Catch That Family Feeling Mckenzie’s Historic Td Raises A Roof In Mississippi

Rickey McKenzie tried to play it cool. Barbara and the kids practically flew through the roof.

“Oh, we jumped up, hit the ceiling,” Barbara McKenzie says excitedly. “All the kids and everything. You know that. We was just a-jumping, going up and down.”

There was much to celebrate.

Washington State University senior Kevin McKenzie, the second-oldest son of Rickey and a stepson to Barbara, had just crossed the goal line for the winning touchdown in the Cougars’ historic football victory over USC on Saturday.

As Kevin bowed his head and knelt in the east end zone of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, his family in Laurel, Miss., danced around their 27-inch Magnavox with enough enthusiasm to bridge the 2,000-mile geographical divide.

“When he scored the touchdown, everybody just went haywire - like the roof went off the top of the house,” Rickey says.

There were nine of them in all, including Kevin’s older brother, four younger sisters and two younger cousins.

“The house was noisy, just like being at the stadium,” Rickey marvels. “You wouldn’t believe it. The only thing that was missing was beer and popcorn.”

When Kevin hauled in Ryan Leaf’s pass with one hand, picked up a critical block from Shawn McWashington and sprinted 51 yards for the winning score, everyone in the McKenzie household jumped and clapped and danced. Everyone but Dad, Barbara reveals.

“His daddy was trying to be macho-like. He was just sitting there,” Barbara says. “But he wanted to jump just as much. Me and the kids, we jumped up and we were clapping.

Pop was sitting there like, you know, this is my son.”

Truth be known, a part of Rickey McKenzie was kneeling in that end zone, too. “I was pretty excited myself,” he says.

“It was special,” Barbara says. “Kevin held his head down and he said, ‘Pops, I did it.’ I know he said that. Because they talk every day. His daddy keeps his spirit up.”

A welder by occupation, Rickey’s football dreams ended years ago with the ankle injury he suffered on a high school playing field in New York. Nowadays, when he isn’t working up to 70 hours a week, you can probably find his reflection in that Magnavox.

“Yeah, I watch sports all the time,” Rickey says. “Boxing, football, track and field, diving, swimming, horse racing, you name it. I watch it all.”

Rickey was able to watch only one of Kevin’s high school games, and he’s been unable to attend any since.

“The only thing I miss about it is that I can’t get to his games because it’s so far away,” Rickey says. “Once I tried to get off from my job to come, and they said it would be too long and they couldn’t hold my job for me that long.”

He does what he can. Sometimes he wears his Washington State sweat shirt, just not to work.

“Where I work, you get really dirty and I didn’t want to get it messed up,” he says. “But I wear it around town.

“And he sent me some pictures - he’s in his uniform and they took some pictures on the field. I took them around showing them to everybody. It’s pretty good.”

Laurel, Miss., is about 70 miles southeast of Jackson, between Hattiesburg and Meridian on Interstate 59. It’s where Rickey, Barbara and their three youngest children moved six or seven years ago. It’s a long way from the life they knew in Long Beach, Calif.

“We got away from the violence,” Barbara says.

Kevin was never the type to be in trouble, and he remained in California with his mother, Norey Brown.

An All-South Coast safety and running back at Wilson High School, McKenzie went on to star for two years at nearby Long Beach City College.

One summer, he made a visit to Mississippi.

“He came down here, got him a job right away at a poultry plant,” Rickey says. “It was something he wasn’t really used to and he had never seen one of these places before.

“But he took the job and never missed a day, until his coach kept calling from California. He was kind of worried that Kevin wasn’t coming back.”

Kevin came back and eventually signed with WSU. The Cougars made him a receiver, a transition more difficult than McKenzie anticipated.

He caught 31 passes for 626 yards and two touchdowns last season, but those statistics were overshadowed by what might have been. There were dropped passes and fumbled punt returns.

To McKenzie, one difficult sequence stands out more than any other. It happened during the final minute of last season’s Oct. 26 loss to USC.

The Cougars, trailing 29-24, faced third-and-39 from their own 5-yard line. Quarterback Ryan Leaf lofted the ball downfield, toward receiver Nian Taylor.

The pass was deflected twice, first by Taylor and then by a USC defender, before it floated into McKenzie’s hands near midfield.

What to do?

Had McKenzie run straight down the left sideline, he probably would have scored. Instead, he cut back to the middle of the field and was promptly tackled.

Three plays later, Leaf was hit and fumbled. USC recovered. WSU lost. McKenzie was crushed.

“I have the picture hanging up on my wall,” he says. “I would look at the picture and the picture was taken right before I cut back inside. And I’m thinking, ‘Damn, I should have just kept going straight.’ “When I caught the ball, I was panicking and I saw a guy over here and I was thinking, OK, this guy’s gonna catch me, so I cut back inside.”

For McKenzie, this season’s opener against UCLA was less difficult only because the Cougars held on for a 37-34 victory. Had they lost, McKenzie would have been a logical scapegoat, his third-quarter fumble having helped turn the momentum in the Bruins’ favor.

“I went out there not focused,” McKenzie says. “I know that wasn’t me. I wasn’t caught off-guard, but it never really felt like game week to me.”

As last week’s USC game approached, McKenzie was full of anxiety. The UCLA debacle was still fresh, and last year’s USC game kept coming into his mind.

“I would replay incidents, I would replay plays in my mind,” he says. “Everyone else was partying. I didn’t want to go out, because I knew that if the game relied on me, I would have lost the game for us.”

His roommates, tailback Michael Black and receiver Farwan Zubedi, provided day-to-day support. Rickey McKenzie also weighed in.

“My father, he didn’t get a chance to see the UCLA game because he was working, but he heard that I had fumbled and he was like, ‘Come on, man, that’s not like you - you’ve got to be focused,”’ McKenzie says. “I had to regroup, get back in touch with God.”

McKenzie will forever cherish Saturday’s performance, in which he caught five passes for 107 yards and ascended to prominence in WSU football lore. Black was among the few who could fully appreciate it.

“It was about the best thing for him. He came over to the sideline, he hugged me, he hugged Farwan,” Black says. “I told him, I said, ‘Man, look, you did it in front of your family, you did it in front of your friends, back at home.’

“We got home and he was like ‘Yeah, we’re 2-0 in the Pac-10,”’ Black adds. “The next morning, I got up and bought the paper and he was on the front cover and I gave it to him.

“And you know, you could see a smile on his face. That’s a real good feeling. For him to be on the front page and be the winning person, I know it’s a great feeling.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Kevin McKenzie file Year: Senior Height: 5-10 Weight: 180 pounds 1997 Stats Catches: 8 Yards: 124 Ave. yards/catch: 15.5 Touchdowns: 1 Career stats Catches: 39 Yards: 750 Ave. yards/catch: 19.2 Touchdowns: 3