Ogden Is Unknown, but Talent Is Unreal

Usually when people want to get away from it all, they go to the South Seas or join the federal witness protection program or join the Foreign Legion. Some become monks.

Jonathan Phillip Ogden took a different tack. He joined an offensive line.

An offensive line is the last stand of anonymity in this country, the American equivalent of a monastery in Tibet. Football’s Foreign Legion. Jimmy Hoffa may have been in one. Judge Crater.

It’s as if you stepped off the earth. Left a suicide note on the beach and vanished. People think you perished at sea. They put your picture on milk cartons. Deep-cover spies are celebrities by comparison.

Backfields become “the Four Horsemen.” Know what they called the guys who blocked for them? “The Seven Mules.” That is all you need to know about the social standing of blocking linemen. Mules. Of course, it could have been worse. They could have been “the Seven Donkeys.”

Even defensive linemen became stars in their own right. They became “the Fearsome Foursome,” “the Steel Curtain,” “the Doomsday Defense.” A Deacon Jones becomes the “Secretary of Defense.” Linebackers become “the Terminator,” “the Assassin.” Offensive linemen are never anything but “Hey, you!”

So, Jonathan P. Ogden took stock of his life one day, sighed and became just a number. Like one of those Swiss bank accounts. He had joined football’s Secret Service, the offensive line at UCLA.

The coach pulled him to one side, I like to think, and said “Now, you--what did you say your name was again? Well, never mind. Your job is to see that nothing happens to that guy out there [pointing to the quarterback]. If he gets hit holding the ball, you’re holding the bag. You’re outta here. You’re nobody.” And Ogden sighs, rolls his eyes and says, “But I already am nobody. I’m an offensive tackle. My mail comes addressed to ‘Occupant.’ ”

It takes a special kind of person to take a role like this. The closest thing in nature to an offensive lineman is a butler. Or the guy who cleans up after the elephants in the circus.

An offensive lineman has a great day, holding off 280-pound, bad-tempered, drooling pass-rushers, and the headlines the next day say “Bruin Quarterback Riddles ‘Canes.” Or he neutralizes a defensive tackle with bone-crushing charge blocks for four quarters and the headlines say “Abdul-Jabbar Runs Wild in Bruin Win.”

Linemen never win the Heisman. The guys they block for do. The only “linemen” ever to win a Heisman were pass-catching ends--Larry Kelley and Leon Hart. Nobody without the football ever won it.

Jonathan Ogden probably won’t change all that. But maybe he should. Look at it this way: Red Grange had Earl Britton. Tom Harmon had Forrest Evashevski. O.J. Simpson had Student Body Right.

Jonathan goes 6 feet 8, 310 pounds. He runs the 40 in 4.9, incredible for a man that size. Football coaches drooled when they saw him. Visions of “No. 1!” danced in their heads. They gave him a uniform but never the ball. The ball is only a rumor to an offensive tackle.

They don’t keep stats on offensive tackles. They keep them on everyone else. Some years ago, they began to keep tabs on the times a quarterback got smothered. A sack became as big a part of the stat sheet as a field goal.

They kept tabs on tackles, interceptions, fumbles recovered, even passes batted down and, believe it or not, “throws hurried” by the defense.

No one keeps any stats on blocks. Except a negative one. If the quarterback goes down, the offensive tackle is the sad sack.

He’s in the infantry of football. And Napoleon said of the infantry that it was “the Queen of battle.” But, after all, the Unknown Soldier comes from the infantry.

UCLA knows what a prize it has. “The best left tackle in college football,” says their press release. “Ogden was at his best in the season-opening victory over Miami. The Bruins rushed for 265 yards, including 180 by Karim Abdul-Jabbar, and a large portion of those came thanks to blocks by Ogden.”

But is it frustrating to be an unknown soldier? Ogden smiles. “They canvassed the capabilities and decided that was the position best for me. I have no regrets.”

That is another identifying mark of the offensive lineman. He follows orders. Offensive line is no place for the maverick, the outlaw, the non-conformist, the rebel. It is a chorus line. Choreography, not anarchy.

It’s not that Ogden doesn’t have options. He is, as it happens, an excellent shotputter (61 feet 4 inches is his personal best), and that is a sport that is as individual as a hermit. His arrangement with the football coaches is that he skips spring practice for track.

Why didn’t he opt for the solo spotlight of the shotput ring? Ogden grins. “Have you looked at the difference in money?” he asks.

He could have been any kind of track athlete in the view of the longtime track coach, Jim Bush. “I’ve worked with a lot of athletes, but I’ve never seen a big man like him with his body mechanics. Most 300-pounders have this little pot belly, but Jon doesn’t have an ounce of fat anywhere. He may be the greatest offensive lineman ever, but he could have become a great Olympic athlete.”

A lot of defensive ends and linebackers wish he had. Ogden will not be the first interior lineman to win the Heisman. But the guy who does win it will wish he could have Ogden blocking for him in the pros, and whichever pro team drafts him will make its quarterbacks very happy.