His Biggest Victory Will Come Off the Field : College football: Crespi High’s Russell White tackles dyslexia at Cal and now is on pace to graduate in May.

It is difficult to imagine a better day for Russell White than last Nov. 2, when he ran for 229 yards and three touchdowns during a 52-30 victory over USC.

But White said one is coming.

And the sometimes outspoken California tailback wasn’t talking about Saturday’s rematch between Cal and USC at the Coliseum.

One day next May, White will don cap and gown, walk onto a stage at Cal’s Zellerbach Hall and pick up a bachelor of arts degree in social welfare from one of the nation’s foremost universities.

“That’s going to be the best day of my life,” White said.

It will also be one that many believed would never come.

White was considered by many to be almost a sure bet to fail at Cal after he was unable to score 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the NCAA minimum for freshman eligibility, during his senior year at Crespi High in Encino.

His admission to Cal in 1989 touched off an outcry not only from rival recruiters but from Cal alumni, who argued that the school’s academic standards were being sacrificed in the interest of athletics.

“I got letters from a number of people who said, ‘I couldn’t get my daughter into school,’ or ‘I couldn’t get my son into school. Why did Russell White get into school?’ ” said Dave Maggard, former Cal athletic director who is now athletic director at Miami. “We took a lot of heat on that one.”

So did White.

“I felt a lot of pressure because I knew that a lot of people were waiting for me to mess up,” he said.

Said Maggard: “He was such a celebrated recruit that I think everybody on the campus knew the circumstances. Russell had to prove himself on a day-to-day basis. He came in with a tremendous stigma, but he was willing to do all of the things that were required of him.”

And more.

White, 21, has prospered beyond even the great expectations of Maggard and former Cal Coach Bruce Snyder, and not only on the field, where he has established himself as perhaps the nation’s top senior running back.

Found to have dyslexia, a learning disability, soon after he arrived at Cal, White will graduate in four years from a university that ranks among the nation’s top 20, according to a report last month in U.S. News and World Report.

Because he was academically ineligible, White could not play, practice or attend team meetings as a freshman.

After his dyslexia was diagnosed, though, he dived into his academic curriculum with a new zeal, encouraged in his pursuit by Jo Baker, director of Cal’s Athletic Studies Center.

“You’ve got to have some people there who care about you, and Jo Baker saw the motivation in me and knew that I wanted to do right,” White said. “She just felt that I needed a push. It’s like gas starting the engine.

“That’s how I would describe Jo: a little gas in my engine.”

Baker said that her role has been exaggerated.

“You never want to give a young black man credit for what he’s done,” Baker said. “It’s just traditional in our society. So the first thing, when he makes it, I get phone calls: ‘Congratulations, Jo. ‘ It’s just embarrassing. And pathetic. No one wants to believe that a young man decided he was willing to face his deficiencies and get a degree.

“When (people) hear about it, (they say), ‘Gosh, what did Cal do?’ That’s such a joke. It should be, ‘How did Russell do it? How did he find the motivation within himself? How did he face his weaknesses and not lose so much self-esteem that he couldn’t pull himself out? How did he resist the temptation just to go to a JC?’

“Those should be the questions.”

And the answer? “I don’t know,” Baker said. “I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that he has some kind of inner strength to show everybody they’re wrong.”

Exactly right, White said.

“Whenever I’m doubted, I set a goal to prove people wrong,” he said. “I had to really go down and dig deep. My mother taught me never to give up. A couple of times I might have thought, ‘Maybe I should have gone my way, gone somewhere else,’ but I knew my mother didn’t raise a quitter. I knew I had to stick it out.”

Despite his devotion to academics, White’s football success hasn’t diminished:

--With White in the lineup, Cal has won bowl games at the end of each of the last two seasons.

Before 1990, the Golden Bears hadn’t had a winning season since 1982 and hadn’t won a bowl game since Jan. 1, 1938.

--The No. 1 rusher in the Pacific 10 Conference this season with an average of 121 yards, White is on pace to join former USC tailbacks Anthony Davis and Charles White, Russell’s uncle, as the only Pac-10 players with three consecutive 1,000-yard rushing seasons.

--Cal’s all-time leader in all-purpose yardage--he is third in the Pac-10 this season--White needs only 150 yards to replace Chuck Muncie as the school’s all-time rushing leader.

--Mel Kiper Jr., ESPN draft analyst, said that White is one of the top six players in college football. He called him the No. 2 running back behind San Diego State sophomore Marshall Faulk.

White, who ran for 5,998 yards and 94 touchdowns at Crespi, has been especially troublesome for USC and UCLA, rushing for an average of 128.8 yards and scoring six touchdowns.

His 229 yards rushing against USC last season was a record for a Trojan opponent. And Cal’s 52 points were the most ever scored against the Trojans.

Cal, which had won only one of its last 24 games against USC and UCLA before 1990, is 3-0-1 against the Trojans and Bruins since White became eligible two years ago.

White, it was speculated, would leave Cal after last season to make himself available for the NFL draft, but White said he always planned to return.

“I had unfinished business,” he said of his pursuit of a degree.

After the fall semester, he will be only about 15 units short. He is carrying a 2.6 grade-point average and might pursue a master’s degree.

White still remembers those who questioned his choice of Cal.

Cal doesn’t have a great team, they told him. And the academic load at Cal will be too difficult for him to handle.

So why did he go there?

“I felt (it) had the right tools to make me a part of society,” he said. “I knew that I was lacking something because I was just not like the ordinary student. There was something wrong with me.

“I didn’t know what the problem was, or what the name of the problem was, but I knew that I was just not the same. And I felt that if I went to the best academic institution I could get into, I’d find it.”

And conquer it.