Brains & Brawn : The Only Dirt on UCLA’s Jonathan Ogden is What He Gets on His Uniform

The kid is a saint. Everybody says so. Wears a gold necklace--given to him by his mother. No earring, no plans to get an earring. Won the Outland Trophy as college football’s best interior lineman and the NCAA indoor shotput title in his senior season and was still attending classes.

“Never set foot in my office in four years because he was in trouble or needed something special,” said Terry Donahue, former UCLA football coach.

Turn on the tape recorder, interview Jonathan Ogden, the UCLA left tackle who will probably go to the Arizona Cardinals on the third pick of Saturday’s NFL draft, and he says all the right things.

“I went to dinner with him recently and asked him, ‘What dreams do you have financially?’ ” said Art Venegas, Ogden’s track and field coach.

“He says, ‘I just don’t have that many things I want. I’m not a things person. I’m not dreaming of having 14 different cars and four mansions here, there and everywhere.’ He just wants to push himself and be rewarded with performance.”

A 6-foot-8, 315-pound Mother Teresa.

“Thank you very much,” said Shirrel Ogden, the proud father who is about to witness 21 years of child-rearing pay off in grand style in New York when his son is recognized as one of the NFL’s top newcomers with the potential to be one of the game’s premier role models.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’d like Jonathan to be the equivalent of [Detroit Piston] Grant Hill. Not from an endorsement point of view, but because of what he can do for kids. Contrary to what Charles Barkley has said, kids do emulate athletes, and you, the athlete, are a role model. And sports needs better role models.

“You hear about these incidents with Michael Irvin and Bam Morris, and the message is getting clouded. The public is to blame too. People put up with Dennis Rodman, they call him crazy, yeah, but then they go out and buy his advertised shoes.”

Jonathan Ogden and Dennis Rodman--never again--figure to have their names written in the same sentence. “Jonathan understands why it is so important to go on and get his degree,” Shirrel Ogden said. “It goes back to being a role model. Professional athletes are not promised a thing, but they can’t take your education away, and that’s what today’s kids should be seeing.”

After a divorce, Shirrel Ogden, who works for an investment firm, was a single parent raising two sons in Washington, D.C. His “greatest accomplishment in life,” now as he reflects.

“You know what I’m feeling? Pride,” he said. “To everyone else, this is that gigantic lineman; to me he’s that little kid who 21 years ago I could hold in one hand. I had nothing to do with Jonathan’s football talent; that was God-given. But when I hear all the nice things people are saying about my son, well, that’s the highest compliment a parent can get.

“It’s kind of funny, though. I had one reporter calling and asking me for just one piece of dirt on Jonathan because he was so squeaky clean. Did he take the trash out? Yes. Did he ever talk back to me? No. Did he ever try sneaking out of the house? No. There is no dirt on him. He was just an easy kid to raise, and if he wasn’t my own kid and I knew him, I’d say, ‘Oh, what a nice kid.’ ”

No question, a contemporary “Little House on the Prairie,” and yet four years ago Jonathan Ogden left that supportive cocoon to travel more than 3,000 miles to play football at UCLA with the understanding he could also compete in track and field. Many kids make the trek to college with the idea of playing two sports, but not many keep such a quinella alive for four years and with such success.

The kid’s different, all right. He went through four offensive line coaches, never attended a spring football practice, because he was competing in field events, and yet he made himself into a good enough football player to be the best offensive lineman available in the 1996 NFL draft. Despite his football obligations, which include visits to teams, interviewing prospective agents and wondering where he will live next year, he has been good enough in the shot to provisionally qualify for the Olympic trials next month.

No arrogance and no attitude. “I’m not good enough to make the Olympic team,” he says without excuses, although his track coach says he could be one of America’s best Olympic competitors in the 2000 Olympics if the NFL allows him the time to progress.

He had the opportunity a year ago to leave school early and begin employment in the NFL, but he returned to the classroom. “I could do a little more schoolwork, get closer to my degree, and I will get my degree [in history].” A 35, one of the top scores on this year’s Wonderlic test given to all college players looking for a pro opportunity, was no lucky guess.

“In my opinion, whoever drafts Jonathan will get a guy who plays tackle and protects the quarterback like nobody else,” Venegas said. “And a guy they should consider right now keeping on after his career is over. This could be a football operations man down the road because he’s brilliant in what he offers just from a human potential.”

The National Enquirer would go out of business writing about this guy, nicknamed “the Big O” by his teammates. There will be no flamboyant pronouncements, no luck trying to rattle him, no headline tug-of-war with Keyshawn Johnson, the USC wide receiver who, like Ogden, will be center stage at the draft.

He’s a left tackle, maybe the most valuable property in the NFL beyond the starting quarterbacks, because these are the guys who keep the quarterbacks from being blindsided. Just a left tackle, but then he is the best left tackle available, and according to some, the next Anthony Munoz, the former Cincinnati Bengal tackle who played in more Pro Bowls than any other NFL player (11).

“Every year there’s a lineman who is supposed to be the next Anthony Munoz,” Munoz said. “I was broadcasting a game for Fox last year and our crew was giving me a hard time about Tony Boselli being the next Anthony Munoz. I don’t want to sound cocky, but I shot back with: ‘When he’s playing in his 12th consecutive Pro Bowl, then there’s the guy we should be talking about.’

“I like what I see in Ogden, but let’s look at the long haul.”

But what would Anthony Munoz tell the next Anthony Munoz if given the chance? “I would tell him that during my last two or three Pro Bowls, I remember sitting on the sidelines during a break in the game, and instead of looking at the guys on the field as great athletes, I was evaluating them as people and asking what kind of impact they were leaving behind in their community. That’s what counts.”

Twenty-one years old, about to make millions of dollars, and Shirrel Ogden’s son unabashedly talks about what will count in his professional career.

“I realize the importance of education, even if it’s just to help you deal with people, and I want to have an impact on people,” he says. “I started playing football because I liked the game and because my dad played. I don’t like practice a whole lot, but I found out by playing on Saturday that it was worth everything to be there.

“Now I can’t think of a better way of making a living. I want to do something to help people, and I know that sounds bad--very corny--but I always felt I was here and as good as I am because I’m going to be in the public’s eye with a chance to do something positive for people or the community. I’m not sure what, but something.”