NFL 2000: The Other Side of Ron Dayne

Lance Thomas remembers answering his phone and panicking as he heard the voice.

“Can I speak to Lance? This is Jane from Fairleigh Dickinson,” the sultry voice told the married Thomas, who nervously thought it might be an old girlfriend.

Then the voice got deeper.

“Yo, man! Don’t you know who this is?” it said.

It was Ron Dayne, the Heisman Trophy winner, major college football’s career rushing leader and Thomas’ cousin. The joke was something outsiders would never expect from him.

For unlike many modern athletes, he’s not a self promoter. He believes his on-field accomplishments stand on their own.

So far, they have.

With thighs as thick as a lineman, a squat body as big as a fullback and the speed of a halfback, Dayne is like few backs ever, a steamroller with five gears.

He glides to a hole, hits another gear and then runs through the tackles of linemen and linebackers while throwing defensive backs out of his way like wet towels. At Wisconsin, that translated into an NCAA Division I-A career-record 7,125 yards rushing and 71 touchdowns on 1,220 carries.

The 11th pick overall in the NFL draft, Dayne is the New York Giants’ hope for restoring their running game, even if some people football people have their doubts about a 253-pound back who looks overweight.

“I didn’t have any expectations,” Dayne said. “I just want to go out, learn my plays and give 100 percent. I’m not trying to impress people.”

While he’ll talk about video games, fishing and relaxing at home with his two children, Dayne won’t say much more. He prefers privacy. He’s always been a player who has let his actions speak for him, whether it’s been on the field or off.

Ron Hopson, Dayne’s agent and his former principal at Overbrook High School in Berlin, N.J., describes him as humble, intuitive and caring, especially for those not as fortunate.

“There was a young boy in our school who was teased all the time,” Hopson recalled. “He was a short young man, a special-ed child, and everybody use to tease him. Well Ron adopted him and would walk down the hall with him and say, ‘This is my son.’ ”

“That kid would beam up with such a light in his face,” Hopson added. “He became an important person at the school because Ron Dayne adopted him.”

He wasn’t the only one.

“It ain’t right,” Dayne said of the teasing. “If I can help somebody because of who I am, it’s the best thing to do.”

Helping people probably relates to Dayne’s own youth. His mother, Brenda, went into rehabilitation when he was a teenager, forcing Dayne to live with first his aunt, Barbara, and then his uncle, Robert Reid.

Thomas, Barbara’s son, remembers when he came to his home for six weeks.

“When you see a big kid like that, who’s athletic, you have a stereotype that he’s not going to do certain things,” said Thomas, who notes that Dayne is not afraid to tell his cousin he loves him at the end of telephone calls.

“This is a kid that made sure he made his bed and made sure he was washing his own clothes and folding them and everything is neat. He was in the eighth grade, and he figured out how to use the washing machine on his own.”

Running the football in high school was just as easy, even though Dayne didn’t play halfback right away.

When Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez saw Dayne on film the first time, he was lining up a yard behind the Overbrook quarterback.

“He never got a head of steam,” Alvarez recalled. “He kind of got in behind everyone and then come out the back end and outrun everyone.”

The result was the same at Wisconsin, Giants center says Derek Engler, the Giants backup center, who was a senior for the Badgers when Dayne arrived in 1996.

Dayne didn’t start until about his fifth game, but Engler recalls it well, especially one 30-yard run.

“He was about 20 yards downfield, and I see he’s got one guy on him, so I run up and he breaks free,” Engler said. “The next thing I know, he’s got two more guys on him. So I’m helping him. I behind him, pushing him toward the goal line.

“I’m just pushing and thinking, “My God, he’s carrying three guys.” We got down to the one, but I knew right then this guy was the real deal.”

Alvarez, Engler and Giants linebacker Pete Monty, another former Wisconsin player, could recall dozens of similar plays and performances.

However, each had other thoughts.

Engler couldn’t forget how after each 200-plus yard rushing performance Dayne would walk into the post-game news conference and credit his offensive line.

Dayne’s quiet leadership struck Monty.

“I think it’s great for someone who has had so much success and who will probably have a lot more success to be a quiet person,” Monty said. “A lot of people look up and respect that. He’s a team person, not an individual.”

Two things came to mind for Alvarez.

One was that half of Dayne’s yards came after contact.

The other was all the awards Dayne received and left at school.

“It would end up in the sports information office,” Alvarez said. “That’s not important to him.”

Steve Malchow, the Wisconsin sports information director has his own story.

Last season, when Dayne was closing in on Ricky Williams rushing record, postcards were sent out and billboards put up counting down the yardage needed to set the record. Most of Madison knew the number.

When it got down to 99 yards, Dayne was besieged for interviews.

Late into a long ABC-TV interview, Dayne was asked how many yards he needed for the record.

“Ron looked at me and said “Steve, I don’t know. Do you?”’ Malchow said. “He laughed and said: ‘I’m more worried about beating Iowa.”’

He hasn’t changed much as a pro.

“He’s just really laid back,” said free agent running back Omar Bacon, who has spent the last four weeks rooming with Dayne at training camp. “We go out and play video games. He always wins; he’s real good in video games, like he is on the field.”

He also is still looking out for people.

Bacon came to camp without a car. Dayne has been his chauffeur more than once.

“He’s a cool person,” Bacon said.

And if he runs like he did in college, he’ll be the back the Giants haven’t had since Rodney Hampton retired three years ago.