Growing Up : Century Quarterback Tries to Set Good Example for His Son

“Ricky realized that he couldn’t just shine the world on. He wasn’t honest with other people, or with himself. He didn’t face responsibility. He went through that phase where he thought ‘Oh, it can’t happen to me.’ It did, and he paid society’s price.” --Bill Brown, Century football coach

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Ricky Odoardi tells his story over and over again to a captive audience of one.

His son.

He tells it the same way he did the other night at Century High’s football office. It’s not easy, just as it wasn’t the other night.

Eight-month-old Richard Odoardi is too young to understand what his father has been through in the last two years. At times, even his father doesn’t understand it.

Odoardi, a senior, starts at quarterback for Century, which plays host to Temple City in the first round of tonight’s Southern Section Division VIII playoffs.

He has run for 510 yards and passed for 421 this season, leading the Centurions to victories in five of their last six games, including four in a row. He’s a good student with a 3.0 grade-point average and is respected around campus.

It wasn’t always that way.

“Ricky was a snow king,” Brown said. “He used to try and get by on good looks and a smile. But nobody could trust him.”

Odoardi said he “hung out with the wrong crowd.” He skipped classes, flunked out of school and sat out his junior football season during a year in continuation school.

But his problems extended far beyond school. He stole cars, told lies, got caught and paid for it.

“I did a month,” he said. “I got caught in a stolen car. It was terrible, scary. They say you’re treated like a number in jail, and you are, even in juvenile hall.

“I did it because it was cool. My friends were doing it. It was an adrenaline rush. I was the big, bad guy around campus. I was the talk of the school.

“But now, I actually care what people think of me.”

Starting with his son.

“He’ll tell Richard everything,” said Melissa Pineda, Odoardi’s girlfriend of two years and the baby’s mother.

“He tells him about the mistakes he made, and that he’ll have to keep his grades up. He doesn’t want Richard to go through what he did. We’ve been through a lot together.”

Odoardi’s biography begins about the same as the others in the Century football program.

Nicknamed “Slick Rick” . . . likes Mexican food, rap music and Joe Montana. . . .

Nothing out of the ordinary, until you read further . . .

“Nothing has meant more to him than the birth of his son, Richard, and his love for Melissa.”

“He wants to thank all who helped him get his head straight.”

Odoardi, 18, talks openly about how he put his life together, and who helped him.

Part of the credit goes to Brown, who stuck by his player and gave him a second chance to play football.

In his five years at Century, Brown has watched several players leave for continuation school.

Some never returned. Odoardi did.

“Most coaches know if a kid has seen the light,” Brown said. “You set rules for them. With Ricky, it was the ‘Do Right’ rule. If he screwed up again, he was gone.”

Part of the credit also goes to Richard, whose birth Feb. 27 “was the happiest day of my life,” Odoardi said.

And part of the credit goes to the three women in Odoardi’s life: his mother, Debbie; grandmother, Joyce, and Melissa.

Odoardi grew up an only child in a single-parent family. His mother and father were divorced when he was 2.

“Although we were divorced, we still loved each other and we were trying to get back together,” Debbie said. “Ricky was excited. He was finally going to get his dad back.”

But his father was murdered in Boston shortly before his planned return to Southern California. Debbie said the loss devastated her son.

“That was when Ricky started to get into trouble,” she said.

Odoardi said he argued often with his mother, who tried to steer him away from trouble.

“It hurt my mom a lot,” Odoardi said. “She told me not to hang with the wrong people. But I didn’t listen to her. Still, she and my grandma pushed me to get straight.”

Odoardi’s problems began dur ing his sophomore year in 1990. He excelled on the football field, finishing with nearly 400 yards rushing for a 4-6 team. He looked forward to his junior year.

But after the season, Odoardi rarely went to class, and his grade-point average dropped to 1.2. He didn’t pass enough credit hours to stay at Century and was sent to Mountain View, a continuation school in Santa Ana.

School was no challenge, but stealing cars was. He stole some for joy rides with friends. Others he stole to sell for parts.

It was a carefree time, one that Odoardi insists didn’t involve gangs, drugs or alcohol. “It was immaturity,” he says now. “Back then, I just wanted to have fun.”

Melissa wanted it to stop.

“He never got in trouble for a lot of the things he did,” she said. “Everyone let him slide by.”

Until he got caught.

Police arrested Odoardi and three friends for joy riding in a stolen car during the spring of his sophomore year. He was convicted of grand theft auto and sentenced to three months in juvenile hall.

This gave Odoardi time to think. Melissa already was pregnant with Richard. What kind of role model was he going to be for his son?

“I thought a lot about how I messed up,” he said. “I knew I had to get back into school and get my credit hours. I wanted to see Coach Brown, to see if he would let me back on the football team.”

Authorities released Odoardi after a month because of good behavior. He spent another month under house arrest and a year on probation.

He spent his junior year with Melissa at Mountain View and watched from the sideline as Century finished 7-4 and made the playoffs for the first time.

Odoardi often left games in tears.

“He tried to picture himself being out there with all his buddies,” Melissa said. “He would get upset and start crying. He would tell me, ‘I’m over here (at Mountain View), I’m messing up. We’re having the baby . . .’ ”

Odoardi’s class attendance and grades improved at Mountain View, and he was eligible to return to high school. Last spring, he approached Brown about coming back to Century.

Brown always felt Odoardi had potential to be successful as a person as well as a football player. He knew Odoardi missed football.

Brown checked with Odoardi’s probation officer. He checked the student’s grades.

“I told him this was his last shot,” Brown said. “There were no more second chances.”

They shook hands, sealing the deal.

“Then he hugged me and told me he was glad I was back,” Odoardi said. “I told him I was glad to be back.”

Brown sees a different Ricky Odoardi walking the hallways at Century these days.

He sees a different Odoardi leading Century to upsets of Trabuco Hills and Laguna Hills.

In this instance, Brown thinks the education system served its purpose. It gave a student headed in the wrong direction a second chance. And because of that chance, Odoardi will go far in life, and set an example for others to follow, Brown said.

“Rick has a disarming personality and an engaging smile,” Brown said. “If he can harness that and channel it in the right direction, and not fall back into his devious ways, he will be very successful.”

Ricky and Melissa, a varsity song leader, plan to get married sometime after high school, when they have the money to live alone and support their son.

Both want to attend Rancho Santiago College, then move on to four-year colleges. Odoardi wants to study business and possibly own a business someday.

Their senior year hasn’t been easy. Melissa and Richard live with her parents, Ricky with his mom. Melissa and Ricky are juggling full class loads along with their extracurricular endeavors. They get support from both families, Odoardi said, to help them get by.

Odoardi plans to get a part-time job after football, either landscaping or helping with his mom’s housecleaning business. He wants a better life for Richard, and for Melissa.

During games, Odoardi doesn’t need to look far for reminders of who made his life better. Melissa’s on the sideline cheering, and Richard’s in the stands with his grandparents.

“I’m back at Century, playing football, and I have a healthy son,” Ricky said. “I have the 3.0 (grade-point average), and we’re going for the CIF (Southern Section) championship.

“Everything is going the way it should be, the way it should have been all along.”