About face - football player Arnaz Battle

The pressure is on ARNAZ BATTLE to step forward as Notre Dame's quarterback

The boy retreated.

Arnaz Battle was just 9. Just a kid at grandma's house in Shreveport, La., celebrating after another three-touch-down day in the park district league.

Then his 3-year-old brother, Brandon, disappeared from a living room full of people.

Brandon had wanted to go swimming that day, but it was too chilly. It was November. The kids would have to stay out of grandma's pool, they were told. If only all of them had listened. If only the doors weren't open.

If only ...

If only ...

Maddening words.

After searching for a few frantic minutes, Sandra Battle found Brandon's body floating in the pool in the back yard. She rushed her son into the house. Family and friends tried to resuscitate him. Arnaz Battle remembers platting his hand on his brother's forehead and praying to God to spare him.

At 2 the next morning, after waiting in the hospital while doctors tried to save Brandon, Arnaz cried when they told him his baby brother had died. Some days, he still cries.

"His brother's death had a big effect Arnaz," his mother says. "I think it made him tougher."

Battle admits that thinking about the accident can sink his spirits into a sorrowful abyss. It's with mixed feelings he points out how Brandon would have been a freshman in high school this year. His little brother, Arnaz swears, would have been an even better football player than he became, and he's the starting quarterback at Notre Dame.

And that means the young man who often appears shy or withdrawn to outsiders will be asked to open up a side of his personality normally shut down in public. This is the season Arnaz Battle must answer lots of questions.

On his upper left arm appears the most poignant answer Battle can provide about the effect his brother's death 11 years ago has had on him. A tattoo of his late brother's face runs from the tip of his shoulder to his bicep. He plans to rub it alter every touchdown this season.

"Brandon will always be a part of me," he says.

The freshman retreated.

Arnaz Battle was just 18. Stepping into a huddle full of seniors against Notre Dame's fiercest rival, USC. In raucous Los Angeles Coliseum. On national television. In a 1998 game with a $12 million Bowl Championship Series berth on the line. That's roughly $100,000 a snap. Not even Johnnie Cochran has that much riding on three hours in L.A.

Battle, coming off a shoulder separation sustained just four weeks earlier, entered with 11:53 left in the first half. Up to that point in his Notre Dame career, he barely had more playing lime than Rudy had. Former USC linebacker Mark Cusano would say later he "saw fear in his eyes."

You should have heard Battle's voice. "When he would call the play, he wouldn't yell it out. He kind of whispered it because he wasn't sure of himself," Notre Dame senior receiver Joey Getherall recalls. "A tough night."

How tough? USC blanked Notre Dame 10-0--the program's first loss by shutout in 11 years. Battle played the final three quarters but hit only 7-of-19 passes for 94 yards and two interceptions. The ball had more grass stains than Notre Dame receivers.

All sorts of thoughts muddled Battle's mind afterward. Had he made the right choice? Tennessee, LSU and Texas A&M had wanted Battle out of Byrd High School in Shreveport, but as a wide receiver. Only Notre Dame wanted him to play quarterback and use his 4.5 speed and mercury-quick moves to reincarnate Tony Rice, the last Irish quarterback to win a national title (1988) and Battle's idol growing up.

But suddenly, as a quarterback, Battle was looking like a pretty good wide receiver.

"I just wasn't 100 percent in that (USC) game," Battle says. "Sitting back after that game, absorbing everything, I decided I wasn't going to let one game ruin my entire career."

Another season, another retreat

He was just a backup quarterback. Just another sophomore sub whose college career wasn't turning out the way Tom Lemming had predicted. Parade All-Americans aren't supposed to have question marks next to their names on the depth chart, but last season Battle did.

He knew his one-game flop as a freshman confirmed that if Notre Dame fans had to choose between playing without NBC and playing without Jarious Jackson, they would listen to the radio. Jackson was considered indispensable. Battle went from can't-miss to can't-trust.

Irish coaches thought they were losing Battle. He would sit in the back of the room during meetings. Forget about waking up the echoes; they had to worry about waking up Battle during film sessions. Notre Dame had managers who worked harder at practice.

"When you're a backup, you're like, `I can take this day off, I'm not starting or playing this game, so I can just go out there and not give 100 percent' That's what I did," Battle says.

