Hale & Hearty

Carson Palmer has never been the type to show the world his emotions. He doesn’t get too high or too low. Hardly ever complains, his father says, “unless you press him.”

So the USC quarterback sounds a bit sheepish when he recalls that Saturday afternoon last November.

A broken collarbone had sidelined him for the season. Palmer was trying to keep his spirits up because that is what quarterbacks do. They stay cool in the face of adversity. When they get knocked down, they get back up and dust themselves off.

But when it came time for the UCLA game, as he walked onto the Coliseum field in street clothes, Palmer lost it.

“I felt tears coming down my face,” he says. “Everybody’s fired up and the stadium was going nuts and I was thinking, ‘This is my game. I should be playing in this game.’ ”

Now he can talk about that day with a hint of a grin to go with his tousled blond hair and square jaw. His passes have more zip than ever, his team is ranked 15th and a new season begins next Sunday against No. 22 Penn State in the Kickoff Classic at East Rutherford, N.J.

“I’m loving everything,” he says. “Every minute of it.”

Time away from the game has done more than mend a broken bone. There is something changed about Palmer, something almost emotional about the way he approaches football.

*

Perhaps the only thing Palmer doesn’t love is the hype surrounding his return to the starting lineup.

His photograph adorns the covers of various preseason magazines. He appears larger than life on billboards throughout Los Angeles with words that describe him as “the perfect storm.”

“I guess that’s one of the things about playing quarterback,” he says flatly. “The quarterback gets most of the recognition.”

Fanfare does not seem to impress this 20-year-old who, family and friends say, has always maintained an even keel, through good times and bad, ever since he played at Santa Margarita High.

“If he threw an interception, he wouldn’t get upset,” says his father, Bill. “He’d come right back and throw a touchdown.”

Palmer was calm enough to step onto the field in the first game of his college career and promptly connect on a 42-yard bomb against Purdue. He was composed enough to become a starter in the late season, leading USC to a victory over Notre Dame and a berth in the Sun Bowl.

By the beginning of the 1999 season, he was the anointed star--a leader by action, not words.

“He is not a yell-and-scream, hoot-and-holler kind of guy,” says receiver Matt Nickels, a teammate and friend since high school. “He’s more mellow than that.”

But success came so quickly that “he never really had a chance to reflect,” his father says.

The opportunity arrived unexpectedly, uninvited, in a game at Oregon last September. Scrambling for a three-yard gain, Palmer ducked his shoulder into an oncoming defender--a smaller man--and heard a crunch.

He had broken the same bone as a sophomore in high school. That time, the hairline fracture quickly healed. This time, doctors said recovery could take weeks, even months.

Plenty of time to think.

“It was definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” Palmer says. “I mean, football is my life. It’s what I do every day and it was taken away in one little hit.”

Coach Paul Hackett watched closely to see how his quarterback would respond. Teammates watched too. Palmer never complained, but he wasn’t as good-natured as before. He wasn’t joking around in the locker room.

“You could look in his eyes,” receiver Kareem Kelly says. “You could see he wanted to be playing.”

The team did its best to keep him involved. Hackett called Palmer into his office once or twice a week to review game film. Teammates asked his opinion at practice.

In retrospect, Palmer realizes he learned a lot about football by having time to observe the nuances of the game. He could concentrate in meetings because he did not have to worry about playing.

But Saturdays were rough.

During home games, he roamed the sideline while reserve quarterback Mike Van Raaphorst ran the team. For away games, he sat uncomfortably in front of the television at home.

“The Notre Dame game,” his father says, recalling the day USC blew a 21-point lead in a 25-24 loss at South Bend, Ind. “He was dying.”

Family and his girlfriend helped him through the bad times, Palmer says, though it is doubtful there was need for much coddling. This is not a clan that verges on the dramatic.

“Really no big deal,” his father says. “It was never life-threatening or career-threatening.”

Adds Palmer’s mother, Danna: “You can be frustrated and upset, but where do you go from there?”

After several weeks of laying around, watching his shoulder muscles shrink, her son went into physical therapy and began work to rehabilitate the injury. He could barely throw the ball. A few push-ups would leave him tired.

Still, doctors gave him a small chance of recuperating in time for the UCLA game, and that was all Palmer could think about.

He talked to reporters about his return. He had his father believing it. In hindsight, Palmer realizes he was setting himself up for a fall.

“I didn’t really prepare myself for not being healed,” he says. “That’s why I took it so hard.”

The third week of November, days before the game, X-rays showed the bone had not sufficiently healed. Not even close. “He couldn’t have thrown the ball 10 yards,” Bill Palmer says.

That was the lowest point, the tears at the game, the season that was lost. Then came doubts.

Not that Palmer let the world know. But, quietly, he began to wonder about his arm, about whether he would recover his natural throwing motion. It was the first time he had ever worried about his ability to play football.

*

When anyone asks about USC’s disappointing 6-6 record last season, Hackett gives a standard response.

“Look at the San Francisco 49ers when they lost their quarterback,” he says. “Look at the Denver Broncos when they lost their quarterback.”

Then the coach reminds people of one more thing: Don’t get too worked up, don’t start talking Heisman Trophy, because Palmer hasn’t really done much yet.

The redshirt sophomore has never led his team to victory over UCLA. Never won a bowl game. Not counting the Oregon game, his record as a starter is 5-2, hardly the stuff of magazine covers.

“He teased us all as a freshman, then he misses a year,” Hackett says. “I don’t think he has arrived yet.”

But an undeniable electricity surrounds him.

The magazines write about his sheer physical attributes--that 6-foot-5 frame, the velocity with which he throws a football. Teammates talk about something intangible, a presence in the huddle, what tailback Malaefou MacKenzie calls “an aura.”

Opponents sense it too.

“He has a sort of confidence about himself,” says Saul Patu, a defensive lineman at Oregon. “It even stirs up the crowd.”

Now Palmer has added something new to the package--enthusiasm like never before.

It began in spring practice when he could throw a football again. It grew during the summer as he lifted weights and ran. In camp the last two weeks, Palmer found himself listening more intently in meetings and working a little longer to improve his footwork.

“I’m not just going through the motions like I used to do sometimes,” he says. “Every minute I’m out there, whether it’s throwing to receivers or running wind sprints, everything’s just been so much fun.”

On a recent afternoon, he led the offense through a passing drill. Practice was winding down, dragonflies suspended in the thick summer heat, the players growing tired. Then their quarterback lofted a ball 30 yards downfield and a freshman tailback, Chris Howard, dove to catch it.

Suddenly Palmer became a hoot-and-holler kind of guy, sprinting downfield to slap Howard on the helmet, yelling encouragement at teammates who might have been a bit surprised.

“I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Nickels says. “They say that about love but I think it’s true for football too. Carson realizes how painful it was to sit and watch.”

Time away from the game has done more than strengthen Palmer’s body. It has strengthened his resolve. It has made this easygoing young man a little more passionate about his sport.

“When I got hurt it gave me a new perspective,” he says. “I take every snap like it’s my last.”