They see him on campus in size XXXXXXL jeans, and they wonder if he’s Blood, Crip or Trojan. They wonder what he’s been smoking, or what class he’s been cutting, but what they need to know is the whole story. If they only knew about his dream, maybe they wouldn’t be in such a lather. If they only knew that as a child he shortened his name to R. Jay so it would be easier to sign his Heisman autographs, maybe they might have him on the cover of their media guide instead of some waif of a running back. If they understood him, understood that he wants that trophy worse than life itself, maybe the coaches at USC would see him for what he is -- the nation’s premier playmaker, who in three seasons has scored a touchdown every 6.9 times he’s touched the ball. But all they focus on are his drops and the tattoo on his right upper arm, the one that says "Outlaw." All they know is that he pouts when they ask him to tuck in his jersey and that he showed up for only three off-season workouts. And so they ride him. But you don’t ride Rodney Jay Soward, because he will rebel on you and dump on you.

"I’ve fought authority and authority’s winning," he says, laughing in soprano. "But, hey man, there’s still time on the clock."

R. Jay vs. Dad
Every coach, professor, cop and ref reminds him of his father, and that is why R. Jay has run from authority, run from it his whole life.

"See, I used to think my father hated me," he says.

The truth is, Rodney Soward Sr., now 41, hated himself, for fathering two kids by the age of 16 and for sabotaging his own athletic career. He was scouted up close in the late ’70s by the Oakland A’s, but they backed off when they heard he had used a bat to beat up a teammate. So Rodney ended up at Cal Poly Pomona as a wide receiver. He was 19 by then and had fathered R. Jay, his third child by a third woman. He needed bags of money. He quit school and sold drugs. "I got arrested for having a loaded weapon," he says. "The charges were dropped, but I woke up one morning in ’81 and realized my life was out of control.

He found religion and married R. Jay’s mother, Vangie, then decided to turn their child into a saint. Instead, he created a monster. Father and son shared an effusive personality but were always at war. Rodney would grab R. Jay’s face mask while coaching Pee Wee football and take a belt to him if he neglected his chores. He would examine every report card and shush him at mass.

Rodney doesn’t recall that story. "My son’s trippin’," he says. But he does admit to being a hard man. By high school, R. Jay was an All-America with an 11 p.m. weekend curfew. He couldn’t attend parties or have girls in the house lest he become a 16-year-old father himself. "If I wanted to go out, I had to do a lot of lying," he says. He skipped classes one day, and his father backed him into a corner of their Rialto, Calif., home. They had a fistfight. "I believed in corporal punishment," Rodney says. But he was too harsh.

During his junior year, R. Jay ran away. Rodney gave him 24 hours to return, threatening to give R. Jay’s queen-sized bed to his little brother, James. R. Jay stayed with friends for a month. When he finally came home, he had to sleep in James’ bunk bed. He left again 30 days before graduation, on the verge of failing chemistry. If he didn’t pass, he wouldn’t be eligible to play football at USC. R. Jay told his father he didn’t care. Rodney was mortified. He wanted to tell his son about his own thankless life. He wanted to tell him about his job at the grocery store distribution center, how he’d worked there "as a high-class stock boy" ever since he’d found God. How his back and his knees were shot. How he would die inside if his son went the same route.

"I couldn’t blame my son for having the mouth he had," Rodney says. "I had him when I was 19, and at 19 I was still full of trash talk. I’d be in front of the TV dissing UCLA and yelling at the Cowboys. R. Jay would be in his football pajamas copying me. That’s why he is what he is. Then I got in church and I went overboard. I was very overprotective. My opinion was the law. But it shouldn’t have been that way. I think he rebelled. I know he rebelled."

But the minute R. Jay’s report card arrived, Rodney’s eyes bugged out. The kid had passed chemistry.

R. JAY vs. JANICE
He entered her world and charmed her. She introduced herself as Janice Henry, USC’s academic adviser, and he sat in her office, tapping a chair rhythmically with two fingers.

