MOVING PAST THE PAIN 20 YEARS LATER, HART APPRECIATES LIFE'S CHALLENGES.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

Long before it became a defining moment in the history of this country, Sept. 11 became a day Todd Hart never would forget.

The reminders of how his life changed are all around. They are as re-affirming as the presence of his wife and three children. They are as gratifying as earning a law degree or his work as the Director of Government and Community Relations for the Orange County district attorney. And they are as ever present as the wheelchair in which he sits.

It was 20 years ago Wednesday, on a warm sunny day at the Rose Bowl, that it happened.

Then a 19-year-old sophomore defensive back at Long Beach State, Hart went up in the air to defend a pass against UCLA. When he landed on his head he suffered a broken neck that ended one way of life and began another.

Rather than a day of remorse or regret, Sept. 11 is one of reflection and remembrance for Hart. The energy he used to prepare for football, he put into learning to walk. The competition he relished on the field instead took place in the classroom. If he'd been playing football instead of attending a game, he might not have met his wife, Polita.

The day is a chance for him to reflect on all he has as much as to remember anything he's lost. If the life Hart lives isn't the one he dreamed of living, then how different is he from any other 39-year-old?

``When I wake up and it's Sept. 11, I'll think back and say this is the day,'' Hart said. ``We might go out for a drink with some friends and tell lies. I think this is the most I've thought back, it being 20 years.

``It kind of goes back to what I was saying - I was very severely injured. The question of life was brought up in the beginning. Then it was the quality of life. Then my ability to take care of myself and move forward. Those are the things I was dealing with. I think it's a positive thing to think back. It helps me appreciate things and that's a big thing with me. As much as possible, I try to get as much out of every day. I think those traumatic things in life reinforce that.''

That fateful day

After decades of sharing the Coliseum with USC, UCLA moved to the Rose Bowl in 1982 in an attempt to get out from under the Trojans' shadow and have a home of its own. Sept. 11 was the Bruins' first game there.

For UCLA, it was a perfect opener, a chance to work out the kinks against an outmanned opponent before heading on the road the next three weeks against Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado. For Long Beach State, a member of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, it was an opportunity to play in front of 45,000 fans - then the largest crowd to see them play.

As game as the 49ers might have been, they were no match for the Bruins, who would go on to a 10-1-1 record and finish No. 5 in the nation.

With UCLA well on its way to a 41-10 rout, both teams began to substitute late in the third quarter. When the Bruins took over at their 32-yard line, backup quarterback Rick Neuheisel came into the game for the Bruins as did Hart for the 49ers.

Two plays lost 2 yards and on third-and-12, Neuheisel dropped back to pass.

``I remember it pretty vividly,'' said Neuheisel, who would quarterback the Bruins to a Rose Bowl victory the following season and is the head coach at the University of Washington.

``I remember being excited to be in the game and that (receiver) Jo Jo Townsell was, so I was going to get to throw to a first stringer. As I recall, it was a post route. They had it covered pretty well and I probably forced it. I shouldn't have thrown it, but I wanted to make a big play and took a chance. There's a lot of passes that I'd love to have back, but none more than that one.''

This was Hart's first game as a safety. As a freshman he'd played special teams and caught three passes as a receiver, but was far enough down the depth chart that the coaches moved him to defense hoping to take advantage of the athletic ability that allowed him to high jump 6-foot-8 in high school.

When the ball was snapped, Neuheisel dropped back to pass and had Townsell running a deep post and his other receiver, Cormac Carney, running a deep square in from the other side.

Darrell Pattillo, the other safety, and Hart read the play perfectly as Townsell tried to split them. Pattillo, playing off Townsell's right shoulder, leaped over him as the ball arrived. Hart, coming at Townsell from nearly a 90-degree angle, had a choice of playing the ball or the man.

``It was kind of a wobbly pass,'' Hart said. ``It was definitely a pass that could be picked off. I had an angle on the ball and on hitting the receiver. I went for the receiver and the other safety went for the ball.''

