On-the-Spot Trojan Freshman Hits the Ground Running Well

When freshman Malaefou MacKenzie starts at tailback for USC on Saturday, he’ll be playing not only for himself and his teammates but also for a brother who is gone and a father who is ill.

There is a shirt MacKenzie wears before games, the cloth closest to his heart. It has a picture on it and the name Hornell, in memory of the brother born with Down Syndrome who died of a heart ailment at 17, when Malaefou was 10.

“I used to wear it under my jersey, but now I only wear it before and after games. I didn’t want to cut it,” MacKenzie said. “I carry a cross with his name on it, and I play in his memory. He was a good kid, always so caring and loving. Always.”

The father understands his son’s words.

“He really misses him a lot. We all do,” said Vernon MacKenzie, who has suffered a heart attack and learned he has prostate cancer in the last year. “They were buddies. There was an age difference, but he took to him.”

Vernon MacKenzie was in the stands at the Coliseum on Saturday when Malaefou became only the fifth true freshman in USC history to rush for 100 yards, gaining 104 in 19 carries against Nevada Las Vegas after starter LaVale Woods injured his ankle.

There was his son, so shy as a boy that he would bring his lunch home from school to eat it, playing in front of a crowd of more than 50,000--about 15,000 more people than live in Apia, the capital of Western Samoa, where the family of seven lived until Malaefou was 9.

Now, with Woods sidelined because of a sprained ankle, Coach John Robinson has named MacKenzie, a powerfully built, training-obsessed freshman from Capistrano Valley High, to start, over senior Delon Washington, against Arizona State.

That will make MacKenzie the first true freshman to start at tailback for USC since Scott Lockwood in 1987. Before that, it was Charles White, the future Heisman Trophy winner who is now a USC assistant coach, in 1976.

There have been times Vernon MacKenzie hasn’t been able to see Malaefou play because he had to be back in Western Samoa, running the family import-export business that called him home as a young man. A son’s duty to his family when his own father was ill ended Vernon’s hopes of playing for USC or UCLA out of John Marshall High nearly 40 years ago.

Vernon MacKenzie had plans to be here for as much of USC’s season as he could when his health problems brought him back to Mission Viejo early.

“[Malaefou] was very concerned. That’s one of the reasons why I agreed with my wife to come here,” Vernon said. “My being here has taken a lot of weight off his chest. I was very concerned it might affect his playing. He’s come this far, it would be nice for him to realize his dream, maybe if he doesn’t get hurt, of going all the way to the pros.”

Vernon takes medication and sees a doctor for his heart condition but he has chosen a different route with his prostate cancer.

“They suggested I have it removed, the sooner the better, but I talked it over with my family,” he said. “We decided to pray on it. But I haven’t been back to see the doctor. We’re hoping it’s gone, but I have to find out if it’s progressed.”

“It’s tough,” Malaefou said. “I always wonder about him, how he’s doing. I just have to pray, and do what I have to do.”

When it comes to football, MacKenzie has always done more than he had to. At 6 feet and 210 pounds, he bench-presses 415 pounds.

“He’s a rock,” says White, the running back coach.

But MacKenzie is always doing more, running sprints on the treadmill and lifting weights long after practice, often leaving only when strength coach James Strom is ready to lock up.

“I told James Strom to try and get him to let up a little,” Vernon said. “When he was at home, I tried to tell him, ‘I think you’re overtraining.’ He was staying up until 1 or 2 in the morning. Everyone would be asleep, and he’d be pushing weights in the garage, out on the road doing wind sprints, tying a tire around him and dragging it.

“It was too much. You have to do a lot more than the average guys to make it, but I thought he was obsessed. I was worried, no doubt. I told James, ‘I’d appreciate it if you can corral him.’ ”

Much of MacKenzie’s program comes from Marv Marinovich, a training specialist and the father of former USC quarterback Todd Marinovich.

“It helped me tremendously through high school and now college,” MacKenzie said. “He’s one of the best. He concentrates more on athletic lifting, not so much power lifting.”

Some of Marinovich’s ideas about diet are more difficult to implement while MacKenzie is away at school, which is fine with his father.

“I like my food, but Malaefou, he’s very regimented when it comes to eating,” Vernon said. “I’ll make a nice beautiful sandwich and be very proud, and he’d only eat half of it. He’s so disciplined. I wasn’t disciplined. Samoans like their food.”

The family heritage is mostly Samoan, but the MacKenzie name comes from Malaefou’s great grandfather, who traveled to the islands as a representative of a trading house in San Francisco, fell in love and stayed.

And his first name?

“Malae means land and Fou means new,” Malaefou said. “Somebody told me it’s like paradise, like new-found land.”

The Trojans hope he will find some new ground for them this season in a sport he didn’t take up until he was 10. In Samoa, the game of choice was rugby.

“I never knew what football was until I came here,” he said. “I used to think it was a wussy sport, compared to rugby. I’d tease my brother when he had it on TV. . . . “

A wussy sport?

“I found out it’s not,” Malaefou said. “Both are physical, but I think rugby is more physical because there are no pads. But in football, people are bigger and stronger.”

With Woods out indefinitely no sooner than he had seemed to have solved USC’s problems at tailback, USC needs a big, strong performance from MacKenzie.

“LaVale is a big loss to the team,” MacKenzie said.

“I’ve just got to stay low, and keep everything going upfield. . . .

“What I learned from this game is, I have a lot to learn in college football. I had an all right game. I could have had a better game if I did all that Coach White and J. Rob have told me. Everything has to go upfield.”