He’s the Marcedes of Tight Ends

Long before he emerged as one of the top tight end prospects in this weekend’s NFL draft, Marcedes Lewis learned how to achieve separation.

It meant running down a freeway frontage road to escape his mom’s abusive boyfriend.

Lewis learned how to extend his body to the fullest.

It meant standing on his tiptoes, unsupervised in the apartment at age 7, so he could see over the stove and cook dinner for he and his younger brother.

And he learned how to zig when others zagged.

It meant choosing UCLA, when the four other high school standouts on his Long Beach Poly team headed for USC.

“I guess I just look at life a little different,” he said.

As a player, the 6-foot-6 1/2 , 261-pound senior certainly stands out in a crowd. He won the 2005 Mackey Award, presented to the nation’s top college tight end, and there’s a good chance he will be selected Saturday in the first round. Barring a bizarre twist, he’ll be the first UCLA player chosen.

He was a unanimous All-American and All-Pacific 10 Conference selection last season and led the Bruins with 58 receptions and 10 touchdowns. He’s considered by many scouts the second-best NFL prospect at the position to Maryland’s Vernon Davis, whose freakishly phenomenal performance at the scouting combine all but guaranteed him a spot among the top 10 picks.

Lewis has visited St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, Chicago and Detroit. The New York Jets, recently in L.A. to work out USC’s Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush, also stayed over to meet with Lewis.

If there was a lingering doubt about Lewis’ potential after his first two seasons at UCLA, it concerned whether he had what it took to be a solid blocker in the NFL. His hands weren’t an issue. Many scouts say they were impressed with the strides he made in breaking open running lanes for Bruin backs.

“The question of whether he has the potential to be a dominant blocker at the next level was answered by his game film and his performance at the Senior Bowl,” said his agent, Sean Howard.

No one would have guessed Lewis could have gotten this far. Not when he was cutting Pop Warner practices as a young kid, hanging out in video arcades then rubbing grass stains into his pants to fool his mom before hopping a bus home. And not when the Long Beach Roughriders’ coach showed up at his front door to collect Lewis’ pads so another kid could use them.

“I was in trouble every day,” Lewis said. “I didn’t just get in trouble. I stayed in trouble.”

Then again, he faced some difficult challenges from the start. His mom, Yvonne Withers, was 15 when she gave birth to him. (“We kind of grew up together,” he said.) She worked three jobs -- two in security and one as a dispatcher -- just to make ends meet. Worse, her abusive boyfriend left both physical scars on her and emotional ones on her boys.

“I was very insecure,” said Withers, who now is happily married to another man, with whom she had a daughter. “When I would walk out the door, I’d look at the ground. I didn’t want to look at anybody because I didn’t want to catch a hand coming across my face.”

Recalled Lewis: “There was a span of about three or four weeks where she got beat up every day. I was 3 at the time. She’d get her hair pulled out, and there was one time he drove her head through the wall.”

Withers didn’t leave her boyfriend, she escaped him. After taking yet another beating, she slipped free from him in Carson when his car had run out of gas. Fearing for her life, she broke free by running down a freeway frontage road with her boys, ages 5 and 2, in tow. They hid at a friend’s apartment and basically started their lives over.

After his initial bumpy start as a youth player, Lewis fell in love with football. In high school, he caught the attention of college recruiters and was part of a stellar Poly class that included future USC standouts Manuel Wright, Hershel Dennis, Darnell Bing and Winston Justice. He said he decided early in high school that he wanted to be a Bruin, even though the Trojans offered him a scholarship and his four classmates tried to sway him throughout his senior year.

He opted to stand alone again. Naturally.

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Draft order

Parentheses indicates how many picks in that round:

*--* Team Rounds of other picks 1. Houston 2, 3 (2), 4, 6, 7 2. New Orleans 2, 4, 5, 6 (2), 7 (2) 3. Tennessee 2, 4, 5 (2), 6, 7 (4) 4. N.Y. Jets 2, 3 (2), 4 (2), 5, 7 5. Green Bay 2, 3, 4, 5 (2), 7 6. San Francisco 3, 4 , 5 , 6 (2), 7 (3) 7. Oakland 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (2) 8. Buffalo 2, 3 (2), 4, 5 (2), 6, 7 (2) 9. Detroit 2, 3 , 5, 6, 7 (2) 10. Arizona 2, 3 , 4 , 5, 6 , 7 11. St. Louis 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (3) 12. . Cleveland 2, 3, 4 (2), 5 (2), 6, 7 13. Baltimore 2, 4 (2), 5 (2), 6 (3), 7 14. Philadelphia 2, 3, 4 (3), 5 (2), 6, 7 15. Denver-a 2 (2), 3, 4 (3), 5, 6 16. Miami 3, 4, 7 (3) 17. Minnesota 2 (2), 3 (2), 4, 5, 6 18. Dallas 2, 3, 5, 6 , 7 19. San Diego 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (2), 7 (2) 20. Kansas City 2, 3, 5, 6, (2), 7 21. New England 2, 3 (2), 4 (2), 5, 6 (3), 7 22. San Francisco-b 23. Tampa Bay 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (2), 7 (3) 24. Cincinnati 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (2) 25. N.Y. Giants 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 26. Chicago 2, 4, 5, 6, (2) 27. Carolina 2, 3 (2), 4, 5, 7 (2) 28. Jacksonville 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 29. N.Y. Jets-c 30. Indianapolis 2, 3, 5, 6 (2) 31. Seattle 2, 4, 5, 7 (2) 32. Pittsburgh 2, 3, 4 (3), 5 (2), 6, 7 a-from Atlanta; b-from Washington; c-from Denver

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