Huckleberry Hart : After Rural Upbringing, Joyce Has Shown Myriad Abilities

Since his arrival at Hart High 17 months ago, Cody Joyce has captivated the campus with a childlike innocence and an uncanny ability to excel in almost any athletic endeavor.

His teammates, seizing upon his Southern upbringing and backwoods gullibility, stenciled the nickname “Forrest” on Joyce’s practice shirts.

That’s Forrest as in Forrest Gump.

Joyce finds the moniker somewhat embarrassing because the character played by Tom Hanks in the 1994 Academy Award-winning movie of the same name was mentally challenged.

Not true in Joyce’s case.

Hart coaches say Joyce, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound junior who led the region in receiving yards in football and entered the week with a Foothill League-best .525 batting average in baseball, is one of the quickest learners they’ve had.

It’s just that he has had a lot to learn.

They say he didn’t get much coaching while growing up in rural Clermont, Fla. (pop. 7,500).

Joyce, 17, has made an easy target for spoofs and practical jokes by his baseball teammates.

“You can [trick] him about everything,” said Bud Murray, Hart’s baseball coach.

And so they call him Forrest.

“They try to play a lot of jokes on me, and it’s hard to tell when they’re not serious,” Joyce said. “But I’ve gotten my little digs in, too.”

Joyce figures to have the last laugh.

Murray, a veteran coach, said Joyce might someday play in the major leagues, following in the footsteps of Hart graduates Todd Zeile (Phillies) and Andrew Lorraine (Athletics).

Dean Herrington, the offensive coordinator of Hart’s football team, considers Joyce among the top Division I recruits in Southern California.

All eyes will be on Joyce this fall, who led the area with 1,157 yards receiving and a yards-per-catch average of 22.7.

“When the recruiters see him on film, they’re in awe,” Herrington said.

He has all the tools: quickness, speed, power, coordination and durability.

Coaches mostly rave about his speed. He ran the second-fastest 40-yard dash (4.43 seconds) at the Reebok/Student Sports magazine football combine last week for top high school recruits. Herrington said he has clocked Joyce at 4.38.

He seems to have the intangibles to succeed, as well: He is easy to coach, has a strong work ethic and never seems satisfied--even after hitting 400-foot home runs in practice.

“Yesterday he said he had a lousy practice, and yet he hit two bombs,” said Ray Joyce, Cody’s father.

Joyce is still a rough cut, coaches say, but he shows flashes of greatness almost every time he takes the field. And everybody seems to have a favorite story.

For Murray, it was the time Joyce raced home from second base, scoring the winning run in a 5-4 victory over Burroughs as a teammate grounded out to the first baseman.

“I’ve never seen that gear before,” Murray said.

Herrington still marvels at how Joyce sailed over a Burbank defensive back like a hurdler to get extra yards after catching a pass.

“Everyone in the crowd gasped,” Herrington said.

Joyce started dunking a basketball in seventh grade. Now he can do a two-handed jam from a standing position with his back to the basket.

Herrington said Joyce bursts into laughter at least every five minutes. Murray calls him “loosey goosey.” Then again, sports have always been child’s play to Joyce.

“I would hate to sound cocky, because I’m not like that,” Joyce said. “But the ability has always been there. From T-ball to now. It’s just God-given talent.”

The only difficulty Joyce has encountered is his adjustment to Southern California and the higher-caliber competition Hart faces.

He grew up with older sister Cassidy and younger sister Dustin 25 miles west of Orlando, on what is now 30 miles of pasture. The Joyces are former citrus farmers, their orchard destroyed by two winter freezes in the mid-1980s.

Cody spent most of his childhood alone running through the woods, throwing rocks. Then came the culture shock of his family moving to California because of Cassidy’s budding career as an actress.

“The biggest thing that really gets to me is all the concrete,” said Cody, who misses his solitude.

When Cassidy, 19, landed a role on Models, Inc., a television series that lasted one season, the Joyces sold their Florida property.

“This is the first time Cody’s ever lived in a neighborhood,” Joyce’s mom, Amy, said. “Back home, if we had to sit behind one car at a stop light, we’d say, ‘Man, what traffic!’ ”

Cody had no trouble fitting in at Hart. But after winning a starting position at wide receiver on a football team known for its complicated passing offense, Joyce struggled.

His confidence was shaken as Hart took a physical beating in a 38-33, season-opening loss to Honolulu St. Louis in Hawaii.

“It was one of the quickest, fastest, most-physical games I’ve ever been in,” Joyce said. “I was scared.”

Joyce had only six receptions in the first three games. But in the fourth game, against Westlake, he had three receptions for 159 yards, catching touchdown passes of 73 and 69 yards.

Two weeks later Joyce, draped by three Loyola defenders, made a one-handed catch, broke free and scored on a long pass.

“That was the turning point,” Hart quarterback Steve McKeon said. “Up until then, if I was going to throw the deep ball, it was going to J.B. [Nelson].”

Joyce was the leading receiver in every playoff game as the Indians marched to the Southern Section Division II championship, eclipsing 100 yards three times and getting 98 in the other.

In Hart’s 35-28 victory over Antelope Valley in the title game, Joyce’s 64-yard, third-quarter touchdown reception--in which he outraced a speedy Antelope secondary--electrified the crowd and put the Indians ahead for good.

His ascent in baseball has been no less spectacular.

Joyce batted .360 last year for the junior varsity. This season he carries a .492 varsity average and leads the 20-6 Indians with six home runs, 30 runs batted in and 13 stolen bases.

Murray thinks Joyce might be a better professional prospect than Zeile or Lorraine.

But when Murray pulls him aside and talks about the 1997 major-league draft, the much-beguiled Joyce wonders if he is not once again being duped.

Not this time.

“I’ve dreamed about being a major-league player since I was 3 years old,” Joyce said. “I never had any question that I would be.

“But now they’re telling me this, and I think . . . wow!”