Tough Catches, a Tougher Life : Scott Leaves Troubles in St. Louis for an Opportunity in San Diego

SAN DIEGO —  The football was dropping in his direction like the opportunity he once thought he would never see.

So why wouldn’t Darnay Scott snatch it? In St. Louis, he and his pals would brawl for much less.

This was almost three weeks ago and Scott, San Diego State’s long-distance receiver, went up over USC defensive back Jason Oliver in the end zone like a high jumper and clamped onto the football as if it were dinner.

Five days later, Scott put a similar move on Brigham Young’s Hassan McCullough and Vic Tarleton. Up, over . . . touchdown.

Two big-time plays. Two touchdowns. One attitude.

“He’s the toughest wide receiver I’ve ever been associated with,” Aztec Coach Al Luginbill said. “Catching the ball in a crowd, blocking, pure toughness . . . he’d be a good free safety.”

Said UCLA Coach Terry Donahue: “He reminds me a little bit of (USC’s) Curtis Conway. (Scott) probably has been a little more productive at a young age. You’re always on nerve’s end concerned about what he is going to do.”

Scott, who would be receiving much more recognition were it not for running back Marshall Faulk, caught a 19-yard touchdown pass against Cal State Long Beach last season in his first game as a freshman.

He caught eight passes for 243 yards against BYU last November to set an NCAA single-game record for freshmen. In that game, he caught touchdown passes of 79 and 75 yards.

He can sprint with the fastest, play football with the toughest and shoot baskets well enough to have been selected second-team all-county in high school.

But his life has been one fight after another.

When he was a sophomore in high school, he was living with his mother in a St. Louis housing project. An older guy had beaten him with a stick during a street fight, and Scott had waited for an opportunity for revenge.

“I knew who he was,” Scott said. “He lived near me. I could never catch him at first. Every time I would see him, he would be by the police.”

The guy was three, maybe four years older than Scott. One day, Scott found him alone and beat him with the bat.

“I was like, ‘I’ve got to get him,’ ” Scott said. “When somebody did something to me, I had to get him back.

“It took me a couple of years, but I got him.”

Scott, who says he can’t remember his victim’s name, was arrested and spent a week in a juvenile detention home.

“He was a handful,” said his mother, Joyce Scott, from St. Louis this week. “We moved into the projects when Darnay was 14, right at the age where he was easily influenced.

“Fighting was his thing. He was always into something.”

The baseball bat incident wasn’t the first time he found trouble.

“I was a bad little kid,” Scott said. “I was fighting all the time.”

There is a scar on Scott’s right shoulder from a knife. He said he cannot remember the circumstances.

There is also a scar on top of his head.

“I got hit with a bat or something,” Scott said. “I don’t know.”

And then there is the scar on his right knee--can’t remember how he got that, either--and that knot on his forehead.

He does remember the knot. It came when he was hit with that stick, and things started to change.

The change began with Alan Hood, who lived in San Diego and had periodically discussed with his sister, Joyce Scott, the possibility of getting his nephew out of the projects and bringing him to San Diego.

In 1988, Hood, who is 10 years older than Darnay, happened to be on vacation and playing in a pickup basketball game in St. Louis.

“Darnay went up over another kid for a dunk like Michael Jordan and I said, ‘Whoa!’ ” Hood said. “I grabbed Anthony (a cousin of Hood’s), a coach at Sumner High, and asked, ‘Is he playing basketball?’

“Anthony said, ‘Hell no, he barely even goes to school.’ ”

When he lived in St. Louis, he would get dressed for school, leave, wait for his mother to go to work and then come back home.

The baseball bat incident sealed the move to San Diego. Scott was on probation after he was released from the juvenile hall, but that was only a minor inconvenience.

“His mom told me the probation officer said Darnay couldn’t leave the state of Missouri, but I said, ‘The hell with him, Darnay’s coming,’ ” Hood said.

But at his mother’s wishes, Scott remained until the end of probation.

The move wasn’t smooth at first.

“I didn’t really want to stay in California,” Scott said. “I used to do things to try and make my aunt and uncle send me back home. I’d go and stay out all night. We’d have talks. They’d be like, ‘You do it again, you’re going to go home.’ I’d be like, ‘Is that true?’

“It never got down to that, though.”

Instead, Hood, who played quarterback at Iowa State, encouraged Scott to play football and basketball at Kearny High. Scott, who had quit the junior varsity football team at Sumner High in St. Louis, tried it. He began to make friends. He returned a kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown in his first varsity game.

He saw that you didn’t have to fight to get the juices flowing.

Most of all, he learned something that much of his family already knew. When life throws you an opportunity, you catch it and start upfield.

Under Alan and Karen Hood, Scott slowly straightened out.

He adjusted. This place isn’t so bad after all, he realized. And while schools such as Ohio State, Arizona State and Colorado came calling, Scott, 6 feet 3, 185 pounds, never seriously listened.

“I wanted to stay close to my aunt and uncle,” Scott said. “And no schools back home were good in football.”

So Scott picked San Diego State without taking any other visits.

He roomed with Faulk last season and they became fast friends.

“Darnay and me are the same, except he had the opportunity to move away with his aunt and uncle,” Faulk said. “We’re the best of friends. We do just about everything together.

“He’s real tough. He’s big, he’s physical, he can give and take punishment.”

Despite cracking a finger on one hand and splitting the skin between two fingers on his other hand badly enough to require seven stitches, Scott caught 35 passes for 727 yards as a reserve last season.

As a starter in 1992, his teammates are amazed at what he has learned in a year. His coaches are thrilled.

“He’s always had speed. He’s always had talent,” receivers’ coach Curtis Johnson said. “Now, he’s mature. He’s starting to do things right all the time. He’s making proper adjustments. . . . And one of the most amazing things about him this year is that he’s blocking.”

Said Aztec quarterback David Lowery: “The guy is phenomenal. He’s definitely the go-to guy. He has big-time speed, he can judge the ball great and he’s got good hands. There’s not much more you can say about a receiver. He’s got everything.”

As a sophomore on No. 21 San Diego State, Scott is as sure of himself on the field as he has been off it. He left few doubters on that 30-yard touchdown reception at BYU on Sept. 10.

“I looked out at him (at the line of scrimmage) and he looked at me,” Lowery said. “I nodded my head, and he knew exactly what was going on. He just took off.”

The football would be coming in his direction. Where he once saw fights, Scott now sees opportunities. He knows the cadence, knows his routes, knows that when the football is in his air space, there is only one way to go.

Snatch it. And then take off.