Turn . . . and He’s Gone : How Fast Is USC’s Conway? The Junior Receiver Might Be So Quick He Leaves the Trojans for the NFL Next Season

Curtis Conway ran with a gang during junior high school, never backing down from a fight.

“I always had a bad temper, and it was to the point where we would fight almost every day,” said Conway, who was born and raised near the intersection of 56th Street and Central Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles. “I was never really involved as far as writing my name on a wall. I was more into sports than into the gang, but all I knew was gang members because that’s where I lived, so they were my friends.

“When it came to fighting, I was always there. I was never one to say, ‘Well, I’m into sports, I can’t be fighting.’ I was always (saying), ‘Let’s go get ‘em.’ ”

Many of Conway’s former companions are dead, in jail, or “just hanging out,” he said.

Conway chose a different route after junior high.

One of the nation’s leaders in all-purpose yardage, he is the top receiver, kickoff returner, punt returner and scorer on a USC team that is 6-3-1 and, after playing Notre Dame on Saturday night at the Coliseum, apparently headed to the Freedom Bowl.

It is said that, if he gives up his final year of eligibility, he will be among the first players picked in the NFL draft next spring.

If he stays at USC, he’ll be a Heisman Trophy candidate.

The reluctant gang member--”I was too scared to steal,” he said--has made a better life for himself, but it hasn’t been easy.

*

Conway’s mother, the former Anita Kidd, was 15, a sophomore at Fremont High, when she gave birth to her only child.

“I had just started high school when I got pregnant,” she said. “I’ll be the first one to admit that I was a little faster than the rest of the girls my age.

“But it was a great learning experience. I wouldn’t trade it for nothing in the world. I don’t regret one day of it. The teen-age years that I didn’t have, I had Curtis to fill (them). I didn’t miss anything.

“The first three years of Curtis’ life, I was a little skeptical about if I would be a good mother, if I would do the right things, but I can pat myself on the back and say I got a Class-A kid.”

Anita’s boyfriend, John Conway, was eight years older, a former B and C school-record holder in the 100-yard dash at Pasadena High and outstanding athlete on the Bulldogs’ B team during his senior year in 1967.

John and Anita were married in 1975, four years after Curtis’ birth, but they separated after about 2 1/2 years. Curtis was raised by his mother and his grandmother, Jurldine Kidd.

John, though, continued to see his son frequently until 1983, when he died of cancer.

“Curtis doesn’t show his emotions too much, but I think it’s affecting him more now than it did then,” Anita said of John’s death. “He was in sports, so he had a lot of male figures to kind of pull him through it. So, I didn’t see him too emotional about it, but now . . .

“I remember one Father’s Day. He looked sad and I asked him what was wrong and he said, ‘I never really had a chance to spend Father’s Day with my father.’ ”

Said Conway: “I think it’s more rough on me now than it was when I was little because I was so used to my grandmother (acting as a parent). When I did see him, it wasn’t like I spent a lot of time with him. It would just be for that day.

“I mean, it hurt (when he died), but now it hurts (more) because I wish he was here to see the stuff I’m doing.”

Conway said that he frequently visits his father’s grave.

“Most of the time, it’s when I’m in a bind or feel confused about something, or down,” he said. “I’ll go down there and just sit there and talk to him.”

Introduced to football while playing with older kids in the street in front of his grandmother’s house, Conway took a liking to the sport immediately.

“From the time that kid was able to hold the ball, that’s all he ever did was play football,” his mother said. “I remember he got his car stolen (a few years ago) and the football that was in the car was one of the ones he had when he was little. I can remember him saying to me, ‘Mom, they got the ball.’ It was like the car didn’t mean anything to him.”

After signing up for a youth league, Conway was an immediate success. His mother’s scrapbook includes newspaper clippings that detail long touchdown runs by Curtis Conway, 8-year-old star of the Inglewood Mohawks.

By the time he was ready to go to high school, Conway realized that his future was elsewhere and that he’d probably be better off leaving the neighborhood.

Criminal activity had escalated, and he wanted no part of it.

“There were a lot of times I could have gone out and stolen cars with the gang members, written on walls and broken into stores, but that wasn’t my choice,” he said.

Conway fought, he said, “because these were my friends and I wasn’t going to sit there and let them get beat up.”

But he wanted to go to high school outside South-Central.

His mother suggested he go to Banning, but Conway didn’t want to ride a bus to Wilmington every day. He wanted to go to Hawthorne, where some of friends from youth football had gone, so his mother moved.

And as Conway’s sports activities increased, his gang activities decreased.

“In high school, I never really had time to really get involved in hanging out too much,” said Conway, who was back living at his grandmother’s house before he left high school and continues to live with her as a USC junior.

Conway was a football All-American as a quarterback and a state sprint champion at Hawthorne, where he ran or passed for 62 of the Cougars’ 82 touchdowns in his last two seasons.

UCLA Coach Terry Donahue called him the best high school player he had ever seen.

Conway, though, signed with USC before visiting any other schools. But when it took him about a year and five attempts to score the NCAA minimum for freshman eligibility on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, he considered going elsewhere.

Newspaper coverage of his failed attempts embarrassed him, he said.

“I was thinking, everybody thinks Curtis Conway is dumb.”

He went to Nebraska, stood in line waiting to enroll and then changed his mind at the last minute, returning home.

“When I got there, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do so I had to come back and live with (the public scrutiny) again,” he said.

He delayed his enrollment at USC while continuing to take the SAT, working on a construction crew to earn money.

“I think it was a year to wake up and see what life is going to be about,” Conway said. “I kind of look at that as one of the most positive years of my life because it actually made me think.”

He said living the life of a laborer made him more disciplined.