Pattillo grabbed the ball and an instant later Hart lowered his shoulder into the leaping Townsell's midsection. Hart, the only one whose feet were on the ground, carried the three players forward with his momentum.

``We hit the turf and my helmet hit first, like a somersault,'' Hart said. ``But the two guys landed and it prevented me from rolling.''

What happened was his head bent so far forward that his spine between the C-3 and C-4 joints - roughly between his ears - cracked.

``I heard a very loud snap,'' said Carney, who was about 10 yards behind the play. ``I knew instantly there was a problem.''

Pattillo jumped up with the ball, holding the first interception of his collegiate career, and sprinted off the field.

``I didn't even know he was underneath us,'' Pattillo said. ``I was excited. By the time I got to the sidelines, I turned around and he was still down.''

The game was stopped for 12 minutes as Hart was attended to, strapped to a stretcher and carried to an awaiting ambulance that delivered him to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

``It felt like I couldn't breathe,'' Hart said. ``I could feel pressure on the diaphragm. It felt like I was running out of oxygen. There wasn't any realization that you've got a broken neck and you're going to be in a wheelchair forever. In the next day or so, reality set in.''

The aftermath

More than four months later, after completing his final season as UCLA's all-time receiving leader, Carney was honored by the Century Club, a sports-booster group in his hometown of Long Beach, as its Athlete of the Year.

At the club's banquet, which is annually attended by several hundred people, Carney tossed aside the speech he'd spent a sleepless night preparing. Throughout the season Carney would be kept abreast of Hart's condition by UCLA coach Terry Donahue, who regularly visited Hart while he was at Northridge Medical Center.

At the dinner, Carney thanked the Century Club for its award and announced he was instead giving it to Hart.

``I think I was in part motivated by hearing how Todd was in very difficult times and that he was really fighting and being courageous,'' said Carney, who is a Superior Court judge in Orange County. ``Right after the accident he was struggling to live. It took a tremendous amount of courage to stay positive and go on. It took a lot more guts and honor than getting on the football field and doing something you enjoy. As time goes on, I feel even better about the decision.''

Shortly after the banquet, Carney went with Long Beach State coach Dave Currey to Northridge Medical Center to present the award to Hart. A few days before, Hart - who had battled infection and respiratory problems - had nearly died.

``It was humbling, a little bit of a depressing experience for me,'' Carney said. ``I remember his body weight, his body structure and his form on the field and it didn't look anything like him. Obviously, I had never met Todd before, but I didn't feel awkward. We weren't trying to say it was like old times. I just said I wanted to give this to you and I hear you're hanging in there and I'm thinking of you and praying for you. He said, `I'm going to give this back to you one day.''

In March 1983, six months after he was hurt, Hart was released from the hospital and went home to his parents' house in San Juan Capistrano. The next fall he began to take classes at Long Beach State, despite not being able to do anything other than sit up in a wheelchair. He wasn't able to feed himself, take notes or push his wheelchair. But it was a start.

The next six years were spent going to school, going to court in a variety of lawsuits that helped defray his medical expenses and vigorously pursuing rehabilitation.

``Instead of school and playing football, my life became school and working out in rehab,'' Hart said. Once he completed his degree, he was working out eight hours a day, five days a week.

Hart has learned in the ensuing years what any middle-aged man could have told him: Use it or lose it.

The obligations of work, marriage and family no longer enable him to work out and he no longer has the use of his body that he did a decade ago.

``I can still stand up and take a few steps,'' Hart said. ``I'm not able to walk like I used to, but it's not anything I'm unhappy about. Life is good. I took it pretty far for a C-3, C-4. Most people say that guy's never going to move below his neck. I far exceeded those expectations.''

Where they are now

It's been years since Hart has spoken to anyone involved in the play that changed his life, but the path those lives have taken is testimony to either fate or the smallness of the football world. Perhaps both.

