ON THE Heisman Sideline : LeShon Johnson, the Nation’s Leading Division I-A Rusher, Toils in Obscurity

Etta Johnson still has the letter, the one written by the baby of her family, little LeShon.

He wrote it three years ago, when Etta sometimes couldn’t pay the electric bill, or the water bill, or buy enough propane to heat the two-bedroom house in the tiny, no-stoplight town of Haskell, Okla. She was working two jobs at the time, but it never seemed to be enough.

“We were like every poor family,” she said from her niece’s house in Haskell. “We were trying to make ends meet.”

Etta Johnson lives in the country now. She doesn’t have a phone, but she has that letter written by her youngest son. Back then, times were tough. Then again, so was LeShon.

“That’s the reason why I’ve got big dreams,” he said.

Read the letter in part: “Pray for me. I’m going to try to make it in football. And if I do, I’m going to build a house for you, Momma.”

So now, as LeShon (Cowboy) Johnson plays his final game for Northern Illinois, only one question remains: Ranch, Tudor or split-level, Etta?

No one is quite sure how it happened, but Johnson could finish today’s game against Mississippi not only as the nation’s leading Division I-A rusher, but as only one of four running backs in collegiate history to gain 2,000 or more yards in a season. The other three: Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders, USC’s Marcus Allen and Nebraska’s Mike Rozier, all of whom own Heisman trophies.

Johnson needs only 83 yards. A Heisman is probably out of the question--Florida State quarterback Charlie Ward is expected to win easily--but an invitation to New York and the Downtown Athletic Club shouldn’t be. Johnson has earned that much.

“I have a sign I keep,” Johnson said. “It says, ‘Second to None and Still Improving.’ I think I’m one of a kind.”

Johnson is more than 600 yards ahead of Texas Tech’s Byron Morris, the NCAA’s No. 2 rusher. He has had 100-yard games against Iowa State, Indiana, Southwestern Louisiana and Louisiana Tech; 200-yard games against Arkansas State, New Mexico State and Pacific; 300-yard games against Southern Illinois, a Division I-AA team, and Iowa.

Along the way, he has picked up his share of endorsements.

“It was like trying to shoot a bull with BBs,” Arkansas State Coach John Bobo said of trying to stop Johnson.

“When he ran, he was just like a blur,” Iowa Coach Hayden Fry said. “You will probably never see a better running back in (Iowa’s) Kinnick Stadium.”

Ed Podolak, whose Kinnick Stadium rushing record was broken last Saturday, told radio listeners at halftime that Johnson was among the nation’s best, but certainly not better than Michigan’s Tyrone Wheatley. Later, as Johnson neared the 300-yard mark, Podolak rushed back to the microphone.

“Tyrone Wheatley cannot carry LeShon Johnson’s jockstrap,” he said.

Podolak now believes, but the rest of the country wouldn’t know Johnson if his picture were on the front of a Wheaties box. Except for an occasional highlight on ESPN’s SportsCenter, Johnson has been a television no-show. Big West Conference member Northern Illinois (4-6) doesn’t have a cable TV deal, doesn’t play in a high-profile league, isn’t going to a postseason bowl and can’t even fill its cozy 30,998-seat stadium.

So unknown is Johnson that he often can walk across campus and not be recognized. When a former Northern Illinois player began marketing a “LeShon For Heisman” T-shirt, Johnson was positive the venture was doomed.

“I thought, ‘Man, they’re going to lose money,’ ” he said.

Wrong. The $12.95 shirts are collectors’ items. To get one, you first have to go on a waiting list.

But outside the farming community of DeKalb, Johnson is rusher non grata . America knows Wheatley, San Diego State’s Marshall Faulk, Penn State’s Ki-Jana Carter.

“He’s not going to win the Heisman,” said sports information director Mike Korcek, who has been at Northern Illinois since 1966. “I mean, this is not a glamour school. But this is a glamour player.”

True enough. NFL scouts consider Johnson perhaps the best senior running back available.

“That’s the reason I think that if I had gone to any other college in the country, I think I could put up the same number of yards,” said Johnson, who rates himself the best runner in the country and the second-best player overall, with Ward first. “Whoever drafts me, it’s going to be a good decision they made.”

The 6-foot, 202-pound Johnson acknowledges that he isn’t the most physically imposing ballcarrier. Too many visits to fast-food joints. “I hate to cook,” he said. “I miss my Momma’s cooking.”

Imposing or not, strange things happen when Johnson gets the ball.

Against Iowa, Hawkeye defensive players warned him that no yard would come easy. Everybody tells him that.

“I don’t talk trash,” Johnson said. “I just tell them it’s just a matter of time.”

And it was. Johnson gained 306 yards and scored twice against the Hawkeyes.

Against Southwestern Louisiana, which has the best defense in the Big West, Johnson found himself confronted by linebacker Charles Pool, who delivered a profanity-laden message meant to intimidate. Johnson looked serenely at Pool and said, “You need Jesus in your life, OK?”