“There were times when I didn’t want to go to work, but I knew if I wanted to have the money to do the things I wanted to do on the weekend, I would have to go,” he said. “It was good for me.”

A few days before Christmas three years ago, Conway learned that he had earned a qualifying score on the SAT and would be welcomed at USC.

“I was at work,” said his mother, who has held several clerical positions but currently is unemployed. “I picked up the phone and all I could hear was screaming in my ear: ‘I did it, Mom, I did it.’ ”

Said Conway, laughing: “No, she was screaming into my ear.”

It was a merry Christmas.

*

Before he played his first game at USC, Conway was seen as the Trojans’ answer to Raghib (Rocket) Ismail, the former Notre Dame receiver and kick returner who was runner-up in voting for the Heisman Trophy two years ago.

Conway’s new teammates called him “Baby Rocket.”

“He’s one of the most gifted athletes I’ve seen in 15 years of major college coaching,” former USC assistant Clarence Shelmon said. “Maybe I shouldn’t even say that because it might put pressure on the kid, but that’s how long I’ve been coaching and I have not run across very many guys who possess his type of God-given talent.”

Conway showed only glimpses of it as a freshman, returning a punt 71 yards for a touchdown against Oregon State but catching only one pass all season--for no gain.

During the spring of 1991, after the departure of Todd Marinovich, Conway was moved to quarterback because, other than Reggie Perry, the Trojans had nobody else.

But he played so well that Coach Larry Smith said that Conway would share the position with Perry during the 1991 season.

The only problem was, Conway wanted to play flanker.

He played only seven series at quarterback last season, but Conway said the time spent at the position during practice slowed his progress as a wide receiver.

Before he enrolled at USC, Conway thought that all a receiver had to do was outrun the defensive back assigned to cover him.

“Once I got to college, I was like, ‘You’ve got to read defenses?’ ” he said, laughing. “ ‘It’s only one guy covering you. . . .’

“There was a lot of stuff I had to learn. There’s still a lot of stuff I don’t know.”

He ended the season with 21 receptions for 240 yards and a touchdown.

This year, he has blossomed.

“When he came in as a freshman, he had never really played wide receiver,” said Mike Sanford, who coaches USC’s wideouts. “He didn’t really know a lot of the details and the specifics about how to be a wide receiver. And with his youth and inexperience, it took him a while to really become a receiver.

“He has worked hard on the little things you need to do.”

Sanford predicted that Conway will continue to improve.

“The thing that’s exciting about Curtis is that, in my opinion, he’s just scratching the surface,” Sanford said. “There’s been a lot of improvement, but he has so much more ahead of him.

“I think if he continues to work hard like he has, his best football is ahead of him.”

NFL scouts have said privately that, should he forgo his final year of eligibility, Conway could be among the top 10 players taken in the draft next spring, maybe one of the top five.

“We all are pushing for him to go (out) and want him to go, but like I tell Curtis, ‘Financially, you’ve never had it, so don’t let it become a big issue in your life,’ ” his mother said. “I want him to finish his college education, but I heard Isiah Thomas say he had a contract with his mom that if he didn’t go back to college, she would get his money. I don’t want Curtis’ money, but if he comes out, I want him to finish college.”

Conway isn’t sure what he will do after this season.

“My one major goal is to play in the NFL and be financially stable and be able to take care of my family,” he said. “That’s the one goal I think about.

“But we’ve survived this long.”

Curtis Conway’s All-Purpose Statistics

1992 GAME BY GAME

GAME Rec Yds TD Rsh Yds TD KOR Yds TD PR Yds TD San Diego St. 5 80 1 1 18 0 0 0 0 3 26 0 Oklahoma 9 115 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 45 0 Washington 5 112 1 1 3 0 2 31 0 3 19 0 Oregon 1 12 0 0 0 0 3 66 0 6 148 1 California 4 78 0 1 -2 0 4 121 0 3 16 0 Washington St. 4 51 1 1 24 1 3 82 0 1 1 0 Arizona St. 3 49 1 1 -6 0 2 140 1 3 27 0 Stanford 4 77 0 0 0 0 3 49 0 1 1 0 Arizona 2 37 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 35 0 UCLA 5 69 0 0 0 0 5 71 0 1 5 0 1992 Total 42 680 5 5 31 1 22 580 1 29 321 1 1991 Total 21 240 1 18 29 1 20 493 0 24 172 0 1990 Total 1 0 0 4 21 0 26 555 0 12 161 1 CAREER 64 920 6 27 81 2 68 1608 1 65 654 2

GAME CH Yds TD San Diego St. 9 124 1 Oklahoma 14 160 1 Washington 11 159 1 Oregon 10 224 1 California 12 213 0 Washington St. 9 158 2 Arizona St. 9 210 2 Stanford 8 127 0 Arizona 5 72 0 UCLA 11 145 0 1992 Total 98 1592 8 1991 Total 83 934 2 1990 Total 43 737 1 CAREER 224 3263 11

CONWAY COMPARED TO RECENT HEISMAN RECEIVERS/RETURNERS

GAME Rec Yds TD Rsh Yds TD KOR Yds TD PR Yds Curtis Conway (1992) 42 680 5 5 31 1 22 580 1 29 321 Tim Brown (1987) 36 809 3 33 142 1 20 414 0 32 387 Raghib Ismail (1990) 30 629 2 61 498 3 11 284 1 9 123 Des. Howard (1991) 58 854 19 11 157 2 11 357 1 16 168

GAME TD CH Yds TD Curtis Conway (1992) 1 98 1592 8 Tim Brown (1987) 3 121 1752 7 Raghib Ismail (1990) 0 111 1534 6 Des. Howard (1991) 0 96 1536 22