Studying fills those ‘Hollywood’ nights
Bruin tailback Shah put life in perspective while redshirting
for
1993-94 season
By Randy Satterburg
Daily Bruin Staff
It is common knowledge that many high school athletes try their
darndest to be labeled with a favorable nickname  practically
campaigning for a catchy moniker  but to no avail. Face it,
as hard as you may have tried to become known as Sweetness, or
Broadway Joe, or Magic, or Prime Time, something known as athletic
ability  or lack thereof  always seemed to get in the
way.
In that respect, UCLA tailback Sharmon Shah’s story is very
unconventional. To his friends back home at Dorsey High School,
Shah will always be known as "Hollywood," and try as he may, he
just cannot seem to shed the flashy image. His nickname, in fact,
has probably been more difficult to shake than Arizona’s "Desert
Swarm" defense.
"Yeah, I went with the name," he says. "It was cool. But I just
couldn’t shake it. They called me that for about 10 years, so I
just let it be."
But while the very essence of Ed "Too Tall" Jones was captured
by his nickname, "Hollywood" and Shah are about as compatible as a
circle and a square peg.
Granted, he used to have a wilder side, which even today pops
out every now and then. During halftime at a recent Bruin
basketball game he snuck onto the floor to take a shot from
mid-court just to see if he "still had it." The ball didn’t go
in.
"Obviously," he says, "I don’t."
But today, Shah is a far cry from the little boy who first
became known as Hollywood in his Pop Warner days. A little older
and much wiser, Shah now sees beyond the hash marks of the football
field to another place – a place where athleticism is
meaningless.
"In being around regular students more, I began to realize how
much they study," Shah says. "I realized that they don’t even care
about football  they’re not even thinking about it. They’re
focusing on how they’re going to support their families. They are
out here working hard to get a degree to really have a good life
when this stuff is over.
"You don’t think about that when you’re playing football. You
think about winning the next game."
Shah’s re-evaluation of his identity as a football star occurred
during the1993-94 season, when he was forced to redshirt and
rehabilitate both of his surgically repaired knees, and his
findings opened his eyes to the very things his family told him all
along – but which he says it took the injury to make him
realize.
"I realized that I put a lot on football and not enough on the
fact that football is variable," Shah says. "And that you should
try to put more stress on things that are more concrete, like
school and getting prepared for life in general.
"I kept talking about what I wanted to do, about going to
graduate school and getting my Master’s Degree and all that, but I
didn’t know what it took to get into graduate school or to get a
Master’s Degree. I didn’t talk to anybody until I got hurt, and I
found out a bunch of stuff that I wasn’t doing that I needed to
do."
Nevertheless, the Sharmon Shah that carried 40 times for 187
yards last year against Stanford  before chronic pain in his
knees ended his season  emerged from his hiatus as the same
talented tailback. This season, Shah’s 109.2 rushing yards per game
places him third among Pac-10 leaders in that category.
If anything, Shah credits the year away from football to his
improved character – on and off the field.
"It just allowed me to play this game in a whole different way,"
Shah says, "Football just doesn’t affect me now. For instance, last
year if I wasn’t playing I would have felt a little bad, but my
mentality this year is that this is just a small part of my life.
There are so many other things besides football, and I can walk
away from it in a minute. I love it, and I’m going to play my
hardest, but if a knee goes out or if something else goes, I’m
moving on. I’ll try to get my Master’s and do the best I can to
support my family and have a good life."
Still, the competitor in Shah fiercely rivals his ambitious
personality. Despite his individual accomplishments, Shah feels the
burden of a team struggling to find its identity. After UCLA lost
its third consecutive game against Washington last weekend, a
visibly downcast Shah took the loss exceptionally hard.
It was Shah who carried the ball on the costly fourth-and-one
play that came up short, and while it was obviously not his fault
the play failed, he still feels he should have made the first down,
with or without blocking.
UCLA head coach Terry Donahue recently spoke about his prized
sophomore tailback in no uncertain terms, which spoke louder about
Shah’s character than his considerable physical talents.
"I’m impressed with certain players for their competitiveness
and I think Sharmon Shah sticks out on our team," Donahue said. "If
every member of the UCLA team played like he plays, I’d be a hell
of a lot happier. Sharmon Shah plays with a great deal of zip and
energy. He doesn’t back down from the challenge of anything or
anybody, and that’s why I like him so much. He’s a football
player’s player. I’m really impressed with him. Any team I’ve ever
had, I’d like a Sharmon Shah on it, because I can count on him, I
know that."
"He really is a very secure athlete. I point to him with some
pride because I think he exemplifies what we are trying to get
everybody on our football team to do, because he’s able to do it.
We need to get a lot of other kids to follow his example."
Wherever the football career of Sharmon Shah leads him, the
experience of life without football has enabled him to now feel
adequately prepared to deal with anything that come his way.
"The same things that help you in football will help you in
life," Shah says. "It hasn’t come easy for me. I worked hard for
this scholarship. If I can just apply those things to the outside
world I’ll be a great citizen, and a great student, a great
everything, really."