Jordan Took the Long Way to Raider Camp : Football: Receiver from Inglewood was out of game five years before signing last spring.

The days were all the same for Charles Jordan.

All long. All frustrating. All pointless.

He would get up and just sit around. He would lift weights in the morning, play basketball in the afternoon.

And he would hang out and dream about what might have been.

Jordan was a runner stuck in neutral, a pass receiver without a ball to catch, a football player without a team.

Oh, he had talent and potential and possibilities.

But somehow Jordan had let them all slip through his talented fingers.

He had been a multisport athlete at Morningside High in Inglewood. He was a track star, a wrestler and a football player, good enough to play everything from quarterback to receiver to safety to return man on special teams.

Jordan made all-league and made big plans to move on.

First, he went to Utah, but decided he wasn’t ready academically to be a student-athlete at that level.

So Jordan came home and attended Long Beach City College.

But there, he found his frustrations on the field rather than in the classroom. With Long Beach running an option offense, Jordan caught only 13 passes but used his speed and skill to squeeze five touchdowns out of those catches.

Then, in another burst of speed, he was gone from the program in 1988, in search of an offense better suited to his talent.

Jordan went from one junior college to another--from Golden West to Orange Coast to El Camino to Southwest.

Nothing satisfied him. Nothing suited him. Nothing inspired him, either athletically or academically.

“My mind wasn’t there,” Jordan conceded. “I wasn’t focusing. My friends were going to the NFL, and it hurt me to know I was still in junior college.”

So he dropped out altogether. He worked in a family restaurant as a cook and helped out in a family beauty salon.

But all the while, he dreamed of football. He couldn’t help it. Everybody around Jordan kept reminding him how good he had been.

Go for it, they implored him.

“People kept telling me that I was wasting the talent God had given me,” Jordan said. “It’s a gift.”

Finally, the message got through when he went to the Coliseum last season to watch Curtis Conway, a longtime friend and neighbor, play for USC against Oregon. Conway returned a punt 96 yards for a touchdown.

“It sent chills through my body,” Jordan said. “It was a wonderful feeling to see him accomplish something. It made me think about going back to school.”

So did Conway’s pep talks in which he constantly told Jordan: “I have faith in you even if you don’t have faith in yourself.”

By last spring, Jordan was ready to use his talented legs to move in a new direction.

Any direction would be better than the stagnant state he had been in.

School was a possibility. So was the new Sacramento team in the Canadian Football League.

But first, Jordan tried calling his local NFL team, the Raiders.

Sure it was a longshot, but why not? Jordan got through to George Karras, the team’s pro scouting director, and managed to rattle off his most impressive numbers, including a 4.3-second clocking in the 40-yard dash.

Karras was friendly, but hardly ready to hand Jordan a contract.

So, Jordan went to several tryout camps, paying $95 per camp.

In the midst of one in Torrance, a gray-haired man approached Jordan and said: “I’m with the Raiders.”

Jordan, confused, replied: “But I already talked to George Karras.”

The man smiled and said: “ I’m George Karras.”

“He really jumped out at me,” Karras later told a reporter in describing Jordan. “He had the speed and caught very well.”

From there, it was all a blur for Jordan. He was signed by the Raiders as a free agent, went to mini-camps and came to training camp.

“I felt like I could compete,” he said. “I’m just as fast as any receiver they have. But could I still take a hit? I haven’t been hit in five years. Would I fumble? Could I catch the ball?”

Jordan got his answers last Saturday in Canton, Ohio, against the Green Bay Packers in the Hall of Fame exhibition game.

Jordan went to bed at 9 the night before.

“That way,” he explained, “the day would come faster.”

For Jordan, it was a day to keep the VCR running.

He caught two passes for a team-high 44 yards. One of those catches came on fourth and 10 from the Packer 24-yard line. Jordan caught a pass from quarterback Vince Evans, shook off a defender and dived into the end zone.

“I knew I had to catch (the ball),” Jordan said, “if I wanted to be here.”

And what did he think when he finally touched the end zone?

“I can’t explain the feeling,” Jordan said. “I felt blessed. I wanted to keep the ball, but I wound up spiking it.

“For me to be out there in a Raider uniform with my name on the back and my family and friends watching is a dream come true.”

But the dream of actually making the team is another matter. Jordan knows starters Tim Brown and Alexander Wright are locks to stay with the club. He knows that veterans such as Willie Gault and James Lofton will be tough to unseat. And there are Sam Graddy, Daryl Hobbs and James Jett to be concerned about.

Jordan knows that.

“You can’t live off one day’s game,” he said. “One game can’t make a man. All I want is a fair shot.”