Attitude Adjustment New Mindset, Conditioning Elevate WSU Back’s Game

CORRECTION (Sports, October 27, 1995): A Frank omission A player in a picture that appeared in Thursday’s edition was incorrectly identified as being Washington State running back Frank Madu. The photo, in fact, was of teammate Jason Clayton. Frank Madu is shown above. Photo by Associated Press (Photo of Frank Madu ran with correction.)

When the going gets tough, the tough get growing - physically and mentally.

At least that’s the way Washington State’s Frank Madu explains his recent emergence as one of the top running backs in the Pacific-10 Conference.

Madu, a bug-quick 5-foot-8, 180-pound senior from San Francisco’s McAteer High School, ranks No. 3 in the Pac-10 in rushing with an average of 84.1 yards per game.

He has scored five touchdowns and is averaging 5.7 yards per carry. And he is suddenly gaining a reputation as one of the toughest, most punishing runners in the league - as well as a breakaway threat.

Madu, also a sprinter on the Cougars track team, has always been recognized as a burner. But it has taken him awhile to establish himself as a feared physical runner, capable of breaking tackles and running over defenders.

As a sophomore, and even last season when he led all WSU rushers with 535 yards and one touchdown, Madu was considered a bit soft. He was easily tackled, often hurt and seldom anxious to lower his head and dole out punishment to defenders.

But this fall, after spending hundreds of hours in the weight room and a couple of months in coach Mike Price’s doghouse, Madu has toughened up.

No one has appreciated the change more than WSU trainer Mark Smaha, who spent too much time the past two seasons trying to convince Madu he wasn’t as hurt as he thought.

“He seems like a whole different person this year,” said Smaha, who does not suffer wimps gladly. “He used to always be hurt, looking for a way to get out of doing drills. But this fall, he’s been like a kid on a mission.

“The change has been dramatic.”

Madu will start at running back Saturday when WSU (2-2 in the Pac-10 and 3-4 overall) entertains Arizona (1-3 and 3-4) in a 7 p.m. Dad’s Day matchup that is critical to the bowl hopes of both schools.

And he will do so, despite a painful shoulder bruise that might have sidelined him last fall.

Madu injured the shoulder several weeks ago, but has played effectively through the pain. In last Saturday’s 26-7 loss at Oregon, with counterpart Derek Sparks out with an ankle sprain, he carried 21 times for a game-high 106 yards.

“Frank Madu’s shoulder was hurting, hurting bad,” Price said, “but he ran hard every time he got the ball. He ran as hard as he could and he showed me a lot of intestinal fortitude.”

Madu credits his growth - inside and out - for his new, aggressive running style, noting that he has put on nearly 15 pounds and a whole lot of muscle since sitting out his freshman year as a Prop 48 casualty.

“When I first got here I was frail,” Madu explained. “I was light in the behind and taking punishment and pain wasn’t my thing. It wasn’t my thing at all.

“It was a case of maturing - learning how to deal with pain, cope with it and move on. I learned if you let pain stop you, you really don’t have much to look forward to in this game.”

As Madu continues to mature, it becomes apparent that he is the type of late-developing player who was truly a “casualty” of an NCAA rule, formerly known as Proposition 48.

The rule forces recruits who do not meet minimum standards on their college boards and prep core classes to sit out their freshman seasons and relinquish a year of eligibility.

Madu was a non-qualifier coming out of high school and missed the 1992 season to concentrate on his studies. He played only sparingly as a sophomore in 1993 and shared time as the Cougars’ sole setback last fall with Sparks and Kevin Hicks.

His 1,255 career rushing yards leave him well short of the 1,623 needed to move him ahead of Rich Swinton into 10th place on WSU’s career rushing list. But Swinton finished his career with 354 carries - 84 more than Madu has to date.

Adding to the seeming injustice of Madu’s Prop 48 penalty was the fact that he finished his freshman year with a grade-point average of 2.95, proving he is capable of cutting it in the college classroom as well as on the football field.

The problem Madu had with his SATs, he explained, was his unfamiliarity with some of the words that were used on the test questions.

Madu was born in Nigeria and moved with his parents to the Bay Area when he was seven years old.

He still remembers village life in his homeland where everyone cared for each other and the pace was laid-back and relaxed. And he still remembers the problems he had adjusting to the sudden, dramatic change in culture when his father, Boniface Madu, a banker, moved his family to America.

“It was really hard to get used to,” Madu explained. “When I first came here, I didn’t know how to speak English at all. It was kind of crazy. I got a lot of pranks played on me while I was growing up, but I knew I had to learn the language, so I worked hard at it.”

Madu recalls several of his classmates teaching him new words - words that turned out to be a bit on the profane side.

“They’d tell me to go home and call my parents those words,” Madu recalled. “Then my parents would get all mad and say, ‘Where’d you learn that? You better shut up and and don’t you ever say it again!’

“It was kind of funny now that I look back on it.”

His language problems didn’t seem as humorous, however, when Madu went to take his college boards.

“Those tests had words in them that I’d never used at home,” Madu said. “I really wasn’t prepared for words like ‘tranquility,’ and when I saw them on the SATs I was like, wow, where did these words come from? Are they making them up.”

Today, Madu speaks fluent English but continues to learn new words and new meanings.

Among his latest is “toughness.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo