Thursday, August 28, 1997

Rhodes will find Tech opener hard to watch

By Lance Fleming / Abilene Reporter-News

TYLER -- Dominic Rhodes had planned on being in Texas Tech's starting lineup Saturday night when the Red Raiders open their season against second-ranked Tennessee in front of more than 100,000 fans at Neyland Stadium.

Instead he'll be in his dorm room on the Tyler Junior College campus, some 1,000 miles away, watching the game unfold on television.

And he'll know that he should have been playing in that game.

"It'll be hard to watch the game," Rhodes said, "but I will anyway. I don't want to act like I don't care about Texas Tech, because I do."

Rhodes had every intention of being in Lubbock earlier this month when fall workouts started, but his grades kept him away. As everyone who's followed this story knows by now, he didn't meet the necessary academic requirements to qualify for Division I and will spend the next two seasons playing for the Tyler JC Apaches.

The former Cooper standout, who rushed for more than 2,000 yards and scored 33 touchdowns last season, spent most of the summer trying to get his grades up through petitioning the NCAA Clearinghouse. But when those efforts failed in early August, he had a decision to make.

He could either go back to Cooper for one more year, attend a college preparatory school in Virginia or go to junior college.

"I really couldn't go back to Cooper, because they didn't have enough core classes that I could still take," Rhodes said. "After that, it was a decision on which junior college to attend, and it came down to Navarro or Tyler. My mom and I both felt like Tyler would be the best choice."

And now that he's there, Rhodes has accepted his situation. However, he readily admits that he still wishes he were at Texas Tech right now.

"I'm still not over the whole thing," Rhodes said. "I saw an interview with (Tennessee quarterback) Peyton Manning on Tuesday where he was saying that they couldn't overlook Texas Tech. That was tough, because I should be a part of that.

"But I'm not, and I have to adjust to that," he said. "This isn't where I wanted to start my college football career. But I'm here for two years and I have to deal with that."

Things aren't all bad at Tyler, though. Rhodes has already moved into the starting lineup, and he said he thinks he's a better player now than he was at the end of his senior season at Cooper. That would be something, because he was the best player in the state over the last eight weeks of the season as he led the Cougars to the state championship game.

There is one thing, however, that he's still getting used to at Tyler.

"Junior college is a lot different than I thought it would be," Rhodes said. "It's not as bad, but the only thing is that our equipment isn't the best. In fact, it's a lot lower than the best.

"When we got our stuff, they just told me, 'Hey, that's junior college ball,' " Rhodes said with a laugh. "But I had better stuff as a freshman at Cooper than I have now."

But Tyler coaches probably don't really care how Rhodes' uniform fits; they just want him to produce on the field, much as he did last year when he was named the state's Class 5A offensive player of the year. Rhodes will get his first shot at doing just that on Monday when Tyler plays host to Georgia Military at 7 p.m. in the season opener.

The Apaches will play in this area this year when they travel to Ranger on Oct. 18 to take on Ranger College at 3 p.m.

Until then, Rhodes hopes no one forgets about him.

"Tell everybody back home I said, 'What's up,' " he said. "And tell them not to forget about me."