COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Running for Votes : Injury Stopped Marshall Faulk’s Shot at the Heisman Last Year, and San Diego State Doesn’t Want Anything to Go Wrong This Time

John Rosenthal, the campaign manager, knows second chances are rare in politics and wants to make sure Marshall Faulk doesn’t become his Adlai Stevenson.

Rosenthal is media relations director for athletics at San Diego State, headquarters for Faulk II, where groundwork has begun on a repeat run for the Heisman Trophy, the coveted award that eluded Faulk as a sophomore tailback last season.

No one’s fault about Faulk, really.

He probably would have taken the Heisman home had he not tweaked his knee Nov. 21 against Fresno State on the second play, setting off dominoes of disaster. The Aztecs lost that game and with it the Western Athletic Conference title.

And with it a Holiday Bowl bid.

And with it the chance for Faulk to woo some Heisman fence-sitters in a David-Goliath showdown the next week against the University of Miami. Instead, an injured Faulk watched as Miami quarterback Gino Toretta stuffed the ballot box.

Finishing second to Georgia running back Garrison Hearst in the Heisman voting would have been tolerable. Finishing second to Miami’s Toretta, a replaceable lug nut on a football machine, a future seventh -round NFL draft choice, was not.

“I figured I would finish second,” Faulk said recently. “I didn’t know he would finish first.”

In the off-season, Rosenthal reviewed Faulk’s Heisman run last year, pored over the paperwork, retraced the campaign trail, then plotted a new course: electoral college football.

A voice in his head called out, “Go where the votes are.” They don’t reveal the names of Heisman voters, but it didn’t take Einstein to figure out that the media-weighted East packs political clout, which can work against a left-coaster.

Rosenthal’s ears still ring from all the phone calls he placed to possible Heisman voters.

He promised a clean campaign.

No bobble-head Faulk dolls.

The Aztecs say they don’t have the stomach--or the budget--for Heisman gimmicks. Besides, there isn’t a linguist alive who could alter Faulk’s name to rhyme with Heisman.

Joe Theismann comes along only once.

One local scribe did suggest that the school take Faulk to an old Western town, dress him up in cowboy garb and take snapshots of him drawing six-shooters.

“Marshal” Faulk. Get it?

Get outta town.

“We won’t do Marshall badges,” Rosenthal said. “There seems to be a negative reaction to those types of things.”

Who could forget Michael Dukakis’ tank ride?

Rosenthal talks like a CNN pollster.

“We looked at the Heisman voting last year and bulked up our media list in the Northeast and Midwest,” he said. “That’s where there could be some swing votes.”

Rosenthal studied the short list. He wouldn’t waste energy campaigning in the Southeast, home of Florida State quarterback Charlie Ward.

“If Charlie Ward has a season, it’ll be hard to crack that,” Rosenthal said.

He anticipates a dogfight in the East, with Syracuse and its candidate, quarterback Marvin Graves. In the Midwest there are Michigan tailback Tyrone Wheatley and Nebraska’s Calvin Jones to contend with.

Not a political picnic.

Faulk, for one, needed a complete media make-over.

Nothing wrong with his on-field marks. As a sophomore in 1992, he led the nation for the second consecutive season with 1,630 yards, breaking the school record of 1,429 he had set as a freshman.

Faulk hopes to become the first player to three-peat as NCAA rushing champion.

Injury forced him out of all but two plays of the Fresno State game, the entire Miami game and one half against Colorado State.

Still, he put together some glossy numbers: a 300-yard day against Hawaii, 299 against Brigham Young, 220 against USC.

But Faulk’s coolness toward the media did not help.

He refused to talk to reporters after a season-opening 31-31 tie with USC. He cut off all communications the week of the Hawaii game in midseason.

Some in the local media dubbed him “His Highness.”

“I didn’t handle it the best I could,” Faulk acknowledged. “But I think for a sophomore, and being 19, I handled it the best I could at the time. I probably could have done a better job.”

Faulk was never considered a bad guy, rather one who was so overwhelmed by the Heisman process that he retreated into seclusion.

Regrets, he had few.

“Yeah, I know it’s hype,” he said of the Heisman campaign. “I know you could be the best player in the country and still not win the trophy. You have to make yourself noticeable to everyone--North, South, East, West.”

