Big-Game Bruins

Ricky Manning Jr. is the loud-mouthed punk who used obscenities to disparage USC the week before his UCLA team was demolished by the Trojans.

And Manning is the tender brother who happily kisses Matilda, his mentally disabled younger sister who is confined to a wheelchair.

Manning is the troubled UCLA senior who was arrested for felony assault after a bar fight near campus. And he is the grateful son who has bought a house for his parents in Fresno, the thoughtful player who offered his high school coach Super Bowl tickets and a trip to Houston.

Manning is the hothead who went on a Charlotte radio station and derisively detailed the flaws of Philadelphia Eagle receivers. And he is the focused rookie cornerback who exposed every one of those flaws, intercepting three of Eagle quarterback Donovan McNabb’s passes in the NFC championship game to help his Carolina Panthers earn their first Super Bowl trip.

“I wish everybody could see the Ricky Manning I know,” says Ray Reyes, Manning’s high school football coach.

Reyes would take Manning home from practice at Fresno Edison High, then see him run to the door and tousle Matilda’s hair.

“Did you know Ricky has started an educational foundation in Fresno?” says Jessica Marr, a senior track and field athlete at UCLA and Manning’s girlfriend of three years. “That’s the Ricky the public doesn’t see. The stuff Ricky says sometimes gets blown up, but then there’s this other side and no one sees that.”

Even though he’s a rookie and rookies don’t get podiums at Super Bowl media day, Manning had plenty of chances to talk Tuesday.

He is the youngest Panther and maybe the shortest. He was a third-round draft pick last year.

“He was a little insulted,” Marr says. “I mean, c’mon, he saw guys drafted ahead of him he knew he could beat.”

But there was a reason Manning was a third-rounder.

“He’s only 5-8, 185 pounds,” Reyes says. “You know how the NFL is about height.”

And there was his mouth. And his fists.

“I know the NFL scouts were doing extra research on me,” Manning says. “I know what they thought.”

The scouts didn’t have to search hard. Manning’s transgressions always made the papers.

He and Tremaine Mitchell, brother of former UCLA receiver Freddie Mitchell, got into a fight outside a Westwood bar in April 2002 and felony assault charges were filed against Manning.

“Did you know the guys in the fight were ultimate fighters and way bigger than Ricky?” Marr says. “Ricky defended himself.”

And, Marr points out, the charges were eventually dismissed.

He was caught on TV leading an obscene chant about USC before the cross-town rivalry in 2002.

“Every year they have that bonfire,” Marr says, “and every year guys get up and do the same thing. But it’s Ricky, so it gets on TV and all blown up.”

The week before the Panthers were to travel to Philadelphia for the NFC championship game, Manning was on Charlotte radio, saying that Eagle wide receivers were a little slow, a little soft, a little weak. Then he went out and out-muscled them, outran them, outfought them.

“But Ricky called me when the radio stuff got out and apologized,” Reyes says. “He said he had been raised better than that. If anything, Ricky can be a little naive. He thought what he said was just for the benefit of the local guys. If anybody should understand, though, Ricky should. In this day and age, whatever an athlete says or does is out there.”

Reyes has known Manning since Manning was in junior high, an athlete of extreme promise from a background of extreme poverty but lots of love.

“Ricky has been raised by two good people,” Reyes says. “His mother, Pauline, and his father, Ricky Sr., are religious, hard-working people who have not had an easy life. But they were at all of Ricky’s games. They paid attention to their children. They still do.”

You might want to make Manning sound like a jerk, Reyes says, but remember this first:

“I was buying Ricky school clothes before his senior year in high school because his father had been laid off and there was no money. People were buying the family food. They had Matilda to care for. They had it very hard.”

You might want to think Manning is just a big-timer, a spoiled jock, but Reyes has a story he’d like you to hear first.

“His senior year, Ricky comes to me and says he wants to take honors courses,” Reyes says. “He wants to take honors trig, honors chemistry, honors English. Now, he already had the test scores for UCLA and he had the grades. I told him he didn’t need to do that. He could take the regular courses, pass and be fine.

“But he took those honors courses and fought like heck to get Cs. He wanted to do it. He wanted to expand himself.”

Manning’s Panther teammates are impressed with the 23-year-old’s work ethic and intensity.

“Nobody studies film harder,” Carolina safety Mike Minter says. “Nobody practices harder or stays longer. [He] definitely came here with something to prove. He felt a little bit overlooked. Maybe that’s why he talks so much.”

Marr says that maybe being brutally honest about the Eagle receivers was a bad idea. But Marr also says the comments were not made without research.

“I can guarantee you that Ricky watched so much film on those guys that he knew exactly what their weaknesses were,” Marr says. “What Ricky says might sound cocky but it’s not. It’s just the truth. But I probably wouldn’t say the same thing.”

Marr laughs. Manning calls her twice a day.

“He knows my class schedule and calls after the tough ones,” she says.

Last week Manning called Marr’s father.

“My dad thought Ricky called to talk about the Super Bowl,” she said. “It wasn’t. He called to ask my dad about me. I need sinus surgery and Ricky wanted all the details from my dad. That’s all he cared about, making sure I was telling him everything.”

After signing a minor league baseball contract with the Minnesota Twins while he was at UCLA, Manning bought himself a car, some nice clothes, a little jewelry. But first, he bought his parents a house. When he signed his NFL contract, he got another nice car, some more nice clothes. But first, he bought his parents a new house.

“One with a swimming pool,” Marr says.

On the day after the Panthers had beaten the Eagles, Reyes got a message on his pager from Manning.

“It said, ‘You’re coming to Houston, Coach. I’ve got tickets,’ ” Reyes says.

Reyes had open-heart surgery a few months ago. He’s in his first year as coach at Fresno High, a new job with pressure.

“I decided I just wasn’t up to going,” Reyes says. “But Ricky’s two high school baseball coaches are going. His whole family is going. Except Matilda.”

It is Matilda, 16, Reyes says, who inspires Manning to achieve great things.

“I think Ricky often wonders why he is so blessed and why Matilda is not,” Reyes says. “I think in his heart he wonders ‘Why me and not her?’ So he works harder to make sure he deserves his good fortune.”

Panther Coach John Fox says Manning is “a remarkable young player. To be in his rookie season and to keep playing like he has, that’s unusual for a player of his age. He’s extremely mature.”

Now that’s something you don’t hear often about Ricky Manning. Unless you check.