THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 31, 1994 TAG: 9408310544
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
You can understand Amos Lawrence's anger and confusion. He feels that his old school is treating his football legacy with all the dignity of a botched handoff.
He wonders - and he is not alone in sensing the irony of this - how a man known as ``Famous Amos'' can be left off a list intended to honor athletic fame.
How can the University of North Carolina's all-time rushing leader be denied admission to the select group of 14 Tar Heels whose numbers will be displayed later this year on the upper-deck facade of Kenan Stadium?
While Lawrence waits for his wounded ego to scab over, questions like this fill his head.
``For some reason,'' he says, ``I'm not being treated very fairly. It's sort of mind-boggling. What are they really trying to do? Is it a personal thing? I can't figure it all out.''
At 36, the former Lake Taylor High star lives in Chesapeake. Soon he'll begin his fourth year as an assistant physical education instructor at Glenwood Elementary in Virginia Beach.
Today, Lawrence is about 10 pounds lighter than his playing weight of 175. Some thought him too slight to excel at the big-time college level, but Amos knew better. The little guy in the No. 20 jersey carried a very big load.
At North Carolina, Lawrence was a tiny terror. Between 1977 to 1980, he rushed for 4,391 yards and had 23 100-yard games. Besides holding 18 school records, he gained more than 1,000 yards on the ground in each of his four seasons. Only one other Division I player - Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett - has ever done that.
``There's no way you can speak of honoring Carolina's greatest players,'' Lawrence says, ``without including No. 20.''
You can if you set up specific criteria that call for the honored players to have been either a consensus All-American or ACC Player of the Year. For all his exploits, Amos didn't make either of these lists. And while North Carolina officials acknowledge that Lawrence deserves to be recognized, they are sticking by the selection method of the 11-person Athletic Council.
``Criteria or no criteria,'' Lawrence argues, ``I stand alone. No one else has done what I have done.''
Lawrence and North Carolina are never going to see eye-to-eye on this. How can they? For the school, the selection process is strictly procedural. For Amos, it's personal.
Rick Brewer, longtime North Carolina sports information director, says director of athletics John Swofford and current coach Mack Brown looked for ways to include Lawrence's No. 20.
``People in athletics here wish there is something that could be done for him,'' Brewer said. ``But we feel that if we made an exception, it would open the door to too many problems.''
Brewer notes that even some Tar Heels All-Americans failed to survive the cut. They weren't consensus selections, it seems.
None of these players holds 18 school records, though.
``There had to be a starting place,'' Brewer says. ``Very easily, down the road, they may add some people. They certainly want to. The criteria would change next time this is done.''
Next time doesn't interest Lawrence, who says, ``Why exclude me when I'm one of the greatest Carolina football players ever to play there?''
He pauses, aware of how his comments sound. Quietly, he adds, ``I have to give myself some credit. No one else will.''
According to Lawrence, ``This is the second time something like this has happened. I didn't want to sit back and let people disrespect me again.''
This latest development opens old wounds and reminds Lawrence of real or imagined slights. His final days at North Carolina were not the best.
Like many on those powerful Tar Heels teams, Lawrence was recruited by Bill Dooley, but he played the bulk of his career under Dooley's replacement, Dick Crum.
It was Crum, Lawrence is convinced, who gave him the ``bad rap'' that led to his being selected in the fourth round of the NFL draft.
``I was told by some people that they had heard some things Dick Crum said,'' Lawrence says. ``About how I had a bad attitude. How I don't play when injured. How do you gain 1,000 yards when you don't play because you're injured?''
In any case, Lawrence's pro career was all too brief. He spent two seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, but a strike wiped out eight games that second year. When San Francisco cut him, he played five games for the Pittsburgh Maulers of the USFL.
Disillusioned, Amos was out of football by 25, except for a three-year stint as an assistant coach at Lake Taylor. In 1989 he went back to Chapel Hill with the idea of completing his education. He left soon after, still more than 20 credits short of a degree.
For all his records, Lawrence didn't get everything he needed from North Carolina. Fame, though, is something Famous Amos always thought he could count on. Until now.
``It makes me feel,'' he says, ``as if everything I've done has been erased.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo
``It makes me feel as if
everything I've done
has been erased,'' says UNC's all-time leading rusher.
by CNB