Redmond Seems Well-Groomed for Role

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here, in the presence of family and friends, to celebrate the union of J.R. Redmond and his football career, again.

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

So speak they did.

The fan.

“Hey, J.R.! Who you marrying this week?” some guy shouted from the stands.

The former teammate.

“You know we have to mess with him,” said USC defensive tackle Ennis Davis, who played Pop Warner football with Redmond in Carson.

The opponent.

“I asked him how come he didn’t invite me to the wedding,” Trojan linebacker Zeke Moreno said. “Things like that.”

Redmond, having heard such comments for a week, rolled with them again, helped by the fact they came Saturday at the Coliseum as he and Arizona State were rolling over USC in a 26-16 victory. He merely started at tailback and free safety. He carried the ball 34 times for 148 yards and three touchdowns, caught three passes, returned seven punts and made four tackles, all unassisted, while going much of the way in the secondary. Things like that.

Redmond heard the cracks along the way. USC didn’t hesitate to make them in the middle of a pile at the end of a play or as he walked back to the huddle. Not that he hadn’t heard all the cracks anyway, every wedding and honeymoon and divorce joke possible in the short time it took him to go through all three.

Redmond was suspended for last week’s game at Oregon after a chain of events that led to a marriage to a part-time employee of the Arizona State athletic department that he says he was coerced into.

The wedding was Aug. 25. The divorce filing was Oct. 22. Then came trouble that the Redmonds didn’t register for--the bride had paid for a trip to Las Vegas and provided Redmond with use of her cellular phone, which amount to improper benefits in the eyes of the NCAA.

Saturday was his chance to play again. All the better that it came in this city, in front of friends and family of the more long-term variety.

Said Arizona State wide receiver Richard Williams: “Early in practice this week, he said to me, ‘Rich, you’re going to see something you’ve never seen before.’ It meant so much to him.”

Redmond has been an all-purpose star throughout his Arizona State career, but being a two-way starter provided originality. Given the opportunity he had lobbied for, Redmond answered the challenge of workhorse duty by leading the Sun Devils to victory, then answered the one-liners, such as the one from the guy in the stands who wondered who he would marry this week.

“I married the Trojans,” Redmond shouted back at the fan, “and now we’re getting a divorce.”

Redmond gets custody of the pride.

“There’s always motivation when you’ve been held back or something,” he said. “I just wanted to leave it all on the field. All the energy I had last week and couldn’t use.

“Any time I get a chance to come home and play in front of family and friends, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like another battery pack, another charger in my hip pads.”

Redmond did most of his damage in the second half, about the time he should have been wearing down. Instead, 89 of his rushing yards came after intermission, along with a 14-yard touchdown run with 1:47 remaining that provided late insurance after USC had pulled within 19-16. The Trojans, and their supporters, had been quieted.

“Fans will be fans,” Redmond said. “And angry fans will be angry fans.”

Ain’t love grand?