Thursday, October 23, 1997
"Just go out there and play"
FOOTBALL: Wide receiver Jim McElroy IV shares his last Bruin
season and his NFL dreams with
his father, who taught McElroy how to play
football
By Mark Dittmer
Daily Bruin Staff
There are two Jim McElroys at the UCLA football practices on
Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
It is pretty easy to tell them apart. One of them spends
practice in pads, running routes, catching passes and keeping his
teammates loose. He wears No. 85, and he’s one of the fastest
players on the field.
The other arrives late to practice and sits in the bleachers on
the west side of Spaulding Field. He wears plain clothes, talks
with other people in the bleachers and occasionally yells
encouraging words at the players on the field.
Still, if need be, there’s one surefire way to distinguish one
Jim McElroy from the other: Only one of them has the roman numeral
"IV" tattooed on his right arm.
That would be the star wide receiver, Jim McElroy IV.
The one who, as a senior at UCLA, is having his best-ever season
as a Bruin.
Just seven games into the season, McElroy has already set
personal season-highs in catches (30), receiving yards (647) and
touchdown receptions (5). Of UCLA’s offensive weapons, only Skip
Hicks is used more often.
McElroy’s productivity is starting to move him into the UCLA
record books. With four games still remaining on the schedule, his
647 receiving yards are already good enough to be the 15th-best
season total in UCLA history.
As McElroy continues his march into school history, NFL scouts
may take notice. If not, it may be because of his size, or lack of
it. McElroy stands 5-foot-10 and weighs 156 pounds.
"What do you think about his size?" Jim McElroy demanded,
offended, when asked whether size is an obstacle.
This is the other Jim McElroy, Jim McElroy III, the one who
watches practice. McElroy III, as you may have guessed, is the
father of the star receiver. And he is proud of his son.
"People who worry about things like that let that become a
handicap," McElroy III went on to say. "But if you’re like Jim
(IV), you want people to take you for granted. Then you knock the
heck out of them and they go, ‘Damn. What happened?’
"I read an article once – this kind of stuck in my mind. It
said, ‘Despite his size, he’s still a great football player.’ I
thought, ‘This is what we’ve been dealing with all our lives.’"
McElroy III is 6-foot-2, 155 pounds ("I’m not short, just
skinny," he said). His best sport (in high school) was track, but
he also played football and wrestled. Like his son, he had to prove
himself against bigger opponents.
"I was a lot meaner than Jim (IV) was. I always wanted to prove
to people that even though I was small, I was an animal. Jim
doesn’t have that problem. I just had a worse attitude. Jim’s a
nicer guy.
"I was a decent athlete; not great, but decent. I learned a lot
about sports. Some of the pitfalls I was able to tell my son
about."
"I used to always go running with him in the mornings and
stuff," McElroy IV said. "’Cause my father is my idol. I look up to
him. I feel that if there’s anybody I would ever want to grow up to
be like, it’s him.
"He pretty much taught me … (to) just go out there and just
play. I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t play; that’s how he always
seems to put it. And have fun. That’s the main thing. You’ve got to
have fun; if you don’t have fun, then you kind of let the pressure
get to you. You’ve got to think of it as just being fun."
With that in mind, McElroy shares his no-pressure mentality with
his teammates. And at least some of them like it.
"He’s wild at times," Glenn Thompkins, a senior free safety and
one of McElroy’s closest friends, said. "Jimmy Mac is fun to be
around. He’s just a funny person. He’s an entertainer. He loves to
keep people happy. When he’s happy, he wants everybody to be happy
with him. He keeps the whole team entertained."
"I’m always on the sideline goin’ up to players saying, ‘When
you get in the game you know what you’re going to do, right?’"
McElroy said. "’You’re about to get a sack, or get an
interception.’ I kind of instill them with a little confidence, I
hope, with the things that I say to ’em."
Confidence is something McElroy has plenty of. As his college
career winds down, he sees a future for himself in the NFL.
"Me being the confident person that I am, I feel that I can do
it, I can really go to the NFL. I feel if I even got a tryout for a
team I feel that I’m going to make the team just because of my will
and desire," McElroy said.
It is that confidence that has allowed McElroy to prevail
against larger opponents.
"If I was 6-2, 220, it would be unfair," he said. "I think God
made it fair for other players that I’m not bigger."
"There’s an old street proverb," McElroy III said, "(that) says
it’s not the size of the dog but the size of the fight in the dog.
Jim believes that."
And so McElroy will move on at the end of this year – maybe to
the NFL; maybe into business – he hopes to one day own a sports
bar.
"We know that (going to the NFL is) a hope and a dream for him,"
McElroy III said. "But he wouldn’t go crazy if he didn’t go to the
NFL. And I wouldn’t dare put that type of pressure on him. My son
has done everything in life I want him to do. Anything else after
that is icing right now."
For now, McElroy IV has a season of college football to
complete. The Bruins have four games to go, and their star wide
receiver is looking forward to every one of them.
"I was playing football since I was five years old. It’s just
like another game to me. I don’t care who the opponent is. We could
be playing the 49ers and I would just be like, ‘This is just
another game, there’s no need to be scared.’ We’ve all been doing
this most of our lives. This is our career choice so (we’ve got to)
just go out there and play."
JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin
Senior Bruin wide receiver Jim McElroy IV celebrates after
scoring a touchdown.