He’s a Hero--but It’s a Greek Tragedy

Petros Papadakis is like no Trojan tailback before him.

What Heisman Trophy winner ever referred to the Industrial Revolution on sports talk radio? What human being ever referred to the Industrial Revolution on sports talk radio?

Only a few minutes before that, Papadakis was telling reporters how before his big game, he could feel his confidence plunging--like Javert into the Seine in the scene from “Les Miserables.”

Papadakis has always been known more for his close-knit Greek family and wry sense of humor full of literary allusions and self-deprecation than anything he had ever done for USC on the football field.

That is, until Saturday’s topsy-turvy loss to California, when Papadakis rushed for 118 yards, including a 65-yard touchdown run and 41 yards of the fateful 58-yard touchdown run that was called back because of Larry Parker’s personal foul, the turning point of a wrenching 32-31 loss.

That 65-yard run rolled up more yardage than Papadakis, a junior, ever had in a USC game, and it eased Coach Paul Hackett’s mind.

“That means that we have a semblance of a running game even without Chad Morton,” he said.

It also set off a celebration among the Papadakis clan--a family that owns a lively Greek restaurant in San Pedro and has spawned three Trojan football players.

Petros’ father, John, was a linebacker on the 1970 and ’71 teams, and his brother, Taso, was a linebacker and fullback on the ’94 and ’96 teams whose career was wrecked by a series of injuries.

Think the family might be a little excited about Petros’ unforeseen 100-yard game, with him filling in because of Morton’s back injury?

“They’ve all lost their minds,” Petros said. “I’ve been trying to pretty much avoid everybody I know.

“The other night was my brother’s anniversary. I had to go to dinner with the family--including my father. We had, like, a no-football clause, so they couldn’t talk about football.

“It’s almost been like, ‘Who are you gonna get? Who should be your agent?’

“I think a lot of it has to do with Taso having so much misfortune here. It really broke all our hearts. . . . He gave everything he had here, like his entire body, without ever getting any recognition.”

The recognition Petros is getting all seems a bit much--to him, anyway.

“It’s one game, that’s the thing. Maybe if I had 700 yards and wasn’t averaging, like, 0.2 yards per carry, I’d bask in the media glory. It’s one game.”

But how about stopping by the restaurant, where the Papadakis family likes to put on raucous celebrations filled with Greek dancing even when there’s nothing to celebrate?

“Ugh. That would be a bad idea,” Petros said. But did you say restaurant? “301 West Sixth Street, San Pedro, Papadakis Taverna, open seven nights a week, reservations are preferred.

“You know, Sixth Street--it’s like the Fifth Avenue of San Pedro.”

If his father and brother have that Greek god look about them--Taso actually used to fill in for Hercules at Disneyland--Petros looks more like those marble busts of politicians and philosophers.

A professor at USC who heard Papadakis played football had only one question for him: “Walk-on or kicker?”

But Papadakis’ looks suit him. He’s an English major who started his career at Cal, staying in Berkeley for the summer and about a week of practice before he quit football.

“‘I wanted to be a Berkeley poet-sage,” he said. “When I came home, I was enticed to come here and play football.”

Literature is still a powerful interest, and Papadakis has been known to walk off the practice field quoting Shakespeare. At least it sounded like Shakespeare.

“When I was in high school, I was obsessed with Jack Kerouac,” he said. “I loved the whole beatnik thing. Then I got into Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller--that’s why I wore No. 22 when I first got here, but then David Gibson stole it because he’s a bigger recruit than me.

“I’ll read, like, Henry James now. I read ‘Moby Dick’ for the first time. John Updike, that was pretty depressing. Sylvia Plath? She’s really depressing.

“‘The dead Greeks are way beyond me. Philosophy doesn’t move fast enough for me. My dad’s into that. He says, ‘Become a philosopher, like the Greeks. Be a man.’ My father, he thinks he’s Achilles or Agamemnon. He used to come home from the restaurant at 3 o’clock in the morning and gather Taso and I together and say, ‘You’re a Papadakis, everybody loves you, you’re a Greek!’ ”

Papadakis’ gift of gab is classic enough that he had a regular gig on Vic “the Brick” Jacobs’ show on AM 1150 every Tuesday afternoon even before his big game, back when he was averaging 14.4 yards a game.

“The bureaucracy of the university encourages me to be eccentric on that show,” Papadakis said--and he is.

“You called me blue collar!” Papadakis complained to Jacobs this week. “I felt like I was a factory worker during the Industrial Revolution. . . . I did it for you. I did it because I want to be white collar. I want to move up!”

Amid it all, Papadakis hasn’t lost sight of what most people will remember about Saturday’s game--Cal’s 21-point comeback.

“It was a very deflating loss,” he said.

It was a game that started with the 65-yard first-quarter scoring run that transformed Papadakis’ reputation from short-yardage runner into a runner capable of breaking a long one.

“I bet a lot of people didn’t know he was that fast,” quarterback Mike Van Raaphorst said. “Everybody on the team has seen him run 40s. He just needed a chance to get out in the open. Once he’s in the open, he’s fast.”

Papadakis was fast enough to rush for 2,026 yards his senior season at Palos Verdes Peninsula High and also ran track, but he deflects such talk.

“I think [the Cal players] kind of misjudged my speed. They hadn’t seen me go more than five yards,” he said. “I don’t look particularly fast when I go one yard.”

The other plays that will live in his memory came later.

There was the one-yard carry from the two-yard line in the final seconds of the half--after which Hackett decided to kick a field goal, taking a sure-thing 24-10 lead rather than try again for a touchdown.

“I was in,” Papadakis said simply. “I know I was in. I can understand why we kicked a field goal, but I didn’t come off the field at first because I thought we would just run it again. But I guess I didn’t understand the situation very well.”

Nobody knew what the situation surrounding his third-quarter, 58-yard run would mean, either. Parker’s penalty called it back, and Antoine Harris’ fumble a couple of plays later sent the game reeling.

“It would have been over [if I had scored],” Papadakis said. “Nobody would be freaking out, saying we were terrible.”

As for Parker’s penalty for shoving a Cal player well behind the play: “I’ve done stuff worse than that in my life,” Papadakis said. “It’s a split-second decision. It’s not something he thought out and did.

“He apologized to me a couple of times, [but] stuff like that happens. We all make mistakes. If that happened on a play where I made a two-yard gain, nobody would be talking about it. It’s just unfortunate.”

Morton’s injury has been another misfortune, and USC is hoping he’ll return Saturday.

“We all depend on Chad,” Papadakis said. “I started against Oregon State and produced nothing except a couple of third-and-one runs. Against Arizona State, I had eight carries for 10 yards.

“Personally, I felt like, ‘God, I’ve got to do more than this.’ ”