SPORTS EXTRA / FOOTBALL ‘99: A LAND OF PLENTY : HOME GROWN : Dorsey and UCLA’s Abdul-Jabbar Has Been Solid for Dolphin Team Desperately Seeking Next Emmitt Smith

His own coach has called Karim Abdul-Jabbar of the Miami Dolphins the most underrated running back in the NFL.

Jimmy Johnson said it again last April . . . after using two of his first four picks in the 1999 draft to take running backs J.J. Johnson and Cecil Collins.

And after using a first-round pick in the 1998 draft to take running back John Avery.

And after bringing in since-departed free agents Lawrence Phillips last summer and Tyrone Wheatley this summer to challenge Abdul-Jabbar.

And after trying in 1998 to trade for Rashaan Salaam, who failed a physical, and courting free agent Raymont Harris.

And so on and so on.

If the coach’s mixed message is confusing or irritating to Abdul-Jabbar, however, the former UCLA star keeps it to himself.

His Muslim name means “servant of the most generous,” and the former Sharmon Shah seems determined to live up to

it.

If Johnson is hell-bent on unearthing the next Emmitt Smith in an effort to better a Dolphin running game that has long lived in the shadow of Dan Marino’s record-breaking passing attack, so be it. Abdul-Jabbar isn’t about to second-guess his boss.

“When you have success,” the former Dorsey High player says of Johnson, who won two Super Bowls with Smith and the Dallas Cowboys, “you try to stick to that formula. He had a lot of success with Emmitt, so I guess he’s trying to find Emmitt again. Nothing wrong with that. . . .

“He drafted me because he thought I was the next Emmitt.”

That hasn’t been the case, but Abdul-Jabbar has shown himself to be durable and reliable, if not spectacular, rushing for nearly 3,000 yards and 32 touchdowns in his first three NFL seasons.

Among former Dolphins, only Hall of Famer Larry Csonka ran for more yardage in three consecutive seasons. And only Terrell Davis of the Denver Broncos scored more touchdowns on the ground during the last three seasons.

Still, Abdul-Jabbar is disparaged by critics in the media and in the seats at Pro Player Stadium who say he lacks breakaway speed, doesn’t slip enough tackles

and just isn’t good enough to run the Dolphins into the Super Bowl.

And Johnson keeps searching for a better alternative.

“You’re always going to have competition,” Abdul-Jabbar says. “This is a tough league. You see how often guys get injured? If you don’t draft running backs and somebody goes down, you have nobody to step up. . . .

“He’s a good coach and he has a good idea of what he wants. And when you have somebody like that, you trust his decisions.”

Johnson has always seemed a little unsure of Abdul-Jabbar, from their first training camp together in 1996, when the coach questioned the running back’s toughness.

Abdul-Jabbar, a third-round pick by the Dolphins after a record-breaking junior season at UCLA, was slowed by ankle injuries that summer, and Johnson seethed.

Then, after Abdul-Jabbar rushed for 115 yards against the New England Patriots in his NFL debut, Johnson told reporters: “I made a mistake on him. I was skeptical about his injury. I was also frustrated because I knew what kind of talent he had and I wanted to groom him to stay in the picture.”

Abdul-Jabbar stayed in the picture all season, making 14 starts and rushing for 1,116 yards to become only the fourth Dolphin player--and the first Dolphin rookie--to run for more than 1,000.

But he has been unable to duplicate the feat, rushing for 892 yards in his second season and 960 last season, and Dolphin fans keep hoping that Johnson can find somebody better.

“In South Florida for much of the last quarter of the waning century,” Greg Cote of the Miami Herald wrote last January, “perhaps only the health of Fidel Castro has been discussed more and wished-on more than the state of the Dolphins’ running game.”

In Collins, a talented but troubled rookie from McNeese State whose past includes two arrests for breaking into a woman’s apartment, three failed drug tests and 27 days in jail, Johnson says he has “a faster version of Emmitt Smith.”

Meanwhile, Abdul-Jabbar carries on without complaint, even as trade rumors swirl around him.

“Karim is really insulated from all this outside stuff,” Johnson says. “Karim has a strong mind. He goes out there and does his work. He does the best that he can do, and he doesn’t worry about things he can’t control.”

Others come and go, but so far Abdul-Jabbar has endured.

The time will come, he says, when he will be more appreciated.

“It takes time to be mentioned with the best,” he says. “A lot of guys, it doesn’t just take them a year or two. . . . Look at Jamal Anderson [of the Atlanta Falcons]. It took him until about his fifth year to really get over the hump. He got in a good situation and got some good receivers around him in a balanced offense, and he ends up with 1,800 yards. So it takes time. You’ve got to be patient.

“It’s just timing, man. Patience and timing--things coming together with a complete team in a balanced offense with a good scheme. You’ve just got to be ready when it happens. A lot of guys are not ready when the opportunity comes. It’s just about timing.”