USC's Shaw vows he's not the guy who made up rescue story

MOBILE, Ala. - Standing on the Ladd-Peebles Stadium field after yesterday's North team practice, cornerback Josh Shaw clearly knew the real question was coming. Shaw wasn't fooled by the reporters' initial queries, asking how he thought Senior Bowl week was going, who he thought the toughest guys to cover were thus far. Shaw's answers to those warmup tosses were short and generic, encouraging a cut to the chase.

OK, then.

What does Shaw tell NFL teams about the incident that made him a national discussion topic late last August? Shaw, a senior and USC co-captain, initially explained two high-ankle sprains to his coaches with a story about jumping off a terrace at a family gathering to save a young nephew in a swimming pool. He stuck with this story for days, accepting plaudits for heroism, abandoning it only when public questions arose about a police visit to the apartment he shared with his girlfriend, made around the time he hurt himself.

Turned out, there'd been an argument, Angela Chilton storming away in anger. Someone had called police - what if it was Chilton? What would she say about him, in the heat of the moment? Shaw eventually acknowledged seeing police cars coming, panicking over how a potential arrest might be perceived, and jumping from a third-floor balcony, wearing only flip-flops.

"I just tell 'em the truth about what happened," Shaw said yesterday, when asked how he explains the incident now to teams, including the Eagles, who met with him this week. "They understand that it's over with. The main thing for them is just to see me be very forthcoming and transparent with them."

The draft process is long and detailed. Shaw will have done much explaining by the end of April.

"The good thing is, I played at the East-West [Shrine Game at St. Petersburg last week], so I had a week [of explaining to teams], then and now. I think I'm knocking some of it out right now," he said. "Every team is different, but I do think, at the end of the day, they realize it's put behind me now.

"Of course, each organization has already gone back to LA and Palmdale [Calif.], my hometown, and done their homework on me, so they know what type of guy I am . . . I don't point no fingers here; everything that happened in the past was solely because of me, and I think they respect that."

It's hard to grasp how a seemingly intelligent 21-year-old could get himself into such an embarrassing mess, reminiscent of then-Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o and his fictional, cancer-stricken girlfriend.

It's never been exactly clear how much Te'o knew about the Lennay Kekua hoax, a fact that might have cut him some slack with NFL character evaluators. Te'o was drafted early in the second round, 38th overall, probably about where he would have been taken had the girlfriend story never happened.

But as Shaw noted, this is entirely his mess. He wasn't duped by anyone. When he finally told his story to Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke in November, Shaw recounted how he thought he'd shattered both legs in his jump off the balcony, and, rather than face the consequences of his attempt to flee police, he crawled away, then called his brother Justin, who came and picked him up. At Justin's house, they came up with the story about the near-drowning, which Josh recounted to school officials the next morning. He got his sister to go along, as a supposed witness to the pool rescue.

The part of his explanation that makes the most sense is that Shaw says he was thinking only about crafting an excuse his coaches would accept, one that wouldn't endanger his scholarship. He has said he did not envision the "hero" tale becoming public.

"I never wanted this deal to go viral at all, it was not my intention at all," Shaw told Plaschke. "I thought coaches would say, 'OK,' and we'd just deal with it."

As with Te'o and the tangled girlfriend tale, there were plenty of chances for Shaw to come clean before he was forced to do so. For NFL teams with character concerns, this might be the nub of the issue.

Shaw has said he "thought I was in too deep" to back out, even as he realized ESPN was leading "SportsCenter" with his account, recorded by a school spokesman and posted on the USC website. Then the police visit came to light, and sharp questions were asked. Still, Shaw insisted he was telling the truth, even as USC officials turned suspicious.

By that Tuesday evening, Shaw realized there were too many holes in his story, discrepancies that weren't going away. He said he then told his parents what he'd done, he said, and his father told him he needed to come clean with USC coach Steve Sarkisian. That Wednesday morning, he finally did so.

Shaw's senior season became a tangled mess - he had to recover from the high-ankle sprains, while awaiting the results of police and school investigations. He ended up playing in only three games, so his mission at the Senior Bowl is twofold - show teams he is not some sort of pathological liar, and show them he remains a top prospect, a versatile 6-feet-and-a-half-inch, 198-pound corner who also has started at safety.

"From a matchup standpoint, it behooves every organization to have bigger corners," Shaw said yesterday. He said he's played in different schemes, and under several coordinators and position coaches, having transferred from Florida to USC in January 2012 for family reasons.

"I've always had to adapt to change," he said. "Whatever an organization needs me as, I feel confident I can play whatever role they ask."

As strange as Shaw's saga seems, guys are playing in the NFL who have done worse things. No charges were ever filed. Shaw said he and Chilton remain a couple.

"Going on 8 years now," he said.

Blog: ph.ly/Eagletarian