SIMPSON FREE, BUT TO MANY A PARIAH.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

You're standing in the middle of Heritage Hall on the USC campus and you hear that voice, the one that once stood up in a courtroom and said, ``absolutely, 100 percent not guilty,'' and you freeze like the UCLA secondary did on the run that trampled the Bruins' national and conference title hopes 30 years ago.

Over in the corner, O.J. Simpson is reflecting on his 64-yard scoring burst that handed the Bruins a 21-20 loss at the Coliseum, on Nov. 18, 1967 in a showdown of the nation's top-ranked teams. ``(Quarterback Toby Page) called a pass play. . . . I get to the line of scrimmage. I hear, `Red, Red 23.' . . . I almost said, `Toby. . . . not only am I tired, that's a terrible call on third-and-8.''

You turn your head in the direction of the voice and resume breathing when you realize Simpson's words are coming from a display monitor in which ``Great Moments in Trojan Football History'' can be summoned with the touch of a button.

Once the crowning symbol of USC's storied athletic tradition, Simpson, 49, has been reduced to a galloping ghost, his presence confined to a few lines in the media guide and a few old sound bites on videotape.

The player who used to draw more people to him than the Tommy Trojan statue on campus has not been spotted at a USC football game since the murders in June of 1994 of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend, Ron Goldman.

Two years after a jury in the criminal trial of the century acquitted Simpson in the deaths of Brown and Goldman and not quite a year after he was found liable for the murders in a civil trial, his innocence remains widely suspect.

``I know of no one who believes that he is innocent,'' said Ron Yary, a two-time All-America offensive tackle at USC who won the Outland Trophy in 1967 for his success springing Simpson into the open field.

You start to tell Yary how you're torn between what you believe unfolded on Bundy Drive on that fateful night of June 12 and what Simpson absolutely did so many years before to enrich the rivalry between USC and UCLA, which renews itself again on Saturday. Like so many others, you are struggling to reconcile the high-octane runs with the low-speed chase.

``What's happened to O.J. has affected the university. It's an embarrassment,'' Yary says, cutting you off.

Clearly, the days when Simpson had the likes of Yary blocking for him are long gone. And yet, wherever he goes, gaping holes continue to materialize for him.

A friend of an acquaintance talks about patrons leaving an L.A. area restaurant in mid-bite recently when Simpson showed up for dinner. A man tells his two radio talk-show buddies about spying the flight attendants on his cross-country flight drawing straws in the galley, with the loser consigned to the first-class cabin where Simpson was seated.

Earlier this week, newspapers chronicled Simpson's guest appearance on a late-night talk show pilot for the Fox network in New York. When he joined host Michael Moore on stage, a few audience members stormed out of the studio. During the 45-minute interview that followed, at least one person yelled out, ``Murderer.''

Former Trojans tailback Anthony Davis has a better understanding than most of what it's like to be Simpson these days. Davis' cross is that he bears an uncanny resemblance to the player who preceded him to USC by four years. Since Simpson's acquittal in the criminal trial, Davis has had drivers pull up alongside him at intersections, roll down their car windows and flip him off. He has had fellow airline passengers quietly request to have their seats changed so they don't have to sit next to him. One woman approached him inside an airline terminal, called him a murderer and screamed, ``They should have never let you out of jail!''

When Davis calmly explained to her that this was a case of mistaken identity, she hissed, ``You look just like O.J. You should do something about it.''

Davis, who ranks third on USC's all-time career rushing list with 3,724 yards, finds it regrettable that Simpson's athletic accomplishments are being hidden in the closet set aside for the skeletons.

``People just don't talk about O.J. any more,'' Davis said. ``Regardless of what happened to him after he left SC, the fact is, he's part of the reason why SC is what it is today. He was a great runner. What he accomplished at SC, you can't take that away from him.''

There are people who continue to give Simpson his due, who excitedly exchange high-fives with him when their paths cross his and who don't blink when he shows up at the first tee to fill out a foursome at Woodley Lakes or Hansen Dam or any of the other public courses he patronizes now that his membership at Riviera Country Club has been stamped ``inactive.''

The high-income circles in which Simpson, a man of modest beginnings, freely traveled before his second wife and her friend were found murdered are now tacitly closed to him. The spotlight he once ate up like yards in an open field is largely dark. When it does shine on him, as it did on the stage alongside Moore this week, it's not glory that's being reflected but dishonor.

There's nothing left to The Juice but the pulp.

From his office in Dallas, the man whose audible at the line of scrimmage resulted in the play known simply as ``the run'' ruminated about Simpson's fate.

``I'm sure he's (feeling) punished even more now because he's being ostracized,'' Page said. ``For him, that's like being in a worse cell than prison.''

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Photo: O.J. Simpson was a great Trojans tailback, but an ex-USC star says he's an ``embarrassment.''

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