season. It grew louder when Maddox, citing a lack of preparation, chose at the last minute not to attend the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis Feb. 8.

Of Maddox’s decision to skip the combine, Tobin said: “Not very good planning on his part, was it? He should have been there. He would have helped himself. If you’re going to (enter the draft early), step up and measure yourself with the other boys.”

According to Steinberg, 22 teams have sent representatives to watch Maddox in workouts at West Los Angeles College. Several teams--including the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Giants, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Raiders--have given him more than one look.

Scouts have found several things to like about Maddox, including his feel for the game and 6-foot-4 frame.

But they also have seen a downside--relatively small hands, physical immaturity, a lack of arm strength.

One NFL scout, quoted anonymously in the Dallas Morning News, said: “This kid is not even close. It’s sad. His ball was all over the place. He has real small hands, and the ball has to be thrown just right or it comes off funny. He is big, but he’s not a very good athlete. He lumbers. . . . You make him improvise and he’s lost. He’s not ready at all. And I’m not sure he ever will be.”

Even if Maddox is selected late in the first round, a possible best-case scenario, he will make far less money than he stood to make had he waited and become, as many projected, an early first-round pick in either the 1993 or ’94 drafts.

“What’s the spread? Millions of dollars,” Steinberg said.

“But let me say something else. There’s enormous attrition in the NFL in terms of quarterbacks now. Colleges are not producing them at a rapid enough rate. So you’ve got a severe shortage. NFL teams are finding that, to make it through the season, you have to have depth. Second- and third-team quarterbacks are representing their teams in the playoffs. . . . “The feedback I get is that eventually he’s going to be a great quarterback, and when teams have a chance to meet him and be with him, they see he’s really a good person and has the potential to be strong for them.”

If nothing else, Maddox has proved he has thick skin.

“Tommy knew going in that people would criticize him, but he hasn’t changed his mind a bit,” said Chris Shabay, who grew up with Maddox in Texas and remains one of his closest friends. “Tommy’s having a good time. This is all a new experience for Tommy.

“People will say it wasn’t smart for him to get in the draft, but I don’t think Tommy has a doubt.”

Looking back at his decision to leave UCLA, Maddox readily admits he went against the advice of just about everyone concerned, including his father, Wayne Maddox.

An insurance company executive who relocated his family from Texas to Los Angeles last summer, the elder Maddox had contacted several NFL team executives to assess his son’s draft prospects.

“I sat there the night before my press conference, and I asked my dad what he honestly thought,” Tommy said. “My dad said, ‘I think you should go back to school.’ I mean, here’s the guy you respect more than anyone telling you this, and you’re sitting there and in your gut thinking, ‘I don’t want to. I want to go into the pros.’

“Why I thought so strongly about that, I don’t know. Maybe it was because I wanted to play in the NFL so badly, and it was finally there for me. . . .

“Everything was kind of laying itself out. There were some positives. There were some negatives. And once I got to the point where I felt like those things were even, I had to decide what was more important for me. I had to decide whether I wanted to go back to school and try to win a national championship and the Heisman Trophy, or whether I wanted to get into the NFL and try to develop as a quarterback as fast as I could.

“As crazy as it sounds--and people say, ‘You can’t honestly believe this’--getting in (the NFL) and trying to develop and learn a (team’s) system sounded and felt better to me than going through another year of college.

“That’s just the feeling I had, and that’s the feeling I still have. I understand that people are sitting there saying, ‘There has got to be something else (involved in his thinking).’ But that’s about how it went.”

UCLA Coach Terry Donahue even brought in reinforcements, calling on Dallas Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman to try to persuade Maddox to stay in school. Aikman’s presence with the Bruins at the 1989 Cotton Bowl played a large role in Maddox’s decision to attend UCLA.

Aikman made the call for Donahue but got nowhere with Maddox.

Donahue later said he would not “pass judgment” on Maddox’s decision to leave UCLA. “It’s my job to sit in support,” he said.

Said Steinberg: “Stereotypically, who is more likely to stay in school and be the heart of a program than the good-looking, all-America quarterback? But the reality I had to accept with Tommy was that the yearning to be the Heisman Trophy winner and so forth was missing. It just wasn’t there.”

