His Choice Is Too Good to Pass Up

Rodney Peete said a funny thing Tuesday, without trying to be funny. He said he is thinking seriously about a career in professional football.

This is funny because USC’s quarterback is one of the favorites for the Heisman Trophy, the statuette that goes to the best college football player in the country. And what other professional career but football would a Heisman candidate have in mind--agriculture?

Yet Peete, see, has the same problem John Elway, Jay Schroeder, Dave Winfield, Danny Ainge, Bo Jackson and many others have had. He is too good in two sports. He plays baseball with as much flair and fervor as he plays football. He is a man for more than one season.

“My aspirations right now are for the NFL,” Peete said Tuesday. “But maybe that’s because I’m in the middle of football season, and football’s on my mind. Maybe I’ll feel differently during the spring.

“I have dreams of doing both,” he added. “Who knows?”

You mean . . . pull a Bo Jackson? Football and baseball?

“No,” Peete said. “I thought about it, though. I really did. I just don’t think a quarterback can play two sports at that level. There’s too much for him to learn and do in training camp. It’s got to be almost impossible to do both.”

Peete’s great gift is his versatility, which also might be part of his dilemma. Does it seem to anybody else that Troy Aikman of UCLA has been talked about more and more lately as the Heisman’s leading candidate, rather than the co-favorite? Or is this like one of those pre-election polls that shows a political candidate gaining or falling, without visible pattern, from week to week?

One might think that Peete had pulled into the driver’s seat during the last few days, with No. 1 UCLA getting beaten while No. 3 USC was winning and advancing to No. 2 behind Notre Dame.

However, Aikman’s stature is clearly enhanced by the fact that he is going to be the top pick in the next National Football League college draft. Peete, on the other hand, will find NFL teams reluctant to choose him, not because he couldn’t start at quarterback for them, but because they are concerned about losing him to baseball.

It is no state secret that Peete nearly signed last summer with the Oakland Athletics. He is a fine third baseman, and his future could be in that game. Nevertheless, Peete is a quality quarterback, and he also is a smart young man. He knows if no NFL team takes him with a high draft pick, he loses bargaining power, and, along with it, money.

That might explain why he said what he said Tuesday. Or, it might just be that Peete really does see himself playing pro football, and heaven knows the San Diego Chargers or the Kansas City Chiefs sure could use Peete if they can’t lay their hands on Aikman.

One of the nice things about the new-era NFL is that black college quarterbacks are no longer told to work on catching passes or knocking them down. They get to be quarterbacks if they are quarterbacks. Doug Williams, Randall Cunningham and others have shown how it’s done.

Peete remembers how his older brother’s friends used to come around and advise him to change positions in high school if he wanted to keep playing football. “I took it as a challenge,” he said. “I wanted to play the position even more when they said that.

“Now you see trends changing everywhere. You don’t just see schools with black quarterbacks that run the option. Some of them have dropback passers, and some mix it up the way I like to do. You see all kinds.”

Rodney Peete is no wishbone operator, no bootlegger or scrambler. Peete can pass. In his career at USC to date, he has thrown 926 passes and completed 531 of them. He is 13 yards short of 7,000. He has thrown for 47 touchdowns. There are certain colleges in the 1980s that haven’t scored 47 touchdowns.

And yet, there might still be some misconception that Troy Aikman is the classic quarterback while Rodney Peete is the all-around athlete. In case anybody has forgotten, against UCLA last season, Peete completed 23 of 35 passes for 304 yards. And USC won the game--so, come on now, who’s the Heisman favorite here?

Which brings us to an all-important question. Should the Heisman Trophy go to the finest college football player in the country or to the most valuable?

This argument comes up in baseball a lot. What’s more important--numbers or contribution? In the National League in 1987, Andre Dawson was MVP because he had the numbers. In 1988, Kirk Gibson probably will be MVP because he made the contribution.

Yet, in the World Series this year, Mickey Hatcher was an everyday contributor who led all players in hits and home runs and tied for the lead in runs batted in. Orel Hershiser, though, was named MVP, after appearing in only two games.

Notre Dame’s Tim Brown took the Heisman last year, even though running back Lorenzo White of Michigan State had better numbers and even though quarterback Don McPherson of Syracuse handled the ball more often than he did.

For Rodney Peete, the Heisman almost certainly is going to depend on the monster Nov. 19 USC game against UCLA. Any advantage Aikman might have built up while UCLA stood atop the national polls might be diluted if the Bruins have two losses to USC’s none after the big showdown.

Peete did not cheer too wildly last Saturday when he heard UCLA had lost. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I was hoping to see both teams unbeaten when it came time to play for the Rose Bowl.”

USC publicity people say they hear something different every time they hear something--that Aikman has the Heisman wrapped up, that Peete and Aikman are even-steven going into the stretch, that outsiders such as Barry Sanders and Steve Walsh are back in the hunt.

For Peete’s part, he said: “I watch every week who beats whom, but not the individual statistics. I don’t go down a list and have a checkpoint on each guy, how many passes they completed, how much yardage they picked up.

“I don’t hope Troy Aikman goes out and throws 4 interceptions every week. I hope he has a great year. He’s a nice guy.

“We’ve both had to hear all the Heisman talk all season, and I know I’m going to get bombarded with it the week of the UCLA game. It’d be unbelievable to win the Heisman Trophy, I admit that. Especially when you think about the people who have won it before. Later on in life, I’d be able to look back on 1988 and say, ‘I was the greatest player in college football.’

“If it happens, it happens. But if you ask me if I’d rather go to the Rose Bowl again or win the Heisman, I’ll tell you. I’d rather go to the Rose Bowl again.”