Decisions Turned Swafford Around : With a Little Help, He Chose Right Path and Then Selected the Road to Pittsburgh

It always has been easy for Derek Swafford to make choices in an instant, whether it’s on a football field or a baseball diamond.

A linebacker stands ready to pop him at the 35-yard-line. Cut left or head for the sidelines? Easy. He spins inside, bounces off the defender and lunges for two more yards.

He crouches at the plate, waiting for his pitch. Should he look for a fastball or try the slider? Easy. Wait for the right fastball and nail it halfway to San Francisco.

What happens when Northwestern offers a football scholarship and the Pittsburgh Pirates offer a professional baseball contract? Should he take a free education or sign for the money?

Ah, perhaps this decision requires a bit more thought.

But how much thought does an 18-year-old really need when more than $150,000 is waved in his face? Thousands of delicious dollar signs and the promise of a professional career, just dangling before his eyes.

It took Swafford, Ventura High’s all-time leading rusher and a four-year starter on the baseball team, only 12 hours to make up his mind, from the time last week he was selected in the third round of the amateur baseball draft to the time he dotted the ‘i’ on his contract with the Pirates.

He has never made a decision as lucrative as the one he made last week--he netted a $114,000 signing bonus on top of an educational package worth $56,000--but Swafford has been making his own decisions from an early age. And, he admits now, many of them weren’t always good choices.

Three years ago, it looked as though Swafford was just one more athlete headed the wrong way. Plenty of talent, but no discipline. No direction. No doubt, Swafford didn’t seem to have a chance.

He skipped class often. In a five-month span during his junior year, he missed more than 80 classes at Ventura High and was dangerously close to being kicked out of school.

And he was absent from home as well. The third of Mary Ellen Cottrell’s six children, Swafford had only his older brother Lawrence as a role model after his father left when Derek was young.

Derek came and went as he pleased, rarely staying longer than one night at his mother’s house in the low-income neighborhood. Instead, he bounced around the homes of different friends and relatives.

“I was a little punk,” Swafford said. “I just wanted to party all the time. Believe me, I was pretty wild. I probably ditched school more than half the year.

“I’d ditch and go play baseball, I’d ditch and go lift weights, I’d ditch and go play sports.”

Until finally, Swafford decided he’d had enough.

“I guess I just got (all of my partying) out of the way earlier on,” he said. “I’ve always known what I wanted to do. I was never like, ‘What am I going to do in my life?’ Sports is where I was headed and I knew I had a direction to go in.”

Swafford just needed a little help getting there.

Ralph Wilson, Ventura’s team doctor, had seen kids like Swafford. Swafford’s own brother, Lawrence, was one of them. A talented running back and an accomplished baseball player at Ventura, Lawrence never played after high school.

“I couldn’t stand to see another one wasted,” said Wilson, a 35-year-old sports chiropractor. “I mean, so many kids come through and they have the ability, they just never had the direction. And you know if they had just a little more help, they could have made it.”

Wilson, a former assistant coach at Ventura, began working with Swafford almost three years ago, treating him for injuries and supervising his workouts. Wilson immediately recognized the athletic potential in the young running back.

“There’s no question what he can do,” Wilson said. “I know how good athletes can cut, turn, twist and jump--and be able to compare them--and Derek’s done things on a football field that flabbergasted me, shocked me and stunned me. And that doesn’t happen to me very often.”

And Wilson recognized something else in Swafford as well.

“I saw myself in Derek,” he said. “I was a screw-off in high school and I didn’t get my act together until later in life. I told Derek, ‘You give me a year of your life and I’ll guarantee you a football scholarship.’ ”

Swafford gave Wilson a year, and Wilson gave him something the promising athlete never had before--discipline.

Swafford became a part of Wilson’s family in February of 1992. He joined the doctor, his wife Kate, and their three children--all under 5 years old at the time--in their three-bedroom home in Ventura.

Wilson and Swafford slowly developed a father-son relationship. Like a parent, Wilson set rules and curfews, and to Swafford’s surprise, he enforced them. For the first time in his life, Swafford had to check in and out. He had chores to do, and he had to study. In one instance, he recalls, he even had to type a report on discipline and respect after ignoring a Wilson rule.

“I said, ‘If you move in, it’s my way or get out,’ ” Wilson said. “We had talked about moving in before. . . . and it was desperation (on Swafford’s part). People look for help when they get in trouble. He was in trouble.”

Added Swafford: “No one could really control me, except Ralph. There had to be a man around for me.”

But Wilson was more than a father-figure to Swafford, he was a financial supporter as well. He paid for everything from dental bills and yearbook photos to tutoring for Swafford’s college entrance exams.