"You play the drums?" she asked. He nodded. "In church," he said. "In my father’s church."

She considered him a polite young man. But she had no idea what freedom was about to do to him. R. Jay’s first semester on campus was an eye-opener -- for his coaches and for the woman in charge of his schooling. His first catch was a 97-yard touchdown against Illinois, a pass only R. Jay could run under. From then on, he put football first and academics last. He missed classes and tutoring sessions. Janice warned him to be more diligent.

"I don’t need school," he would reply. "I’m just trying to get paid." Before long, Janice was dialing Rodney, and Rodney was threatening to wring his son’s neck. The coaches weren’t sure what to do with their new wide receiver. In an early game against Arizona State, he ran onto the field without permission. Coach John Robinson banished him to special teams. R. Jay returned the next kickoff 98 yards for a score.

"As a freshman, R. Jay didn’t even know what time the games started," says Robinson (now at UNLV), laughing. But the truth is, USC’s coaches had seen this 97-yard TD catch followed by this 98-yard TD return, and they started giving him rope. They honored R. Jay’s request not to call Rodney, ever, for anything, but Janice phoned anyway.

"So Janice and I, we feuded," R. Jay says. "Because she was my father in a lady’s body. I missed English comp a couple of times, and we were about to get on the plane to Washington State, and she comes storming out, saying, ‘He ain’t going!’ I’m, ‘Yeah, right, get out of my face.’ She’s, ‘He ain’t been to class in such and such and don’t you let him get on the plane.’ One of my coaches said, ‘R. Jay, have you been going to class?’ And I was straight with him: ‘Nope.’ And so we talked to her, and he said, ‘R. Jay, are you sure you won’t miss anymore?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’"

But by sophomore year, R. Jay knew he could beat the system. He attended only the review sessions before tests, and maintained a C average. If he was failing a course on the day of the drop deadline, he would drop it and retake it in the summer.

"Been to summer school every year," he says. "But who cares? They give you a $1,000 check for living expenses."

Janice told R. Jay she was fed up. She told him she would pray for him, but she was bowing out of his life. She told him she had worked with USC’s earlier star receivers like Keyshawn Johnson and Curtis Conway, and that they’d been more dignified. He saw their photos on her wall and said he was better than both, but he had no idea that Conway was standing by the door. The Chicago Bears receiver was back on campus finishing his degree. He cornered R. Jay and told him he was a fool. He told him Janice’s intentions were pure and that he shouldn’t just think about "gettin’ paid." R. Jay listened. It seemed to sink in. "Well, it worked for a minute," he says.

R. JAY vs. PAUL HACKETT
After the 1997 season, USC fired Robinson and hired Paul Hackett. A former NFL assistant, Hackett had some drill sergeant in him. He made it clear that any player who dropped a class would be suspended for one game. Dropping classes was R. Jay’s specialty. He dropped a music course and another class called Third World Countries and didn’t think twice. Hackett was livid. R. Jay was low on units and wouldn’t be eligible for spring football. Hackett suspended him for the opener against Purdue. All R. Jay said was, "Call my dad." He was afraid to break the news himself.

Rodney agreed with Hackett’s totalitarian approach. But a sullen R. Jay retreated from the program. He’d met a 28-year-old rap artist named Orlando "Berchee" Mallory, who’d grown up with Keyshawn. Berchee and R. Jay became inseparable. They began writing and recording songs, and R. Jay’s entire look changed. He started wearing the baggiest of jeans, growing his hair out and having it braided. It wasn’t all Berchee’s doing. It was R. Jay’s ongoing anti-establishment campaign. He often told people he had grown up in the slums, when, in reality, Rialto is very middle class. R. Jay was never a thug, but seemed to aspire to be one. He and his pals on the team called themselves the Outlawz, and to validate it, R. Jay got his tattoo and sang this lyric in one of Berchee’s rap songs: All a brother needs is cash, ladies and some Cali weed.

