A FORMER WALK-ON NOW THE CAPTAIN BRUINS FULLBACK STANLEY HAS COME A LONG WAY.

When UCLA dressed, showered and walked to the team busses after a 42-20 loss at Ohio State two years ago, there was one Bruin who didn't have a long face.

But, who could blame Matt Stanley?

The first start of his college career came in the stadium where he and his friends spent every Saturday they could from the seventh grade on. On the fourth play of the game, he scored a touchdown that was nearly as immaculate as the Immaculate Reception.

And then, as he was getting out of the shower, UCLA coach Bob Toledo approached his walk-on fullback and quietly offered his hand. Congratulations, son, you're now on scholarship.

``Those circumstances,'' said Stanley, shaking his head two years later. ``They were beyond a dream come true.''

All the memories have come flooding back to Stanley this week as UCLA prepares to play Ohio State again. He's been asked to recount the evening by reporters from Los Angeles and Ohio, not that he needs them to jog his memory.

He's got the whole evening on film: the tape of the regionally televised game, Ohio camera crews who caught Toledo offering him the scholarship and videotape of Stanley walking outside the locker room and telling his mom about it.

``She yelled it to everyone and they erupted,'' said Stanley, a fifth-year senior. ``It was great to share it with my friends and family.''

The significance of that should not be underestimated.

Stanley's family moved from Sacramento to Columbus when he entered junior high and like all dutiful citizens, he became a Buckeyes fan. Yet, when it was time to go to college, he couldn't resist the genealogical pull of UCLA, the school where his mother and father, a fullback on the 1966 Rose Bowl team, and several cousins attended.

Stanley rushed for more than 4,000 yards and scored 48 touchdowns in his career at Bexley High, but there wasn't much of a market for a 6-foot-3, 195-pound tailback without great speed. Pittsburgh was the only Division I school that recruited him.

Just before Matt graduated from high school, his father, Steve, took him to an Ohio State spring practice to see what elite Division I football players looked like.

``He said, 'Dad, I can do this,' '' Steve Stanley said.

He came to UCLA as a recruited walk-on and persevered through a difficult year, on and off the field. The night Stanley received the MVP trophy in a high school all-star game, his mother, Lisa, told him they couldn't go out to celebrate. Instead, she needed to go to the hospital where she would have surgery the following morning to remove a malignant tumor from her abdomen.

Stanley reported a week late to fall camp, but his mother, who underwent another surgery six months later, was never far from his mind. He leaned on his older sister, Robin, then a student at University of San Diego, for support.

``She's fine now,'' Steve Stanley said of his wife, ``but it was some pretty tough circumstances.''

Football wasn't easy either. Stanley was learning a new position, got a late start and as a walk-on was at the bottom of the football hierarchy.

``I got my butt kicked every day,'' said Stanley. ``I'd never blocked anybody before, but I knew deep down I could play at this level. I'd invested a lot of time and work in it. I wanted it to work out.''

It did two years ago in Columbus. He ran a pass route into the left flat, but quarterback Drew Bennett threw the ball to receiver Freddie Mitchell. The pass was tipped by Ohio State cornerback Ahmed Plummer and landed on Mitchell's back. Stanley scooped the ball off Mitchell's back and raced 67 yards to the end zone.

``I don't remember picking the ball up,'' Stanley said. ``All I remember is running for my life.''

Just as events conspired for Stanley two years ago - he was in the lineup because starter Durell Price was suspended for his role in the handicapped-parking scandal - they are aligning themselves on Stanley's shoulders again.

Starting fullback Ed Ieremia-Stansbury, who wrested the job from Stanley last season, sprained an ankle against Kansas two weeks ago and is doubtful. Not only will Stanley start, but Toledo has appointed him the game captain.

Stanley knows better than to expect a repeat performance of an evening he called ``surreal.'' Instead, he has simpler desires, something he can share with his teammates as well as his family. It's the only thing he didn't get that night: a victory.

OHIO ST. at UCLA

When: Saturday, 12:30 p.m.

TV: Ch. 7

Radio: 1150-AM

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) As a walk-on two years ago, Matt Stanley impressed coaches enough he earned a scholarship.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

Box:

OHIO ST. at UCLA (see text)