An Appetite for Freedom

Forget Disneyland, Hollywood Boulevard and Venice Beach.

For Toma Popescu, a Cal State Northridge offensive lineman, and his family, the top attraction when they came to Southern California was the meat section at the local grocery store.

They took their cameras.

“I have this [picture] of me smiling and holding a big salami,” said Popescu, who was amazed by the plentiful display of meat because he had just moved to the region from Bucharest, Romania, where he considered himself lucky to get meat once a month.

Although Popescu only lived in Romania until he was 9, he still has plenty of stories--both funny and horrifying--about Cold War Eastern Europe.

“You’d have 5,000 people in line to get the necks and wings of chicken,” he said. “With pork, it was tongues and feet and ears. The same with beef.

“We mostly ate rice and mashed potatoes.”

Malnutrition doesn’t seem to be a problem for Popescu today, though. At 6 feet 2 1/2, 310 pounds, Popescu provides the Northridge football team with what it most sorely lacked last season: size on the offensive line.

Popescu, who signed with Northridge out of San Bernardino Valley College, is among 11 new Matadors who will finish spring football with a scrimmage at 7 tonight at North Campus Stadium.

Although he has potential, don’t look for Popescu on the first-string offensive line quite yet. He is the No. 2 left tackle because he’s still having trouble adjusting to Northridge’s offensive schemes.

“He’s got good speed for a 300-pounder and he’s got a great work ethic,” said Bob Bostad, Northridge offensive line coach. “But he needs to get with the mental side of it. It’s an adjustment for him coming from a JC where they have two protections: one to go right and one to go left. There’s a lot of mental gymnastics involved.”

Popescu, who will be a junior in the fall, concedes he’s had trouble: “Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing out there. It’s killing me.”

Still, he doesn’t seem too worried about the problem. Or about anything for that matter.

Popescu, 20, is a big, smiling, hulk of happiness. Even after a recent practice, when he was forced to run extra sprints--he was smiling.

Popescu is just happy to be here.

Happy to be anywhere other than Romania, actually.

*

Popescu spent nearly a decade in a crowded, dilapidated apartment in Bucharest. He lived with his mother, father, sister, grandmother and great-grandfather.

One of his hobbies was chasing and killing the rats in the apartment, he said.

As for food, Popescu said fruit was a rarity and the bread was so stale that “you could knock a building down with it. It was like a bat.”

Besides the poor conditions, Communist rule made life difficult.

“You don’t have any freedom over there,” said Popescu’s mother, Mirela. “You don’t have any rights in the Communist system.”

The Popescus petitioned the Romanian government to immigrate to the United States in 1979. That was the slow way to get out. Many others escaped in car trunks or on freight trains.

But the Popescus wanted to follow proper channels, so they waited. And waited. And waited. It took 4 1/2 years to get the Romanian government’s OK.

During that time, Romanian officials tried to convince them that they were wrong to want to move to the U.S. They showed them pictures of homeless people in America.

“They said to us, ‘Do you want to ruin your lives?’ ” Popescu said.

Undeterred, The Popescus finally reached the top of the list to immigrate in 1984.

“I came home from school and my mom was teary-eyed,” Popescu said. “She said, ‘You can’t believe what’s happened. We are going to America. We are going to America.’

“She said the streets are paved with gold in America. You will never have to worry about food again.”

Popescu realized just how much of a change living in the West would be when he was on the transatlantic flight, stuffing bags of peanuts and cans of soft drinks into his mother’s purse.

“I had never seen that stuff before,” he said.

Upon their arrival in the U.S., the Popescus moved to Fontana, where they were met by a church pastor who had lived in their neighborhood in Bucharest.

From his initial sightseeing trip to the grocery store, Popescu has become increasingly appreciative of what he has in the U.S.

In fact, he’s become something of a Rush Limbaugh dream citizen.

Popescu on patriotism: “You can’t believe how much I love this country. Sometimes I get teary-eyed just listening to the national anthem.”

Popescu on opportunity: “People say there are no jobs out there. I say, why don’t you go out and look for one.

“My dad says, ‘If I could do it, not knowing any English, anyone could do it.’ ”

Popescu on speaking English: “If you come here and want to get a job you have to learn English. No one spoke Romanian to me when I got here. I had to go to a first-grade English class in third grade.”

Sounds like the problem with Popescu’s offensive-line play is not that he doesn’t know the schemes, but that he’s on the left instead of the right.

Which brings us back to football.

*

When Popescu was younger, he didn’t even like to watch football, much less play it. He was a soccer player.

As he grew--in more than one direction--people started asking him why he wasn’t out on a football field. Soon, he started to wonder that himself.

So, as a 6-foot, 240-pound 14-year-old, Popescu finally went out for the freshman football team at A.B. Miller High in Fontana.

He did not play a down that season.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I was just so confused out there.”

But the game slowly sunk in. Not only did Popescu learn the techniques, he hit the weights, turning his mass from flab to muscle.

Popescu made enough improvement to earn trips his senior year to USC and Colorado, but neither offered a scholarship. Instead, he wound up at San Bernardino Valley, against his father’s wishes. His father wanted him to attend a four-year school.

But Popescu played at San Bernardino and started for two seasons, attracting interest from Northridge, West Texas A&M;, Montana and Cal State Sacramento.

He signed with Northridge for a simple reason: It was close to home.

“Now my family can see me play,” he said. “I can go home for the weekends. I can eat my mom’s cooking.

“Southern California is the best place to be.”

Take it from a guy who appreciates it.

Instead of Bucharest’s Food Lines,

Romanian Toma Popescu Will Gladly

Wait on Northridge Offensive Line