So Hackett was greeted at fall practice a year ago by a contentious wide receiver. But R. Jay loved the games, and after sitting out the Purdue opener, a 27-17 win, he scored three times and had 256 all-purpose yards in a victory against San Diego State.

"Yep, got me three tugs that day," he says -- "tug" being R. Jay and Berchee’s code word for touchdown. But the tug-of-war with Hackett continued. R. Jay would miss class. Hackett would have him up at 6 a.m. doing log rolls. "I’d have to roll on the ground 100 yards," R. Jay says. "Then I’d go back to bed. If he wanted me up at 6 a.m., something had to go, and it was class."

Hackett thought R. Jay was out of shape, so he platooned him. "He was exhausted," Hackett says. "He was spectacular at times, but then he’d have a drop. I mean, the premier punt returner in the country is R. Jay Soward and he only returned seven last year. Why? Because No. 1, they’d kick away from him. And No. 2, he’d be exhausted at the end of every series."

R. Jay, who caught only 44 balls last season, says Hackett never used him correctly. "All they’d do is throw me go routes, the lowest-percentage pass in the game," he says. "Why not try the wide receiver screen? Let me take three steps and throw it to me. My favorite play, but they’ve never run it!" In pregame, R. Jay would wrap his cleats with white gauze and roll up his jersey to expose the "Outlawz" written on tape around his waist. Hackett thought the getup was juvenile, and would usually say, "R. Jay, clean yourself up!" He also asked R. Jay to enter counseling, but he went only once: "There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just independent."

R. Jay even got himself banned from USC’s dorms. A woman living above him thought his music put out way too much bass. She kept stomping her feet. "I told her, ‘You need to stop banging on the floor,’ " R. Jay says. "I was very stern. So she comes back and gets a police report on me. She said I threatened her life. But all I said was, ‘Stop stomping on the floor!’ I mean, I even unplugged my woofers. But they kicked me out. I think it should’ve been the other way around. I’m the athlete making money for the school. Make her move."

By the end of an 8–5 season, R. Jay had decided to escape to the NFL. In January, he pulled his Outlawz friends together and told them, "See you later, dawg. You all be straight. I’m gone." They helped him pack his woofers.

R. JAY vs. KEYSHAWN
R. Jay was never sure about going pro, though. He weighed all of 170 pounds, and he was afraid a John Randle might kill him. But he had already thrown a "Going to the NFL" party. He couldn’t turn back. Now, though, instead of ordering him around, his father began reasoning with him, and R. Jay decided to stay in school.

"But the next day, I threw another NFL party," he says. His mother started in. She wanted him to graduate -- which could happen with two more years of summer school. He agreed again to stay. "I don’t even lift weights," he says. "I was like, I need some more size before I go." Barred from the dorms, R. Jay returned to campus and lived out of a Chrysler Sebring that his father had leased for him.

"My clothes were in my trunk," he says. "I felt homeless." He stayed with Berchee and slept in a tiny bed the rapper saved for his daughter. Sometimes he’d stay with the aunt of a friend in a gang-infested area of L.A. He was so desolate, he thought of turning pro again, except it was February and the date to declare had passed, so he’d have to enter the supplemental draft.

That’s when he called Keyshawn.

R. Jay once idolized the Jets’ Pro Bowl wide receiver. They first met at one of R. Jay’s high school all-star games. R. Jay dropped a pass and Keyshawn shouted, "Can’t drop balls if you’re going to my school." A few years later, Keyshawn was on the sideline when R. Jay destroyed Notre Dame (7 catches, 124 yards). Keyshawn told him, "You can ball."

