Back in the Spotlight : Shah Returns as UCLA’s Rushing Hope

Sharmon Shah did a disappearing act worthy of Houdini or a one-song rock star.

Now you see him on stage, living up to his nickname, Hollywood Shah carrying 40 times for 187 yards against Stanford. Now you don’t see him again until the 1993 season has ended and someone else has the spotlight.

He was the back who was going to make UCLA’s running game go. Then he was going to a hospital, his season over.

Out of Shah’s misfortune came the opportunity for Skip Hicks to become the first freshman to lead UCLA in rushing since freshmen became eligible for varsity play in 1972. Out of Hicks’ misfortune comes an opportunity for Shah to reclaim what was his: No. 1 status and everything that comes with it.

“Some guys seize the day,” says Wayne Moses, the coach in charge of the Bruin running backs. “Certainly, Sharmon has a golden opportunity. If (Hicks) is healthy, he would be the starter. He isn’t, so Sharmon has a chance to make people say, ‘Skip who?’ ”

Sharmon who?

He was the back who was confused and so confused others last season as a sophomore. He still can’t tell you how he suffered torn knee cartilage the first time, before preseason practice began. After an arthroscopic operation, he rehabilitated enough to carry 10 times for 58 yards in the season’s second game, against Nebraska.

Hicks, only three months out of high school, gained 148 yards against the Cornhuskers. But he also suffered an ankle injury and couldn’t play against Stanford.

Shah was ready. Or was he?

From a meeting of Shah, his father, Naim, and Coach Terry Donahue came word that recovery was being inhibited by a congenital knee problem. A medical redshirt season was discussed.

Three days later, after only one practice, Shah carried a school-record 40 times for 187 yards in UCLA’s first victory, at Palo Alto.

“I don’t know how it happened,” he says. “They just kept giving the ball to me. It’s happened to me before, in the (high school) Shrine game when I set a record for carries. Coaches just tend to do that with me.”

That record was 29 carries for 163 yards in 1992.

“After (the Nebraska and Stanford) games, I wasn’t thinking about redshirting anymore,” Shah says now. Five days later, it didn’t matter. He was carrying for the fourth time against San Diego State and when he planted his right foot to cut, the knee gave out.

So did his season.

He disappeared. Rehabilitation was done quietly. He showed up at practice infrequently. What was the point?

“It ate me up inside, not to be involved, because I’m a ballplayer,” he said. “But it wasn’t that bad later for me. I wanted to see us win, and after a couple of games I was OK, and I realized that I had gotten a lot of experience for a redshirt year.”

He had 54 carries for 280 yards in a season that didn’t count against his eligibility.

As the season wore on, word that his rehabilitation was progressing produced a rumor that he could come back, if needed. He wasn’t.

“I had gotten better (in late October and early November), but I wouldn’t have been helping myself or the team,” he says. “It would have just been for ego, and you’ve got to suppress that.

“In the Rose Bowl, I got chills. They asked me if I wanted to suit up, but I was afraid I’d try to get out there and blow my whole year away, so I said let me stay in regular clothes and tell Ricky (Davis) and Skip about the holes I see.

“I guess I was destined not to play last year, like maybe I’m destined to rip it up this year.”

He might have to for UCLA to get the offensive balance Donahue says the Bruins need for success.

Shah is a sophomore again, courtesy of the Pacific 10, and Hicks is on the outside, looking in, after being injured while competing in the long jump with the UCLA track team in the spring.

Hicks is six months into a rehabilitation program that usually lasts up to a year, and says he is ready to play.

“I’m 90% ready and the other 10% is mental,” Hicks says.

He has even convinced Donahue, with his sprints up and down the sideline at Spalding Field in Westwood.

But the team doctor, Gerald Finerman, says Hicks isn’t ready.

Said Donahue: “We have hope, but the football team and the coaching staff are going to go under the idea that he won’t be able to play.”

Whether or not Hicks wears a uniform all season, he will be a specter over the performance of all other Bruin backs. With only 100 college carries for 563 yards, he has become a gauge against which others are measured.

If Shah gains five yards on a play, would Hicks have gained six or 10 or more? If Shah fumbles, would Hicks have?

It’s the kind of pressure Donahue will not tolerate, at least among those he can influence.

“Some people may look at it like that,” he says. “But on a team, when somebody goes down, it’s up to everyone else to rally around those who are left. Hicks is a difference-maker, but Sharmon Shah carried 40 times against Stanford. He’s shown he can be durable and take a pounding.”

Shah prefers to deflect the situation as best he can.

“I hope Skip can come back, I really do,” he says. “And if anyone can come back that quickly, it’s him. He’s a tough kid.

“But I can’t worry about what anybody says, because people are going to say things anyway. That’s life. I’m not trying to be Skip. I’m not trying to be Darren Washington (a senior tailback who has moved to fullback). I’m just trying to do the best I can at being Sharmon.

“With my attitude, I don’t think that sort of thing will get to me. As long as I’m doing my job and we’re getting (victories), I really don’t care.”

With that in mind, while Hicks runs along the sidelines, Shah runs more freely and with more abandon than ever.

“Sometimes he works too hard,” Moses says. “I’ve told him there’s only so much tread on a tire, and if you’ve worn it out in the summer before you get to me in the fall, there’s nothing left.”

Shah simply wants to see if knowledge gleaned from a summer working with former Washington back Beno Bryant, a teammate at Dorsey High, and others will take him back to the No. 1 spot to stay.

“I’m eager because I get to see if what I have been practicing all summer will work on the field,” he says. “I have some new knowledge of the game and I want to test it. I’ve worked hard, and it’s time.”