Something Special

The locker room gets a little quieter when Jerry Rice hobbles in on crutches.

His teammates aren’t quite as boisterous. Reporters gather near but no one asks any questions at first.

These are difficult times at the San Francisco 49er practice complex. The durable Rice is sidelined with a knee injury and Steve Young seemingly teeters one concussion away from retirement.

Yet, at a locker in the corner of the room, one of the younger players cannot bring himself to be grim.

Iheanyi Uwaezuoke has a gentle and exuberant manner. Even as his team struggles through the early season, even as he struggles to prove he belongs in the NFL, the second-year receiver is wont to punctuate his words with soft, quick laughter.

His face broadens with a grin when he is asked about the prospect of failure, both for his team and himself.

“You ask that man right there.” He points to Rice. “People who are successful never look at things from a negative side.”

*

Plenty of guys around the league linger two or three spots down the depth chart, waiting behind veterans and high draft picks, waiting for a chance.

“At this level it’s mostly experience,” said Larry Kirksey, the 49er receivers coach. “It’s having the opportunity to go out and make some plays.”

For many, the opportunity never comes.

A fifth-round draft pick last year, Uwaezuoke (pronounced: ooh-WAY-zoo-kay) recognizes the odds against him. After spending his rookie season watching Rice, Terrell Owens and J.J. Stokes grab most of the playing time, he has made what one team official calls a “resourceful” career move.

Over the summer, he devoted himself to becoming a better special-teams player.

“The more you can do, the more valuable you are to the squad,” he said. “And the longer you get to stay around.”

The 24-year-old possesses natural skills but his special teams experience was limited to a few returns at Harvard-Westlake High in the late 1980s.

“It’s not an easy transition,” said George Stewart, San Francisco’s special teams coach. “He worked his tail off during the off-season.”

Much time was spent returning kicks. The returner must track the flight of the ball, high above, while keeping an eye on the coverage team thundering toward him.

“Everyone asks, ‘Isn’t it scary being out there with 10 guys in your face?’ ” Uwaezuoke said. “But you go from that three or four seconds of vulnerability to wham! All of a sudden you’re making moves, you’re making guys miss, you’re in control.”

Uwaezuoke found something new to love about the game.

“If you don’t crave stardom, then you’re in the wrong business,” he said. “When I’m out there on that punt return, I know it’s coming to me. It’s time to do my thing.”

He has done it well enough to start as a kickoff returner and fill in on punts while the 49ers’ top man, Chuck Levy, nurses a separated shoulder.

*

Early in the second quarter at 3Com Park last Sunday, the New Orleans Saints punted from their 32.

Uwaezuoke fielded the ball near the sideline and hesitated slightly, a stutter-step, to let his blockers form a wall. He slipped a tackle and raced 36 yards for a first down in Saints’ territory.

“Catch the ball, read your blocks, explode,” he said, reciting a split-second checklist. “When you break a long one, there aren’t too many feelings like it.”

It was just one play, one of many highlights in a 33-7 victory. But it raised his punt return average to 12.8 yards, seventh-best in the league this season. Better than Desmond Howard. Better than Eric Metcalf.

On kickoff returns, Uwaezuoke lined up beside a recovering Levy. On kick coverage, he knifed through the wedge and flattened a Saint returner, a hit that got him a full-page photograph in a national sports magazine.

“Iheanyi is doing an outstanding job,” Stewart said. “The guy is a worker.”

*

It’s a ploy, of course, a trick to buy time while he tries to become a starting receiver.

“I believe in my heart that I’m going to play a major role in this league,” Uwaezuoke said.

His optimism is ironclad, some would say Pollyannaish. But it turns out he is not being entirely truthful when he talks about never looking at the negative side.

After emigrating from Nigeria as a youngster, Uwaezuoke played for a Harvard-Westlake team that rarely passed. He had only 23 receptions as a senior and received no scholarship offers, not even from UCLA, which had shown early interest.

“I was very bitter,” he conceded. “I almost quit football.”

Then Cal invited him to walk on. Uwaezuoke got a chance to channel his anger and Keith Gilbertson, former Cal coach, got a highly motivated teenager.

“Good size and great speed, and he was smart,” said Gilbertson, now a Seattle Seahawks assistant. “I told him, even before he had a scholarship, that he had a future in this game.”

Against Washington in 1994, Uwaezuoke set a Cal single-game record with 13 catches for 162 yards. Against UCLA in his senior season, he exacted revenge with seven catches for 150 yards.

But for every brilliant game, there were others spent nursing injuries. Come NFL draft day, the rounds went by without a phone call. It was high school all over again.

“A real down time for me,” he said.

Finally, he was taken as the 160th pick, a longshot.

“Thank God and the 49ers,” he said.

Given new life, he again converted despair into motivation. By then he had learned: “That’s my life. I’ve always succeeded as the underdog.”

As a rookie, Uwaezuoke caught seven passes for 91 yards, including a 29-yard touchdown against Dallas. This season, with Rice gone, he became the third receiver in spread formations, getting two dozen snaps and maybe a handful of balls thrown to him each game.

A handful of chances to make a big play.

*

Moments after his long punt return against the Saints, Uwaezuoke lined up in the slot on third and six. Young found him along the sideline and he made a tiptoe catch for a 13-yard gain.

“It makes me feel really good that, in a critical situation, Steve came to me,” he said.

Later, Young threw to him at the goal line but Stokes drifted into the area. Amid the jumble, the pass fell incomplete. Coach Steve Mariucci barked at both receivers--Stokes failed to change his route at the line of scrimmage and Uwaezuoke failed to glance at Stokes to make sure his teammate recognized the adjustment.

This miscue could not spoil a good day. The 49er locker room was loud and happy. The youngest receiver on the team was content--playing special teams eased the frustration of having only two passes thrown his way.

“At least the craving to have the ball in my hands is somewhat pacified,” he said. “It’s not like I leave the game just fuming.”

Again, he laughed.

“In this game, the thing I’ve learned is that you’re only one play away.”