Along With His Spot At Flanker, Danny Farmer Is Now a Captain, Putting Bruin Leadership ... : IN GOOD HANDS

The student trainers, making their regular post-practice rounds in the cart to distribute protein drinks to UCLA football players, cruised toward star flanker Danny Farmer and offered him a beverage.

One of them heaved the plastic bottle.

Short. It landed on the grass, just in front of Farmer’s reach.

“I should have caught it!” he shouted mockingly to the back of the cart as it whirred away.

Cracking under the pressure already.

“I should have dove.”

Such are the expectations. Chase down school records. Go from laid-back to team leader for 1999, the biggest test of his already-considerable jumping abilities. Succeed amid the high standards that come with being named to several preseason All-American teams. Mesh with new quarterbacks despite sitting out spring practice while playing volleyball, then a chunk of fall drills and the season opener because of a sprained ankle. And, catch everything.

It’s his own doing, of course, this being the same Farmer who invited the burden of expectation with past greatness. That part is nothing new--that he could soon become statistically the greatest receiver in UCLA history, maybe as soon as this week at Ohio State in one category, is obvious should he avoid injury. That is not the new challenge.

Becoming a leader is. Circumstance created the situation by sending the spirited Cade McNown, Andy Meyers, Shawn Stuart and Kris Farris out from the program at the same time, but Farmer embraced it in time for his senior season. He might be used to being a focal point of the offense and not a vocal point, but he also began the season as easily the most experienced player on a young unit. Danny and the juniors.

So was a team captain born.

“He has changed, for the better,” said fellow receiver Jon Dubravac, a sophomore. “Last year, he kind of didn’t want [the responsibility]. Cade and some of the linemen took care of most of that stuff. But you can see it. You can see him trying to assert himself more.”

Said offensive coordinator Al Borges: “Absolutely. He’s been elected a captain and he’s shown a willingness to accept that role. It’s exciting to see what he’s accomplished here: He’s been a big-time volleyball player and a big-time football player, and now he may be the type of leader who can help us win some games that way this year. We do have a void there.”

Farmer noticed. The transition has been made smoother because he did not try to take someone else’s personality, merely use his own with the volume turned up a little. The experience of four previous years with the football team, one as a redshirt, and four completed seasons with volleyball, including two NCAA championship matches as a key reserve, has been as great an asset.

He has kept it natural, because that is the only way he knows how. So when the Bruins met about a month ago, two days before the start of practice, he spoke in a calm voice about the handicapped-parking situation, from the heart instead of from a bully pulpit. Because of his experience, it was plenty loud enough to command.

Said Farmer: “I was a little proud of myself.”

Understated has always come more easily to him, his humility as disarming as his athletic ability and soft hands are dangerous to opponents. Tell him that some people might be surprised that he has apparently eased so smoothly into the role of a team leader and he will respond that the transition hasn’t been difficult. Leadership has a lot to do with how you carry yourself as a person off the field, he will add.

“I’ve waited five years to get to here, to be a senior,” he said. “Not to really be in charge, but to be like the leading figure. It’s something I’ve waited for.”

The records and the recognition are other matters. Farmer used the plateaus as motivation during the summer, when the conditioning workout can get long and tedious, knowing what could be possible. It’s something of a stark admission, given his persona, until he adds immediately afterward:

“But it’s something that I’ll really look back on when I’m about 50 or something and maybe can brag to my kids. I don’t really keep that close track.”

Farmer is in third place on the career yardage list, needing 23 to pass J.J. Stokes and 102 to overtake former teammate Kevin Jordan. Last season, granted with a better quarterback, he had seven games with at least 100 yards, five with 110 or more.

He is fourth on the career receptions rankings, 13 from topping Sean LaChapelle, 25 from Stokes and 50 from taking No. 1 from Jordan. Farmer had 58 catches last season, playing in all 12 games.

“In the last three years, because he did not participate in spring practice, he’d always come out in the fall and it would take him a week or two to really get going,” said Ron Caragher, UCLA’s receiver coach. “This year, he didn’t have that. This year, he came out and was ready. It was as if he was out every day of spring practice.”

Said Jordan, a senior when Farmer redshirted as a freshman and a frequent visitor to Bruin practices: “One thing I’ve always said about Danny, he has the best hands I’ve ever seen. No doubt. I don’t know if volleyball has helped that or what. But he catches anything that comes close to him.”

Almost anything.

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Danny Farmer Profile

Background: Born May 21, 1977 . . . 6 feet 4, 210 pounds . . . Senior . . . First-team All Pac-10 in 1998 . . . Career highs--Receptions, 7 vs. Oregon, 1998, vs. Wisconsin, 1998; Receiving yards, 161 vs. Oregon, 1998, 142 vs. Wisconsin, 1998.

STATISTICS *--*

YEAR NO YDS AVG TD LG 1996 31 524 16.9 4 88 1997 41 649 15.8 3 60 1998 58 1,274 22.0 9 88 TOTAL 130 2,447 18.8 16 88

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