Gray Prepared Well for Strong Finish : UCLA: Cornerback overcame initial bout of homesickness and developed into big-play performer for Bruins.

UCLA cornerback Carlton Gray and quarterback Tommy Maddox were weightlifting partners as freshmen in 1989 because they were the weakest players on the Bruin football team.

“All the big guys would lift the heavy weights, but Tommy and I had to go down way in the corner of the weight room and lift our little rice together,” Gray said.

“It was like Tommy and I were two little kids on a farm and we had the real big brothers who could go lift the hay and help Dad out, and all Tommy and I could do was carry the tools around.”

A 6-foot-2 senior, Gray has added 11 pounds of muscle in the last year, bulking up to 194 pounds. He also has improved his bench press from just under 200 pounds to 315. And, Gray says, he has not lost any of his speed.

“I know I’m never going to be a real muscle man because I don’t have big bones,” Gray said. “But I can improve the strength in my joints and be able to gain strength in my upper body.”

Coach Terry Donahue said Gray has made great strides in the weight room.

“Carlton, when he first came here, wasn’t a physical player,” Donahue said. “He wouldn’t tackle. He was a good cover man and was athletically a gifted cornerback, but he wasn’t strong. He was very frail. He hadn’t spent enough time as a high school student in the weight room. But he’s stronger than he’s ever been.”

Gray has used his brain to compensate for his lack of muscle. A second-team Academic All-American, Gray has a 3.42 grade-point average in communications.

“He’s very, very bright, both academically and . . . in terms of football,” Donahue said. “And that helps him as a player because he has an ability to know that when a guy alters his split what the odds are of a certain pass route coming.”

Gray set a school record last season by intercepting 11 passes, most in the Pacific 10. He ranked second in the nation in interceptions, behind Terrell Buckley of Florida State, the fifth player selected in the 1992 NFL draft.

Gray might not get as many interceptions this season, which begins when the Bruins play Cal State Fullerton Saturday night at the Rose Bowl, because teams probably will throw away from him. “I think I’m still going to have a lot of opportunities, but I don’t think things are going to come as easy for me as they did last year,” Gray said.

A prep star in football and basketball at Forest Park High in Cincinnati, Gray initially announced that he was going to attend Miami.

But he decided to switch to UCLA because of its academic reputation and its tradition of outstanding defensive backs--Kenny Easley, Don Rogers, Eric Turner and others.

Then UCLA went 3-7-1 when Gray was a freshman and Miami won the national championship.

“That was rough for me,” Gray said. “In a way I was upset because the goal of anyone who plays football is to become a national champion. But then again, I might not have started and played as much as I did as a freshman if I’d gone to Miami.”

Away from home for the first time, Gray grew homesick in Westwood and considered transferring to Michigan to be closer to home.

“When he first got to UCLA, I talked to him an average of four and five times a week,” said Gray’s father, Carlos. “He was really unhappy being that far away from home and he wanted to come home. My feeling was if that’s what he wanted to do, then I’d support him. But I told him that he’d chosen UCLA for a reason and those had to be good reasons so that was reason enough for him to stay there.”

Gray became the first true freshman to start eight games on a Bruin defensive unit since cornerback Lupe Sanchez did it in 1979. Gray, who had moved into the starting lineup four games into the 1989 season, intercepted two passes, returning one 65 yards for a touchdown against Washington. In the season-finale against USC, he intercepted a pass, forced a fumble, broke up a pass and made six tackles.

Gray started 10 of 11 games as a sophomore, intercepting one pass, breaking up seven and making 36 tackles.

The grandson of Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP and the first black named to the Federal Communications Commission, Gray said his grandfather and father are his role models. “My father has been a real big help to me,” Gray said. “I know I’ve probably talked to him two or three times a week since I’ve been here. He’s always had the confidence in me, and that’s part of the reason I’ve been able to get the confidence in myself.”

A former TV advertising executive, Carlos Gray owns a 3,000-watt FM radio station in Vevay, Ind., on the Indiana-Kentucky border, not far from Cincinnati. Carlos Gray said he had to work hard to turn a money-losing radio station around.

“I’m the only black (radio station owner) in the whole county, and this area is the last place where one of the official Klan meetings was held in the state of Indiana,” he said. “Developing a business here was tough. Believe me, there have been times when I wished I could call home and say, ‘Listen, I’m ready to go,’ because it would have been nice to do that. But I stayed here and stuck it out, like Carlton did at UCLA.”

The senior Gray changed the station’s music format from country-western music to adult contemporary and oldies, and it now is showing a profit. Gray plans to sell it soon and buy a station in a larger market.

And Carlton Gray, who stuck it out at UCLA, also figures to move on to a larger market soon--the NFL.

(Orange County Edition, C7) Donahue Won’t Let Bruins Forget . . . The Citadel

UCLA Coach Terry Donahue, who never met an opponent that didn’t worry him, will mention The Citadel’s 10-3 season-opening upset victory over Arkansas to his team before the 16th-ranked Bruins’ season-opener against Cal State Fullerton Saturday night at the Rose Bowl.

“I think it (upsets) happens once or twice a season,” Donahue said. “I will mention that to our team and I’ll make sure that our team is aware of that only from the standpoint of, ‘Hey guys, if you’re not prepared this could happen.’

“And you’ve got to make sure that your team is trying to listen to you despite the public opinion that it’s a mismatch. The Fullerton guys don’t think it’s a mismatch, I promise you.”