Hand-Me-Down : Iacenda Wears Brother’s Jersey and Position Well at Hart

Each Friday night, Andy Iacenda squirms in his 50-yard-line seat while watching his little brother run, catch and carry the football across the goal line for Hart High.

Running back Ted Iacenda is among the area’s leading rushers and pass receivers. With 31 touchdowns in 10 games and 186 points, Iacenda leads the area in scoring. He reaches the end zone every 6.4 times he touches the ball.

He is a bruising 6-foot-1, 215-pound junior with soft hands and nimble feet. Coaches who have seen him play agree that Iacenda is the complete package--a can’t-miss Division I talent.

He was once known as Andy’s kid brother, a boy nearly eight years younger who had no interest in football. Now he’s “Touchdown Teddy.”

“He amazes me, he has so much natural ability,” said Andy, a former Hart standout who played one season of college football. “I knew his potential, but when he scored five touchdowns (in the 1994 season opener) against San Fernando, my mouth dropped.”

While Ted runs free on the field, Andy’s emotions run wild in the stands. He fears for his brother’s health when he gets hit hard, beams with pride whenever Ted shows compassion by pulling an opposing player off the turf, gets sentimental whenever Ted scores.

Andy, 24, watches Ted and he sees himself, sometimes regretting the fact that he came home after one semester at Vanderbilt, where he played football as a true freshman but never played again.

“I’d like to find a semipro league around here,” Andy said. “He inspires me when I see him dominate. Football’s in my heart. I love the game.”

Ted, who turned 17 last week, has dazzled his brother and everyone else at Hart by lighting up the scoreboard. He has 51 touchdowns in two seasons, having scored 20 times as a sophomore. He is averaging 3.1 touchdowns per game this season. “All the stats are nice,” Ted said. “You like to look back and say, ‘Wow. I did this?’ But going 14-0 means more to me than anything else.”

If Hart (10-0) reaches the championship game of the Southern Section Division II playoffs and Iacenda maintains his scoring pace, he would finish with 43 touchdowns. Should Hart play 14 games next year as well and Iacenda maintain the same pace, he would finish his career with 104 touchdowns and 624 points, thereby making a run at the state career record, which stands at 574, set last week by Bakersfield’s Steve Wofford (1992-94).

That’s a big if , but Iacenda has a chance.

The Indians, who play Torrance (5-5) tonight at 7:30 p.m. at College of the Canyons, are seeded No. 1 in the division and don’t rely solely on Iacenda. They have the area’s second best offense (382.8 yards per game), the highest rated quarterback in Steve McKeon (186.13 using the NCAA rating system) and a host of reliable receivers in a run-and-shoot offense.

But nobody has been able to stop Iacenda, who has rushed for 1,127 yards for 23 touchdowns and caught 33 passes for 540 yards and eight scores. In two seasons, he has rushed for 1,777 yards and 37 touchdowns, averaging 6.3 yards per carry. He has caught 74 passes for 1,010 yards and 14 touchdowns, averaging 13.6 yards per reception.

“He can do it all,” Hart offensive coordinator Dean Herrington said. “He knows how to play the game. He’s a great runner. He’s one of the best pass receivers we’ve had here at the school. He does a good job blocking.

“What’s caught our eye this year is his acceleration. Last year, if he got into the secondary he was going to get tackled. This year he can break the long run.”

Iacenda has played tackle football only three seasons, but brother Andy has helped him develop quickly. Andy tells Ted to hold a football in his hands whenever he can, so the feeling becomes familiar. He also tells Ted never to give in when he gets near the end zone. “It’s just a frame of mind my brother talked to me about when I was little,” Ted said. “When you’re that close, why not finish it off? I can sense when I’m going to score. Something clicks inside of me. It’s a rush. I don’t feel like I can be stopped.

“Everything seems to fade away when you get close. You’re not tired. You don’t feel anything. It’s just you and the end zone.”

Andy rushed for 928 yards and 19 touchdowns in 1986, his senior year at Hart. Ted, who wears Andy’s No. 46, was living with his mother near Houston and never saw Andy play.

“I don’t think I really knew he was playing football,” Ted said. “Now I kind of wish I had watched him. Sometimes I look back on some of his game films, and it’s not really the same. I wish I could have been there.”

Recruited by Stanford, Rice, Washington and Arizona, Andy took a scholarship at Vanderbilt. He gained 130 yards in 33 carries and had five receptions for 34 yards as a freshman. He scored his only touchdown--a three-yard run--in a nationally televised, 48-15 loss in front of 79,500 fans at Auburn.

He withdrew from Vanderbilt after that semester, homesick and missing his girlfriend. Andy then bounced from Glendale College to Columbia University to Valley College to Arizona State and back to Vanderbilt.

He spent three weeks at Arizona State’s fall camp but came home when the Sun Devils didn’t offer him a football scholarship. Vanderbilt Coach Watson Brown took Andy back in the spring of 1989, and Iacenda had a good spring camp while alternating at starting fullback. But he was behind on credits and needed to scramble to get the units necessary to become eligible for what would have been a redshirt junior season.

After he took summer classes, school officials told Andy he was three units short. He withdrew from school and came home again. He now works as a campus supervisor at La Mesa Junior High while taking classes at College of the Canyons. He also lives at home with Ted and their father, Andy Sr. Ted relishes the fact that he’s living with his brother after the two lived apart for many years.

“I like the fact that he’s around,” Ted said. “He’s someone I can talk to. He teaches me a lot. In certain regards he’s told me to look at him and learn from him and not make the same mistakes as he did. But he has also told me not to follow him, to be my own man. I’m going to try to not get myself in the same circumstance and not get homesick.”

A sibling rivalry has developed between the two, sparked by Ted’s success. “I always tell him I’m better than him,” Ted said. “He always tells me, ‘Until you’ve accomplished what I accomplished, Ted, don’t come bragging to me.’ ”

But there is an occasional undercurrent of regret in the banter.

Andy, who was in the same Southeastern Conference freshman class as NFL running backs Emmitt Smith, Rodney Hampton and Reggie Cobb, is left to wonder what he would have accomplished had he never left Vanderbilt.

“I scratch my head when I watch (Smith, Hampton and Cobb) on TV,” he said. “I wonder what would have happened if I worked harder. I was wrapped up (by homesickness) and that pulled me back. I was a lazy player. I didn’t want it that bad.

“(Ted) works hard. He’s exceeding all expectations, and he’s just maturing. He’s going to get bigger and stronger and he’s going to gain speed just with the muscle he puts on. He runs about 4.6 (in the 40-yard dash) now, and (his time is) going to be dropping.”

Two years from now, Ted should be playing in college and Andy will probably have a ticket on the 50.