But theirs is a curious relationship. "I like Keyshawn when you haven’t seen him in a minute," R. Jay says. "He’s, ‘What’s up, man.’ Like, reunited. But if you be around him for more than two hours, you’re like, ‘Man, I’ve got to get away from you.’ I mean, he’s cool, but homeboy think he know everything. You can’t tell him nothing. I mean, Keyshawn, he’s a jerk sometimes. He’s like one minute your best friend and the next minute he’s telling you off."

It was clearly love-hate with them: Keyshawn thought R. Jay was a "ticking time bomb." Yet R. Jay called Keyshawn in late February to ask about the supplemental draft, and Keyshawn, R. Jay and Rodney all sat down to talk about it. At one point, Keyshawn told R. Jay, "You should go pro because ain’t nothing for you at SC. All you do is screw up when you’re there." R. Jay’s response: "Well, I do be messing up, but I still got this school by the balls. If I do my stuff and the team does well, everybody’s gonna reap."

R. Jay sensed that Keyshawn was recruiting him for his own agent, which was absurd according to Keyshawn: "I’m not an agent runner. I didn’t tell him to go pro. I told him if he’s gonna keep screwing up, he might as well leave. I told him, ‘Why do you braid your hair?’ He grew up in Rialto. That’s not him, that’s not his reality. I told him, ‘Be who you are!’ I told him he’s no rapper. I told him to leave that to someone else and play football. And he says, ‘Oh, I’ll get it done.’ But why not listen to me?"

R. Jay’s response: "Tell Keyshawn to [expletive] my [expletive]."

R. JAY vs. ALL OF THE ABOVE
In March, he was low on funds, still living out of his car. So he took his beloved woofers to a pawn shop and traded them in for $100. He was staying in that gang-infested neighborhood when he heard a heavy knock on the door.

It was his father.

R. Jay had always kept Rodney at a distance. His trick was to never own a telephone or, at least, to never own an answering machine. But this time his father found him. Rodney had been crying in his car that day. He thought his son was blowing it, and he was prepared to fix his life. He took R. Jay to a Denny’s.

"I have a credit card for you with a $15,000 limit," he told him. "I will get you an apartment, take care of your expenses. All you do is worry about football. Pay me back when you sign your first contract."

Rodney’s offer seemed to cure all. R. Jay bought a pager so they could stay in touch. "If it weren’t for my father, I’d still be living out of my car," he says. "Or might have robbed somebody. It’s crazy how my dad stepped up. When you’re young you really didn’t like him. Then you get older and you still didn’t like him. Then when it’s time for him to help you, he helps you."

R. Jay found a room in downtown L.A. But there was still the matter of Hackett. The coach already was saying, "This is R. Jay’s year. It’s all up to him." But R. Jay’s response was, "It’s all up to Hackett. He’s got to get me the ball."

He had so little trust in the coaching staff, he accused it of spreading ugly rumors. "I heard I was on cocaine, heard I was a weed addict," R. Jay says. "Hackett wants to know everything. He even has people that sit in our parties. That’s why I don’t hang at SC."

Hackett denies that he or anyone on his staff spied or spread rumors. Still, R. Jay was going to stay away until fall practice. He would run at the beach and catch golf balls to refine his receiving skills. He took a ballet class in summer school and asked the teacher to "help me score touchdowns." He lifted a barbell at home. "Penitentiary lifting," he says, laughing. "Just lifting to be lifting."

He met Florida State’s Peter Warrick, the Heisman favorite, at the Playboy All-America photo shoot in Phoenix, and ribbed him: "Let’s go get the Heisman, me and you."

Only one problem: USC wasn’t going to campaign for R. Jay. School officials said he had to prove he was a candidate.

"That bugs me a little ... coming from my own school," R. Jay says. He remained a recluse. But just when everyone had lost faith, he showed up for fall practice without the braids. He’d shaved them off, just as he had been asked to by his father and Janice and Keyshawn and USC. He claims he did it "to be presentable for the NFL draft." But no matter how he rationalizes it, the truth is the truth.

Authority won.

This article appears in the September 20, 1999 issue of ESPN The Magazine.