“Sometimes it bothers me that I’m spending my kids’ college money, but I couldn’t spend my money better than to invest in a future,” Wilson said. “Our relationship is a friendship as much as anything else. He’s going to be a part of our family forever.”

Said Swafford: “I owe Dr. Wilson a lot. He’s always been there for me. He’s my best friend.”

Swafford often visits his mother, who endorsed her son’s choice to move in with the Wilsons.

“That was his decision, and I cared a lot about him,” she said. “I wasn’t hurt because I knew it would be good for him.”

Cottrell has never missed one of her son’s football games at Ventura, and she hasn’t missed noticing the changes in her son since he came under Wilson’s wing.

“He’s more responsible,” she said. “It’s like he paid attention to the male voice. I’d say something to him and it’d go in one ear and out the other. I’m glad (Wilson) was there for him.”

While Swafford struggled for discipline off the playing field, everyone recognized his talent on the turf. Swafford? Yeah, he was quick. Couldn’t stop him. Remember that game against Buena last fall? The tailback scored five touchdowns and rushed for a school-record 292 yards that night.

He rushed for more yards (3,278) in his career than any other player in school history too. He was named Ventura’s athlete of the year last week.

“He’s a great player,” Ventura football Coach Phil McCune said. “He’s one of those kids that make everyone’s heart stop every time he touches the ball because you know something good is going to happen.”

Swafford (5-foot-10, 175 pounds) rushed for 1,193 yards last fall and led Ventura County players in scoring with 24 touchdowns.

Schools up and down the West Coast--UCLA, USC, and Washington among them--courted him. But it took only one recruiting trip to Northwestern for Swafford to make up his mind. Easy. Northwestern was committed to education, and Swafford, now a 3.0 student, was committed to Northwestern. He wanted to study dentistry, and in February he accepted a scholarship to play football for the Wildcats.

But who ever knew that Swafford could play baseball? In his four years on Ventura’s varsity team, he never posted the kind of numbers that might lure baseball scouts to Ventura’s field.

He batted only .333 his senior season, with only eight doubles, two home runs and 12 runs batted in. But as the team’s leadoff hitter, he stole 18 bases in 21 attempts and steadied the team’s defense up the middle at second base.

“It wasn’t that they were impressed with his statistics, they were impressed with him as an individual,” Ventura baseball Coach Dan Smith said.

“He’s quick, plus he’s a left-handed hitter. He hits hard, he’s a good fielder and he’s got a good arm. Many kids in the county hit better than him, but (the scouts) saw him as a young man with lots of potential.”

Ed Roebuck, the Pirates’ scout who recruited Swafford, saw this potential.

“He’s a very good athlete. . . . which means he can adapt to all aspects of athletics,” he said. “He can run, he can throw, and he’s got a great swing. And he’s got the desire.

“He’s just 18 years old. By projecting, you’d think that in three or four years, he’ll be very close to the major leagues.”

Roebuck was impressed, but Swafford had his doubts. He was in Wilson’s office when he got the call that the Pirates had selected him in the third round.

“I just fell on the floor” in excitement, he said.

“(Roebuck) came over that night and we’d made the deal and after he left, I took the dogs out and I went for a walk,” Swafford said. “There was a full moon that night and I thought it was one of those lucky nights . . . and I was thinking I might have my baseball jersey be No. 3 because it was the third of June.”

And he was also thinking about how quickly he signed with the Pirates.

“It was on my mind the whole time and I thought maybe I had signed too early but then I thought, ‘I don’t want to be greedy,’ ” he said.

The coaches at Northwestern weren’t happy to lose one of their top recruits. But the day after he signed with the Pirates, the university offered to hold Swafford’s scholarship until he returned to college.

“We’d welcome him back with open arms,” said Ron Malanowski, a Northwestern football recruiter. “He’s a great athlete that we wouldn’t want to lose.”

Baseball contract or football scholarship? Easy. Swafford would end up with both.

Swafford has left football behind--at least for now. Even though he was selected to the West roster, Swafford will not play in Saturday’s Ventura County all-star football game. On June 21, he joins the Pirates’ rookie camp in Florida.

“I think now that he’s decided he’s going to do one thing and just concentrate on baseball, maybe that will make the difference,” Smith said. “He’s always split his time between the two. Baseball has been a part-time sport for him. Now that he’s signed, baseball is going to be his life, 12 months a year.”

Wilson, meanwhile, hopes that Swafford won’t lose sight of all that he has learned since he has been part of the doctor’s world.

“I don’t expect him to absorb it all now, but I do expect him to remember the basic principles,” Wilson said. “It may not be today, and it may not be with the Pirates, but somewhere down the line, it will hopefully all click.

“To me, it’s an honor to be able to help someone like this. . . . Five years from now, he’ll either be getting an education or playing in the big leagues.”