I had to figure out how to get representation. I did go, but all I did was take the physical.

I made the declaration and had a press conference and I did not work out at the combine because I was running track. So I was thinking maybe I needed to go pro like they told me. After what happened with Chris, I’m sitting on my bed and thinking, what if my mom dies and I would not be able to accomplish my goal of taking care of her-I had that ingrained in me. When I would go to some of these All-America functions, the other guys there would say, ‘Hey, are you going pro? You going pro?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ That’s all I would hear from my peers.

This spirit of fear overwhelmed me because I always thought somehow what I was doing was a way to provide for my family since my father had died. “I was totally unprepared for it all, but my brother woke me up the next morning because he watched the news and saw what happened to Chris’ mother. –He said the death of Chris Zorich’s mother after the 1991 Orange Bowl greatly impacted his decision to turn professional. Back in the day running a 4.3 was like running 4.1 now.” There was this buzz that kept coming closer and closer. They ignored me and walked over to the stands and it was like an audible wave. Then they asked me to do it again-and I thought I did something wrong. “When I came back to get my time they were all looking at each other and their watches. “There were 500 of us and they timed everybody in the 40,” he said. –Ismail headed to a Syracuse University football camp at the Carrier Dome the summer before his senior year in high school. Ismail was the only one to do it correctly, and he imitated his coach’s excited reaction: “‘Hey, look at that! That’s it! The kid came out of the blocks like a rocket! That’s what we want!'” Ismail added, “It just so happened I was fast and so it stuck.” –He said his “Rocket” nickname came from his Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, eighth grade days when his coach (Jim “Boss” Cross) was trying to teach his sprinters to stay low and drive out of the starting blocks with power. Here are some of Ismail’s comments from this wide-ranging–and often hilarious–hour-long discussion: Ismail returned to campus Friday and was part of a Q&A session that served as the keynote event for the Notre Dame Law School symposium titled “From Courts of Sport to Courts of Justice.” And he has matured enough to laugh now about some of his reticence with the media back in his Notre Dame playing days when he longed to just be one of the guys. He’s nearly three decades past those days when at times he struggled with the spotlight that came with making the cover of Sports Illustrated a couple of games into his sophomore season in 1989. Former University of Notre Dame football and track All-American and pro football star Raghib “Rocket” Ismail is 47 now.

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