Try To Catch A Bolt Of Lightning

He did not. No evidence, no charge, but the publicity damage had been done.

His final trouble came last spring when he was arrested for running a stop sign while driving with a suspended license. Headlines. They were not bad enough to say "Stickup man and dope fiend runs another stop sign," but they did damage.

For all of this, Johnny Rodgers has managed to be the superb athlete he is and get an education. A hundred times he must have wanted to quit, to hide, to steal away and brood about his bad timing and a world that kept insinuating he was not welcome. He hung in, however, and found an understanding and a faith, and maybe that's why he tries so hard and performs so well—to pay back a sport that keeps saving him.

Rodgers may not win the Heisman because no one knows how many of the 1,200 voters are anti-stop sign running. But there happens to be one—me—who intends to vote for the best football player in the country, in or out of a courtroom, or in or out of a crowd of tacklers, and that player happens to be Johnny Rodgers.