Coach Bob Davie was not going to turn his program over to a slacker.

The Cliffs Notes version of Davie's talk: Hey, Arnaz, there's really no one left to play quarterback except for four incoming freshmen, who are pretty good, by the way. So stop striking and play ball, because if you don't want this chance, they do. OK?

"I always kid him," Davie says. "He's kind of an easygoing guy from down in Shreveport, and I can just picture him going home in the summer sitting out in that big swing in the front yard with his grandma and a big ol' lemonade. I talked to him about having more juice. Some guys can be a little bit sleepy. Everybody has their own personality. But when you're the quarterback of the Notre Dame football team, I don't think you're going to be real successful if that's what you are."

There can be no retreat this time.

Not with Notre Dame coming off a 5-7 season. Too many men, not the least of whom is Davie, need Battle to take that huge step forward, oh, not long after Texas A&M's corps of cadets finishes the national anthem Saturday.

In some ways, Battle, who has played in just 11 games and thrown just 35 passes, already has. After Davie's talk last winter, Battle became the guy urging his team to run 15 sprints when the schedule said 10. The guy who organized seven-on-seven passing drills. The guy who increased his weight from 192 to 221 by adding muscle and keeping his body-fat percentage at 7 percent. He improved his 40 time from 4.59 to 4.50.

In terms of throwing the football--the skill most in question as Notre Dame enters a must-win season for Davie--Battle, a 6-1 junior, remains a work in progress. His wind-up release still has a slight hitch in it, according to offensive coordinator Kevin Rogers.

"It's all repetition," Rogers says. "I wouldn't say he's got the classic quick release; he brings the ball back a little bit and has the tendency to overstride sometimes."

Rice, another Irish quarterback whose legs scared teams more than his arm, remembers when Notre Dame coaches said the same thing about him. Coaches constantly tried to adjust his release point and shorten his motion. A former offensive coordinator even had Rice throw darts to quicken his release.

"I listened, but it was difficult to start doing something differently from the way you've been doing it all your life," Rice says. "I don't want to give Arnaz advice, and I'm not knocking Notre Dame coaches, but the best tip I ever got about throwing came from Jack Bicknell at an all-star game I played in after my senior year (in 1989). He said, `Whatever you learned, forget that. Just be natural.'"

Naturally, Battle favors what worked for the quarterback he idolized.

"I think my decision-making ability kind of slowed down my throwing motion; I was hesitating when I threw," Battle says. "Great players have to take risks, and I have to just let it rip.

"I realize that now it all rests on my shoulders."

Now, as the quarterback, there's not the slightest hint of retreat in Battle's voice.

He talks like a big man on campus. Just as he plans to be. But as as Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick, the Blur from Blacksburg?

Let's see, Vick has a highlight reel from the Sugar Bowl alone. Battle has a 74-yard touchdown run in garbage time against Kansas. Hmmmm.

"I compare myself to him; we're similar in styles," Battle says boldly and perhaps prematurely. "Right now, I just want to play ball, and maybe some guys will start comparing themselves to me."

Rogers' offensive scheme, which helped convert Donovan McNabb from a great athlete into a great quarterback at Syracuse, will give Battle every chance to back up his sudden brashness.

Notre Dame's offense will have more pocket variations than a pair of Gap khakis. Coaches plan to utilize safe, short throws to senior tight ends Jabari Holloway and Dan O'Leary to let Battle the thrower gradually. Before long, he will be looking long to the team's deep group of receivers.

Battle can help put the team into positive passing situations by doing what he does best: running the option. He often will call on Julius Jones, who will run behind a line that includes four returning starters.

"My supporting cast is better," Battle says.

But whither the leading man?

"I've matured a lot," Battle says. "They say a lot of things about me and this team, but I really don't get into it too much because I know what I can do. Coaches know what I can do. Players know. If they didn't think I could throw the ball, we wouldn't have signed four big-time receivers. I'm not nervous at all.

"Coach Davie told me it's my time to go out and shock the world. I'm ready to go out and do that."

No longer a boy, the quarterback acts much more like a man these days. He cannot grow up quickly enough for Notre Dame.

David Haugh is a columnist for the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune.

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