RUSSELLMANIA

For weeks the anticipation and excitement have focused on New York, the prospect of being the first player taken in the NFL draft, and a $7-million signing bonus.

It made sense too, and almost every so-called draft expert agreed, and so while Darrell Russell cautioned friends and family that anything might happen, surely it wouldn’t.

Even the criticism, the indictment from some anonymous sources that he took plays off while competing for USC and might not have the fiery disposition to merit being the top overall pick, still could be dismissed with the next newspaper story telling of Russell’s impending marriage with New York.

But today there is nothing but doubt, the lingering notion that maybe the criticism was taken to heart by the Jets and who knows by what other team.

“If that’s what some people think, I have to work harder to show it’s not true,” Russell said. “I don’t believe it’s true.”

Pros and cons. Future Pro Bowl player or big bust. Russell will still get his opportunity, and time will tell.

They were there yesterday, will be there tomorrow and the day after on these sports pages, story after story detailing an athlete’s ultimate success or failure.

But today, a mother’s story.

It does not matter to Eleanor Russell which team selects her son, and say what the naysayers want, “They’re wrong,” she says.

There always have been troubling things said about Darrell Russell, the little fat kid who became an expert at testing the patience and resolve of those in authority while growing up to be an articulate, sensitive and respectful son.

“Let me tell you, Darrell Russell is very fortunate to have the mother he did,” says Tony Sabatino, associate principal at St. Augustine High in San Diego. “The kid could have very easily been on the streets.”

The kid was 5 when his father and mother were divorced, and he grew up angry, very angry. His father was in the Navy, remarried, began a new family, and never had the chance to watch his son play a high school football game.

It was mother and son only, and there were house payments, expenses and a mother’s insistence on paying for a private education.

“I would not recommend being a single parent for anything on planet Earth,” says Eleanor, who now rides the train daily to her job as a computer programmer in Orange County. “I feel if I had not put aside my life . . . I mean, you read the newspapers, you see TV, it’s terrifying. How can you give up your child for any amount of time and say, ‘I’m going out for a good time?’

“I gave him all the love I had, and at times I felt I wasn’t doing enough, which is a bad feeling because there wasn’t much more I could do.

“Right now, just now, I might have a little glass of wine, but I never had a drink while raising my son because I never felt I had that much liberty. I had so much responsibility.

“I played tennis to relieve the stress, and let me tell you,” she says with a grin, “I’m a pretty good tennis player now.”

*

Lunch hour at a factory job in San Diego in those early years and most every day Eleanor jumped into her car, making the 20-minute drive to St. Rita’s Elementary School and, oblivious to what anyone else might think, marched directly to a classroom window, peeking in to watch her mischievous boy.

“He was my only son and I wasn’t going to take any chances,” she says.

So many tuition payments.

So many trips to St. Rita’s--before school to talk with her son’s educators; after school for three-way meetings of mother, son and principal; any time of the day so her youngster might never know when Mom might be there.

“I wanted him to know I was going to be there, but not when I was going to be there,” Eleanor says. “So don’t get in trouble.”

At one point, the rebellious Russell was almost asked to leave.

“He didn’t like the divorce,” Eleanor says. “And it broke my heart, but for adult reasons it had to happen. . . . I remember trying to fly a kite, like his dad would, and throwing a football, but you know, I wasn’t very good.”

Tony Russell, Darrell’s father and a naval captain now stationed in Florida, remembers the last thing he would tell his son before leaving for sea.

“If you cause problems, son, your mother is going to call me and you’re not going to want me to have to come back early,” he says, and in hindsight, “that’s exactly what he was doing--getting attention by causing problems so just maybe I would come back.”

Nothing malicious, but there were problems.

“I looked at other kids who were talking about their fathers and I really wanted and needed that,” says Darrell.

More lunch hours with Mom looking in school windows, more visits with school officials and then it was on to St. Augustine, at four times the tuition costs of St. Rita’s for Eleanor and all the concerns of any single parent trying to corral the reckless energy of a teenage boy. So much energy.

“One of my duties is that of disciplinarian at the school,” Sabatino says. “I remember freshman year--her son was in my office a great deal.”

So the work continued, Eleanor even taking a math class at a local college to better tutor her son.

“We’re talking about a very special lady here,” says Michele Eggleton, Darrell’s high school math teacher. “She is my ideal parent. I raised four of my own children, but there were a lot of times when I thought to myself, ‘How would Eleanor do this?’

“The woman dedicated her life to her son, but he was no angel and she would not bail him out. He knew she would be there for him, but she let him grow up and suffer the consequences if something went wrong.”

Slowly at first, then more quickly there were indications of maturation. Four years later the young man was representing St. Augustine in its renewal of academic accreditation as one of its most articulate students. When he went on to USC, it was with the idea of coupling an interest in dentistry with his football skills.

“I always wanted an interesting career and [to] make a lot of money and I noticed when I visited my dad, the Navy pays for most everything except braces for your kid and cable TV,” the personable Darrell says. “No matter the technology, kids are going to have crooked teeth and need braces, so I thought that would be a great way to make a living.”

In time, he began to understand that trying to knock someone’s teeth out with a bull rush might be even more lucrative.

“I wanted to take summer classes my sophomore year and Coach Robinson said that was a good idea because I should start thinking about the opportunity to come out early and play in the NFL,” Russell says. “That was the first time I ever gave it a thought. Coach Robinson was always a straight shooter, and I listened.”

The educational journey, four classes shy of conclusion now at USC, adjourns early for more complicated lessons: Life as a professional football player at age 20 with more than a $5-million signing bonus expected and everyone wanting a share.

“Scares me to death,” Eleanor says. “But I don’t have a choice. Your child is going to leave, so all you can do is pray that there’s a little thing in the back of their mind reminding them what Mom always said.”

While the Jets and Rams were swapping places in the first round of the draft Thursday, Darrell was on his way to New York to meet his father, taking with him his mother and his high school math teacher.

“I still remember him sitting in my room as a sophomore and talking about how we all have dreams,” Eggleton says. “And this big bruising kid looks up at me and says, ‘My dream is to make my mother have an easier life.’ From that moment on, he had me in his pocket.”

Nice story, but it doesn’t figure to bring a tear to the eye of the talent scouts or any other coach still in position to select him.

“People think I’m too nice, that I’m not aggressive at times,” Darrell says, “and I am, off the field. But on it, I do my job.

“If people don’t think I play hard enough, then I have to work harder to show them that’s not true,” Russell says. “Do I think I should be the No. 1 player taken in the draft?

“Looking at all the awards that have been given out and the notoriety the people on the East Coast have given to certain people and the fact people out East don’t like USC, no, Orlando Pace should be.”

And it appears he will be, delaying the Russell draft-day celebration, but by no means putting an end to it.

“When I think about this whole draft and the first-pick thing, it’s not so much for me as for my mom,” Darrell says. “She raised me and did a lot for me, and more than that, she put her life on hold for 20 years to get me where I’m at.”