Defying logic as it does, however, Maddox’s decision has caused some to search for other explanations.

Tim Edwards, Maddox’s former coach at L.D. Bell High, said it is his understanding that Maddox may have decided to enter the draft after learning through intermediaries that the Chiefs, in need of a quarterback for the future, were willing to take him with the 20th pick in the first round.

Edwards said he conveyed that information to a UCLA assistant coach several weeks before Maddox made his announcement. Edwards said that the UCLA coach, whom he declined to identify, indicated to him that UCLA had already heard the story.

“I don’t think Tommy has made a bad decision if what I’m hearing is true,” Edwards said. “I’m telling you I think there was a deal ‘done’ before he ever got in there (among underclassmen entering the draft). I’m talking about a high-dollar deal.”

Not true, Maddox said. In fact, he said, Kansas City General Manager Carl Peterson, a UCLA graduate and former Bruin assistant coach, advised him to stay in school.

“It’s amazing,” Maddox said sarcastically. “I mean, I’m sure the Chiefs, without even looking at me, are going to promise me something like that.”

Peterson did not respond to a request for an interview this week.

In any event, if comments Peterson made during a conversation with Kansas City reporters last week are any indication, his interest in Maddox as a first-round pick has waned.

“I would be very reluctant to take Tommy Maddox with our first choice,” he said. “I honestly don’t think he merits that. After looking at him sideways, upside down and every way else, I think he’s going to be a fine football player in this league. But he’s 20 years old and played just two years of college football. I wouldn’t feel real secure putting this franchise in the hands of Tommy Maddox.”

Maddox acknowledged that he also has had to deal with talk that he was forced into entering the draft for personal reasons, one being his family’s financial condition. Another amazing story, he said.

“We’ve heard everything--from my father being on the street to my wife being pregnant,” he said. “None of it is true.”

According to court records in Tarrant (Tex.) County, Wayne Maddox was sued twice in 1990 by Ft. Worth-area banks claiming he defaulted on loans totaling $25,000. At the same time, Tarrant County records show, the Internal Revenue Service, seeking unpaid income tax, placed a lien of $9,255 against property he owned in Hurst, a Ft. Worth suburb.

Both banks dropped the suits last year before obtaining judgments against the elder Maddox. The tax lien was released last May.

Speaking for himself and his wife, Glynda, Wayne Maddox said: “We don’t have a thing to do with Tommy going (into the draft). Yeah, the IRS had a lien (placed against his property), and we paid it off. Everything is rocking along as smoothly as could be for me. Everybody has times when they have excessive income. We sold two houses and a business. That’s all behind us.”

As for the criticism of his son’s decision, Wayne Maddox said: “Tommy has a lot more character than the people saying things about him.”

Through it all, Tommy Maddox has indeed shown considerable poise.

“There are 28 teams in the NFL, and one of them hopefully is going to like me and pick me,” he said. “That’s all that matters. If things work out, that’s great. If they don’t, then, you know, let’s go fishing. I’m not the type of guy who’s going to jump off a bridge. I’m very stable. I have a lot of confidence in myself.

“There are always going to be critics. I could win a Super Bowl, and there would be people saying, ‘He came out too early. He wasn’t ready. He’s still not ready.’ There are always going to be those people out there, and you can’t let them get to you.”

Never one to work overtime in the weight room, Maddox has changed his ways, hitting the weights regularly. He has increased his weight to 205 pounds, 10 more than last season at UCLA. He has set his sights on 215, a weight he feels will allow him to withstand an NFL-style pounding.

Free from the academic obligations of school, he also has squeezed in some good times, including a trip to Las Vegas with friends the week before his wedding to high school sweetheart Jennifer O’Dell in March.

Recalling the trip, Chris Shabay said: “We sat at the blackjack tables two straight days. We didn’t take showers for two straight days. Didn’t even brush our teeth.”

According to Shabay, he and Maddox also lost all their money--$300 each.

Perhaps the draft will reveal that Maddox made a foolish wager by leaving UCLA when he did. But his road has been chosen. There will be, he said, no looking back.

“It’s funny,” he said. “When I made my decision, I was kind of worried about the next week, about what I would think. But I’ve never looked back at all. Ever since I made my decision, I’ve felt like I’ve made the right one.”