Pool stammered back, “I’ve got Jesus in my life.” Then he didn’t say another word all day. He couldn’t. He was too busy chasing Johnson, who rushed for 173 yards and two touchdowns.

In retrospect, Johnson’s football career is really nothing more than a series of accidents. The youngest of three sons, Johnson was born to be a bullrider. Or so he thought.

His father, Luther, who has been separated from Etta for 11 years, rode bulls for a living. He was on the road all of the time, traveling from rodeo to rodeo, doing what he could to support his family. LeShon was there the day a bull kicked a trailer gate, breaking Luther’s leg.

Luther told his sons all the time that if he had to do it over again, he would never choose the rodeo. “If you get bucked off,” he would say, “you don’t get anything.”

Except bumps and bruises and empty pockets.

That didn’t stop LeShon from wanting to follow in his father’s boot steps. In fact, Etta Johnson has a photograph of a 3-year-old LeShon sitting on the back of Luther Jr. Someone had strapped a belt around Luther Jr.’s back, allowing LeShon to slip a hand under the leather. Knees dug into Luther Jr.’s side, hand raised in the air, LeShon hung on for dear life.

“I said to myself, ‘That boy’s going to be a bullrider one of these days,” Etta Johnson says.

When he was in eighth grade, Johnson somehow got tangled in a long rope he was using to walk a horse. The horse bolted, dragging Johnson nearly half a mile. Despite deep rope burns and sore ribs, Johnson played in a junior high school game that weekend.

A few years later, while riding in a small rodeo in Oklahoma, Johnson was slammed to the ground by a bull. He still remembers the name: “Hi-Fly.”

Hi-Fly stepped on Johnson’s thigh, ripping his pants and causing a welt that didn’t go down for days. Even now, Johnson says he has a bruise from the incident.

It wasn’t until his senior year in high school that Johnson began taking football seriously. Jim Reece, his coach at Haskell High, all but ordered him to forget about a life in rodeo and told Johnson to get an education. And if he was interested in football, Northeastern Oklahoma A&M;, a junior college, might take him as a walk-on.

Tired of life in Haskell--”There’s one grocery store, three convenience stores, four churches and a bunch of car shops,” he said--Johnson enrolled at A&M.;

Johnson made the team, made an impact and two years later was being sought by Tennessee and Oklahoma State. Johnson committed to Tennessee, but was unable to transfer because he didn’t have enough credits. He called Oklahoma State, but by then it was too late.

“We were going to take one junior college (running) back,” said Pat Jones, the Cowboys’ head coach. “It was between him and another kid. When (Johnson) committed to Tennessee, we had to take the other kid.”

Even if Johnson had signed with Oklahoma State, Jones didn’t envision this sort of success.

“He was obviously not a guy you would predict would lead the nation in rushing,” Jones said. “But that kid’s turned out to be a good, productive back. I know some folks on that staff, and they rave about the guy.”

And the player Jones signed?

“Didn’t work out,” he said.

Word of Johnson’s availability didn’t stay a secret for long. The first to contact him was Joe Dickinson, Northern Illinois’ offensive coordinator. Dickinson called Johnson at 5:30 a.m., pleading with him to visit the DeKalb campus. Worried that he might miss out on a Division I-A scholarship, Johnson agreed.

Dickinson knew what he had. One day at a 1991 practice, long before anybody started silk screening shirts with Johnson’s name on them, Dickinson turned to Northern Illinois Coach Charlie Sadler and said, “I think we got one of the best five running backs in the country.”

Johnson, a gospel music fan, has played the last five games despite a slightly separated shoulder. And because of injuries to Northern Illinois’ starting quarterback, Johnson has been the center of attention from opposing defenses.

“There are 11 people in a seven-yard area looking for him on every play,” Dickinson said.

It doesn’t seem to matter. Johnson gained 1,338 yards last season, including a 107-yard effort against Wisconsin. This season, with one game remaining, he flirts with history.

“It’s very frustrating,” he said. “I go out there and put up great numbers, but people don’t get to see it.”

They will. The NFL is but a draft pick away.

And if it happens, there is a promise to keep.

“I haven’t really made up my mind,” Etta Johnson said. “Just a nice big house, plenty of room. I’d probably build it in Haskell. I’m really afraid of big towns . . . all of that killing.”

Then Haskell it will be. Purchased by a son whose word is as golden as his season.

Leading Rushers

A look at the top single-season rushing totals in NCAA history:

Player, Team Year G Yds. Barry Sanders, Okla. St. 1988 11 2,628 Marcus Allen, USC 1981 11 2,342 Mike Rozier, Neb. 1983 12 2,148 Tony Dorsett, Pitt. 1976 11 1,948 LeShon Johnson, N. Ill. 1993 10 1,917 Lorenzo White, Mich. St. 1985 11 1,908 H. Walker, Georgia 1981 11 1,891 Ed Marinaro, Cornell 1971 9 1,881 Ernest Anderson, Okla. St. 1982 11 1,877 Ricky Bell, USC 1975 11 1,875 Paul Palmer, Temple 1986 11 1,866 Charles White, USC 1979 10 1,803