Well, what do you know?

It was a relaxed, refreshed and talkative Faulk who arrived for the first day of summer workouts in San Diego.

It appears no Heisman stone will be left unturned. With the help of school handlers, Faulk has arranged a schedule he hopes will accommodate the media crush and allow him some down time.

“I was not thinking about my game, was not thinking about football,” he said of last season. “I was getting sidetracked with interviews. When I was at practice I was tired. I’m at practice and I haven’t done anything yet and I’m tired because of the interviews before, or the ones after practice the day before. It just got tiresome. I just couldn’t put up with it.”

The new and improved Faulk plans to make himself available on Mondays and Tuesdays, briefly after Thursday practices and after games.

“No matter what happens in the game, he needs to be there afterward,” Rosenthal said. “Hopefully, we got that ironed out. It wasn’t anything malicious on his part, or negative feelings toward the media, it was just kind of withdrawing from the situation.”

Some wondered why Faulk did not withdraw altogether and make himself available for the NFL draft, where he would have been a sure top-10 pick and an instant millionaire.

Faulk grew up in a New Orleans housing project, on the mean streets, so he could not have been blamed for making a money grab rather than risking injury by returning to school.

But Faulk apparently takes his studies seriously. He is a public administration major with a 3.0 grade-point average. For two summers, he has worked at a San Diego law firm.

“I told (reporters) I was staying and gave the reasons why,” Faulk said. “Nobody believed me.”

Faulk has announced to the world that he will not make a decision about coming out until after this season, so he can “cut those questions down.”

Yes, to maybe a thousand.

The NFL’s loss was San Diego’s gain. When Faulk announced he was staying, Coach Al Luginbill could have kissed Shamu on the lips.

“Somehow (Faulk) landed on our campus,” the coach said. “And we’re going to enjoy him while he’s here. Nobody knew what he was going to be today and he’s entrenched.”

Luginbill was lucky Faulk fell in love with San Diego . . . fish tacos and all.

He had offers from larger football institutions but wanted to leave his own legacy.

“I didn’t want to follow behind nobody’s footsteps,” he said. “I wanted to come to a school that wasn’t too big, that would give me the opportunity to play running back, and maybe give me a chance to mature as a person, not just an athlete.”

Faulk doesn’t second-guess his decision to stay.

“I don’t think about getting hurt,” he said. “I go out there and play my hardest. Getting hurt, I leave that in the hands of the good Lord. The money will be there. If it was there, then it will be there, guaranteed or not. . . . It’s all about decision making. Sometimes you make smart ones, sometimes you make dumb ones. I’ll know if it’s smart after the end of the year.”

But oh, what Aztec angst .

Luginbill blames the program for losing Faulk’s Heisman. After a 3-0 conference start, the team basically sucked wind on its way to a 5-5-1 finish. The Fresno State defeat, a 45-41 gut punch, cost the Aztecs the WAC title and a bowl game. Their 63-17 drubbing by powerhouse Miami was affirmation to many that the WAC is not worthy of national media attention.

There was also this problem known as the Aztecs’ defense, which finished 97th among 106 Division I-A schools and gave up 136 points in its final three games.

“The team’s lack of success in the end certainly ended up costing (Faulk) as an individual,” Luginbill said.

Still, Faulk came back. He has invested valuable stock, his, into an unproven commodity of relative junk bonds, his teammates, whose job it will be to protect and serve a Heisman hopeful.

“A lot of times there’s more pressure on us because he knows he has the ability to go out there and play,” David Lowery, the Aztec quarterback, said. “We just have to go out and prove we can, the supporting cast.”

If Faulk carries this team to the promised land, Lowery could end up with the most famous hands since Madge, the TV manicurist.

Handoff to Faulk, draw to Faulk, pitch to Faulk .

“Maybe I could do a (hand cream) commercial,” Lowery said.

Faulk’s Heisman worthiness might ultimately be determined by San Diego State’s record.

On this front, Luginbill boasts his team has 37 of 44 players back from last season’s two-deep roster.

Or, 37 players returning from a .500 team.

All depends how you look at it.

“There is no room for losses,” Faulk said. “To make it a unanimous decision, we cannot lose.”

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