A COSTLY EDUCATION

The tall quarterback wearing jersey No. 5 was throwing sharp, crisp passes. A photographer was telling the quarterback exactly what he wanted, and the quarterback was delivering.

This scene occurred at the Coliseum, site of a mini-camp for skill-position players for the L.A. Xtreme, the team in wrestling promoter Vince McMahon’s new XFL scheduled to begin its inaugural season in February. The team’s very first practice had just ended.

The quarterback, Tommy Maddox, is one of three in camp, which continues through Sunday.

No, Todd Marinovich isn’t there, but a Scott Milanovich is. Milanovich, a former Maryland star and the No. 3 quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for four seasons before being cut this exhibition season, was the XFL’s first draft selection. The other Xtreme quarterback is Keith Smith, from Newbury Park and Arizona.

After the morning practice session, over lunch, Maddox discussed his UCLA days, his reasons for leaving school early, his reasons for failing in the NFL and his new outlook on life and football.

“I spent my years in the NFL trying to prove myself,” he said. “Now I don’t have anything to prove. I’m not doing this to redeem myself or anything like that. I’m playing football for the fun of it.

“I love just being out there. I love everything about it. I love going to meetings and going to practice, things I used to dread.”

Does he regret the way things worked out, leaving school after the 1991 season with two years of eligibility left?

“I wouldn’t say I have regrets because I have a great life. I have a great wife [high school sweetheart Jennifer] and two great kids [daughter Kacy, 7, and son Colby, 1].

“Let’s put it this way: If I could do it over again, they couldn’t kick me out of school.

“Those were the best days of my life. Playing in the Rose Bowl before all those fans. It was great.”

In 1991, after he’d led the Bruins to a 9-3 record and a victory over Illinois in the John Hancock Bowl, Maddox appeared headed for greatness at UCLA. And it appeared the Bruins were headed there too--with Maddox as their quarterback.

So why did he leave?

There was a rumor that his father, Wayne, an insurance executive who had moved to Los Angeles from his home in the Dallas area, was putting pressure on his son to take the NFL money and run. There was another that Wayne Maddox and Coach Terry Donahue didn’t get along.

“I know people had that image, but it was nothing like that,” Maddox said. “My father never put any pressure on me to leave and he and Coach Donahue never had a problem. As a quarterback, I couldn’t have asked for a better father.

“The decision to leave was mine. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’ll tell you the reason I left. Someone told me the NFL was going to put a salary cap on rookies the next year, so if I wanted big money I needed to leave then.”

Who was that someone?

“An agent,” Maddox said.

He declined to name the agent, and Leigh Steinberg said it certainly wasn’t he. Steinberg represented Maddox when, after being drafted late in the first round, he signed a four-year, $4.4-million contract with the Denver Broncos.

“Just about everyone around Tommy, including his father, me, Troy Aikman and a lot of other people, tried to get Tommy to stay in school,” Steinberg said. “But he was just about to get married, and, in his mind, he was done with school.

“I told him if he came out he would probably be drafted in the first round, but I also told him if he stayed in school he had a chance to be the overall No. 1 draft pick.”

As a rookie with the Broncos, Maddox was John Elway’s backup. He started four games, all losses.

“That was a pretty tough stretch,” Maddox said. “We played the Raiders in Los Angeles, the Seahawks in Seattle and Buffalo and Dallas.”

Maddox threw one pass the next season, 1993. Before the 1994 season, he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams for a fourth-round draft choice after declining to take a pay cut.

The Rams restructured his contract, and Maddox went from $1.1 million a year to $550,000.

“My salary hurt me,” Maddox said. “The salary cap came around just at the wrong time, and teams couldn’t afford to keep me. What happened to my NFL career was, I never stayed with one team long enough to establish myself.”

Michael Young, a former UCLA receiver, was with the Broncos at the same time as Maddox and the two became friends. Young has a different perspective.

“Tommy is the perfect example of what can happen when a player comes out early,” Young said. “You could use him as a definition of why kids should stay in school for four years.”

At 21 years 2 months, Maddox was the youngest player to throw a pass in the NFL in 46 years.

“Tommy was not ready mentally,” Young said. “He lacked mental maturity.

“And the Broncos didn’t have a quarterback coach. [Head coach] Dan Reeves handled the quarterbacks, and Dan was not a coach who could teach the basic skills of the position, nor did he have a grasp of what the position required.

“Also, our system was not tailored to Tommy’s skills. We had a system that worked well for John Elway, where he could scramble and improvise. And John would admit this, he was not a good mentor to young quarterbacks. He couldn’t teach what he did on the football field.

“If Tommy hadn’t come out early and then had ended up with, say, the San Francisco 49ers and learned under people such as Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren and Joe Montana, the ultimate technician, I think Tommy Maddox would be a household name today.”

Instead, Maddox was discarded by the Broncos to the Rams, where he played behind Chris Chandler and Chris Miller in 1994.

After that, there were stops with the New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons before his playing days appeared over in 1997.

Reeves, who made Maddox a first-round pick in ‘92, was the one who gave him shots with the Giants and Falcons. Reeves apparently didn’t believe he could have been that wrong about a player.

But the player he thought Maddox could become never materialized.

Maddox hit his low point in his one season with the Giants, 1995.

“In the fourth game, I threw an interception and we lost to Philadelphia and I never threw another pass,” he said. “I had a good preseason the next year but was cut.”

He was cut by the Falcons before the ’97 season started and returned home to the Dallas area.

He bought an insurance company, which he has since sold, and played golf--lots of golf. He lowered his handicap to scratch. He also put on a little weight. But he never lost the desire to play football.

In 1999, he called Donahue, now the director of player personnel for the 49ers, and asked for a tryout. Donahue granted him a tryout, but things didn’t work out.

“He was pretty out of shape,” Donahue said.

Maddox got into shape when he got one last shot at football. That was early this year when the Arena League’s New Jersey Red Dogs called. He won the starting job and put up some pretty good numbers. In 13 indoor games, he completed 283 of 490 passes for 3,378 yards and 65 touchdowns.

So has Kurt Warner, who went from Arena League ball to Super Bowl MVP, been an inspiration?

“Are you kidding?” Maddox said. “That’s a fairy tale. Things like that really don’t happen, and if you think it will happen to you, you’re crazy.

“Sure, the NFL is in the back of any quarterback’s mind. But I’m just playing to have fun.”

Certainly, it’s not for the money. Quarterbacks in the XFL have a base salary of $50,000. Incentives include about $2,500 for each win and $500 for each start. There’s more if you make the playoffs.

But the money doesn’t matter to Maddox. It did when he was 20, and he learned that was a mistake.

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Time Wasn’t on His Side

Tommy Maddox still wonders what might have been as he recalls 45-42 loss to USC in 1990. D11

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Moment to Remember

Todd Marinovich’s touchdown pass in 1990 capped a dramatic USC victory. D11