Rush Hour

Maybe he’ll get lucky one time and be nearby as a loose ball moves precariously close to the sideline, requiring someone to dive to keep a play alive.

“That’d be nice,” JaRon Rush said.

Even better: the ball seems destined for the stands.

Then he might have the good fortune to risk injury by belly-flopping into the third row in pursuit.

“Yeah. Just go after the ball, go all out. That’s what I’d like to do.”

Because Rush, UCLA’s sometimes-starter at small forward, knows an image might be building, knows he might have something to prove.

That he’s tough enough.

In his mind, he is, without question. Teammates and coaches agree, noting that Rush’s unexpected prominence as a rebounder proves it, for how else can a slender 6-foot-6 freshman with a sore back be averaging 7.4 boards in Pacific 10 Conference play?

But Rush also understands how people could have reached a conclusion to the contrary. That’s his sensitive side, which in the first three months of his Bruin career has become both his greatest undoing and one of his greatest personal attributes.

He got homesick, so homesick that he almost didn’t come back to UCLA from Kansas City, Mo., after Christmas break, having considered transferring even as he told teammates on the phone that there was no doubt he would be in Los Angeles any day. And then, upon finally deciding to remain a Bruin, shed a few tears while boarding the plane because he didn’t want to leave.

He got scared on a flight. So scared by the heavy turbulence, terrible by all accounts, that he was crying and lying with his head in the lap of a teammate and then refused to board UCLA’s connection from Memphis, Tenn., to Louisville, Ky. Because even going the final 375 miles by car in the late-January cold had to be better than dealing with those bumps again.

He got thrown by late notice of a lineup change. So thrown that Sunday, when word came from Coach Steve Lavin not long before tipoff that Matt Barnes would be the new starter at small forward, Rush later admitted that “it distracted me during the game.”

Rush could see a series of understandable incidents--a lot of freshmen get homesick, a lot of Bruins were white-knuckled on that descent into Memphis--might be building. He knows that some people might be wondering.

So he looks for the chance to prove he isn’t fragile.

“I’ve got to do things to show people that I’m not that way,” he said.

He looks for the chance to dive into the stands after a ball.

“That’ll show people that I’m tough, right there.”

Maybe that opportunity will never come and the notion will be erased on its own, either in the way Rush has persevered through season-long back problems or because he leads the Bruins in rebounding in conference action despite being anything but a power player. And one day in the future it will become apparent that tough moments in the life of a 19-year-old were blown out of proportion.

Tough enough?

The teammate who knows him best scoffs.

“He’s probably not strong enough to handle a bumpy airplane flight,” said guard Earl Watson, a friend since they were 12-year-olds playing in leagues around Kansas City. “But as far as out here, he can handle it. He’s just a real sensitive person, and you’ve got to respect him for being himself.

“He’s not being anyone he’s not. I respect him that much more.

“I can put it like this: How many rebounds is he averaging since then, in Pac-10? You’ve got to be tough to do that. As a freshman? Six-six, six-seven? Big time.”

Rush almost didn’t make it to since then. He concedes that while home for Christmas--and finding it especially hard to leave because his 13-month-old son lives in Kansas City--he thought about contacting other schools and “telling them that I really want to transfer.”

Rush missed two practices and a game, all the while finding great convenience in a return ticket that apparently had been purchased for the wrong day and in another flight that he just happened to miss. He kept telling teammates he would be back in Los Angeles later that day or the next day, and he also kept refusing to leave.

Finally, conversations with friends and family members convinced Rush to stick with UCLA. After another tough moment at the airport in Missouri, he returned to California and was suspended by Lavin for the Pac-10 opener against Arizona.

He says that things are going fine now. He is meeting more people and finding a life involving something other than basketball. He has a girlfriend. He still has a shooting problem, at 31.2% in conference and 34.8% overall, but he also has support.

“He’s kind of a contradiction,” Lavin said. “When he steps on the floor, he’s such a competitor, such a warrior. He’s helping our team win games not through his scoring, but through his rebounding, his defense, the loose balls, taking charges, diving on the floor. That’s an element to his game that I wouldn’t have figured as a freshman would be such a key factor. I thought maybe down the road he would develop some of those areas of his game, but he has brought that competitive fire right out of the gates as a freshman. So that’s not consistent with the difficult time he’s had in terms of being a fragile freshman, kind of feeling his way through his first year.

“People who are close to him--his teammates, the coaching staff, the people in the athletic department--realize that he’s a great, great competitor who was extremely homesick. And the other incident [the flight] was kind of an understandable situation. We had 40-year-olds [who] didn’t want to tell you the truth [about preferring to drive the last leg]. Doug Erickson [an administrative assistant] really didn’t want to go on the plane ride either and he kind of hid behind the fact that, ‘Hey, coach, I’ll take him.’

“My only concern is that he keeps his confidence level up and that he doesn’t press or put too much pressure on his own shoulders and try to take the weight of the team on to the shoulders. Instead, just be a freshman who’s enjoying his college experience academically, athletically and socially and understand that the difficult time he’s going through, that a lot of players around the country are going through the same situation.

“It just happens that when you’re at UCLA, the spotlight is so bright and tight on you.”

And people are watching to see what you do.

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TONIGHT’S GAME

OREGON (10-8, 2-7) at UCLA (15-5, 6-3)

7:30 p.m. No TV