Glory Day

"I went from hero to 'Five on Five,' " Barnes said.

Man, was it ever over!

Barnes never threw another pass in this country.

He never represented UCLA in another public function.

When he attended the UCLA-Stanford game recently, nobody recognized him.

When a search for him began last week, the athletic department didn't even have his phone number.

He lives today with his wife and infant in Silicon Valley, in a comfortable brick home in an upscale neighborhood full of technology soldiers succeeding in a similarly rough game.

Unless his plans change, this is where they will be Saturday, John and Cristy and baby Rowen, quietly celebrating a 10-year anniversary with baby toys and dog walks and memories of an afternoon that still outreaches description.

"About the best thing I can say about my story is, 'Only in America,' " said Barnes, now 33, but still maintaining that boyish grin while chewing sunflower seeds in his family room.

It could have been a fairy tale, but there were too many dragons.

It could have been a success manual, except Barnes says, "The road was too tough and too lonely. I could never recommend it to anyone."

It could at least have been an identity, except Barnes has shed that as easily as he once shed Trojan tacklers.

He has no videotape of the game, no souvenirs, no newspaper clippings. When he met his future wife, he was so worried about being mired in the past, he told her he had been UCLA's student manager.

He has only one photograph of himself in a Bruin uniform, one that he keeps in a home office he now uses in his job as a technology salesman.

It is of Terry Donahue hugging him while his world applauds him as he walks off the field on that November night.

That's all he needs to see.

One city, one afternoon, one moment.,

"I have been through so much in my life, there are times when I need to look back and say, 'What have I accomplished? What is there,' " he said. "For me, this game represents there."

*

The extended story of John Barnes begins with the short bus.

Growing up in Illinois, diagnosed with learning disorders that included dyslexia, he spent several years in special education.

He has not publicly revealed this before. He hopes his former teammates at UCLA will understand why.

"Every morning, running from my house to the short bus as it waited for me at the end of my driveway, all the other kids looking," he said. "That was tough."