If Carney had not been from Long Beach, he might never have met Hart. Twenty years later, both are law school graduates and former practicing attorneys. Carney's court room in Fullerton is a few miles from Hart's office in Santa Ana.

``Our supervising judge, Fred Horn, is a close friend of Todd's family so I occasionally get a report on how Todd is doing,'' Carney said. ``We stayed in a little contact after the incident, then both of our lives went in different directions.''

When Hart completed his bachelor's degree at Long Beach State he attended law school at, of all places, UCLA.

``Terry Donahue would always come visit and check in - what a class act - and I heard from a lot of the boosters,'' Hart said. ``It almost felt like I was one of their players. That's why going to law school at UCLA was such a natural thing. It was like I was with the crowd that I belonged with. It was like a second school to me.''

Townsell, who lives outside his hometown of Reno, Nev., runs a nonprofit organization that promotes youth sports. Townsell played three years with the Express and seven years with the New York Jets in the NFL.

He said the proudest he's ever made his mother was when, on the Monday following Hart's injury, she asked him to send him a get-well card.

``That morning before classes I had already done so,'' Townsell said. ``I don't remember the card, but I remember writing to him, `At times like this, we're all on the same team.''

Moved on

If Hart has any bitterness over what happened 20 years ago, it is hidden. He doesn't resent football. He doesn't blame Neuheisel for throwing the pass, one of his teammates for not sacking him or his coaches for putting him in the game. He harbors no ill will toward Long Beach State or anyone at UCLA.

``It was just one of those things that happened,'' Hart said.

If Hart didn't believe those words, he'd have had a hard time allowing his eldest son, Steven, to play football last year at St. Margaret's High, a small private school in San Juan Capistrano. Steven no longer plays football, but that is his choice - he will concentrate on baseball this spring at San Clemente High - and it will be the same for his youngest son, Mitchell, 4.

``Once I remember being asked about playing football when I was doing an interview,'' Hart said. ``Football was what I did my whole life. I always said if I was able-bodied, I'd play again. That was the same attitude I had with my son. A lot of spinal cord injuries happen in car accidents. I wouldn't let my son not drive my car because I know a lot of people who have been in accidents who are in wheelchairs. When I watched him play, I didn't have any apprehension about it.''

In fact, one of Hart's pleasures each fall - aside from watching Steve or daughter Christina, 10, play sports - is going to the Rose Bowl to watch UCLA play. The family tailgates, then sits ``in the cheap seats,'' he said.

``I always kind of look down on that area of the field,'' he said. ``It really seems like a long time ago, but it doesn't give me any kind of eerie feeling. There really isn't any drama to it. It's just something that happened. I've moved on and gone beyond that. That's where my life changed, but that's about as far as I take it.''

On Saturday night, while UCLA was playing Colorado State, Hart met with a group of 25 or so of his dearest friends and family members at a Mexican restaurant in San Juan Capistrano. It wasn't so much to mark the anniversary of his accident as much as to celebrate his life since.

``My personality has never been what if, why me and all that kind of stuff,'' Hart said. ``I don't think it's productive. I don't think I spent a lot of time dwelling on it. That's not to say that I don't sit around and think what would have happened to me if I'd been able-bodied. You talk about fate and where I ended up and I don't think I would want to change that because everything would change.

``I wouldn't be in the position I am today, be married and have three kids. If I could have all this and be able-bodied, too, I'd take that. That incident led to this chain of events and I'm OK with that. This being 20 years is another chance to reflect and be with friends and have a good time. Life is good.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Todd Hart was paralyzed after suffering a broken neck, right, during Long Beach State's football game against UCLA on Sept. 11, 1982.

Photos by John Lazar and Bill Hodge/Staff Photographers

(3) Todd Hart in 1983, just back from the hospital and being helped into his wheelchair by his best friend, Greg Kading.

Bill Hodge/Staff Photographer