He is here because of a dead sister and a crack addict and a screw in his ankle. Where he'll end up -- in a Heisman pose or in Paul Tagliabue's Rolodex -- is anyone's guess, but at least he's not shagging punts.

He drives by the Los Angeles Coliseum to remember when he was invisible, and he drives by his sister's grave to remember when he was almost not of this world. At 21, he has learned that sometimes your fantasies are false and sometimes your college recruiter tells half-truths. That sometimes your fibula will break and sometimes you have to fight for the right to play quarterback. "Believe me, I came this close to being a punt returner," he says.

Only now has Jason Thomas resurfaced as perhaps the nation's premier college signal-caller, and if no one knows his name, it's because he's played only 11 football games in roughly four years. His hiatus from the sport was 35 months, which is how humility set in, and even though pro scouts say he's a mix of Vick (lefty), McNabb (dancer) and Culpepper (over 235 pounds), he knows he could be run over by a car tomorrow. "Already happened once," Thomas says.

So the networks will come to the desert this fall, to televise him and resurgent UNLV, and they will find a fourth-year junior wise beyond his years. They will find a quarterback in a tight end's body and will ask him where he's been. And Jason Thomas will tell them: Been on the offensive line. Been over the rim. Been to surgery. Been to USC. Been an afterthought. Been to a corner of his parents' living room and prayed.

He'll tell them he's here because she's not. He'll tell them about the riddle of life and about little Lois.

She was 4 when she ran out into South Chester Street in Compton. The car not only killed her instantly, it leveled the family. The mother (also named Lois) blamed herself for allowing the girl to play in the front yard. The older brother (Charles Jr.) witnessed it and blamed himself for not whistling her back. And the father (Charles Sr.) could get neither to snap out of it.

There was just the three of them, and the parents sought counseling. The best advice they heard: Have more kids. The mother had previously planned never to be pregnant again, but 15 months later, she gave birth to another daughter, Nicole. They overprotected her, of course, but they wanted her to have a playmate, someone to keep her out of the front yard. So they prayed for another child, hopefully a son. And into this world entered Jason Thomas.

He was a sight, all right, so pigeon-toed that the family brought him to an orthopedist. He was a 6-month-old with casts on both legs. "He came out already having to fight," Charles Jr. says. But by the age of 5, Jason was playing football -- in the backyard, of course.

It took years for his mother to even consider front- yard games, but at the urging of a doctor friend, she relented. Jason was 7 the day his mother went to the store, only to find the block roped off upon her return.

Jason had run into the street, like she'd begged him not to. He had darted after a ball, and a parked van had obstructed his view of the speeding car. He's lucky the crack addict across the street saw it all unfold.

"She was a crackhead, and she was in her house loaded," Charles Sr. says. "But she saw the car coming, and the only thing she said was 'Jason, stop.' If he'd taken one more step, he wouldn't be here."

The car sideswiped Jason and sent him sprawling 15 feet onto the sidewalk. And Jason swears, at that moment, he had an out-of-body experience: that he was in his mother's car; that he could see her running toward his injured body; that he suddenly awoke when she arrived. And it's true -- she had sprinted down the street, past the fire trucks and the ambulance, to find him lying there, conscious. "I was just relieved when I looked down at him and he said, 'Mom, I'm okay,' " she says. "Because the last time I looked at a child like that, there was nothing said ever again."

He only broke an arm in the fall, but the fact is Jason had eerily escaped what little Lois could not. It was the first of what would be many riddles in his life.

For instance, there would be football, and all of its mini-catastrophes. He was weaned on the sport by a father who was a second cousin of Rams great Lawrence McCutcheon and who helped run Compton's Pop Warner program for 18 years. For that reason alone, Charles Sr. refused to show favoritism to his son, deploying him on the offensive line and special teams. Quarterbacking was taboo. But make no mistake, the players knew who their star was. Even at 11, Jason had a king-size body, and his Pop Warner teammates knew that if he didn't make weight they would lose.

In the summer between sixth and seventh grades, he grew six inches to 6'1", and by his sophomore year of high school, he was a 6'4", 215-pound phenom. He and Tayshaun Prince, now at Kentucky, led Dominguez High to the state hoops title that year. ("I was the Charles Barkley of high school basketball," Jason says.) He also was playing quarterback for the first time. In a playoff game that sophomore year against Quartz Hill, he had five sacks and an interception at linebacker, a TD pass and a TD run at QB and a game-winning TD on a kickoff return with two minutes left. In the sectional semifinal and championship games his junior year, he accounted for nine TDs: two kickoff returns, a 98-yard fumble recovery, four runs and two passes.

USC wanted him, and he and his father wanted the Trojans. In fact, Charles Sr.'s favorite player had been Mike Garrett, the Heisman-winning scatback. Now that Garrett was the Trojans' athletic director, it was a mutual admiration society. USC sent Jason 100 letters in a single day -- "Should've seen our postman's face," Charles Sr. says -- and the father read each to his son. "I was the biggest recruiter they had," he says. Coach John Robinson compared him to John Elway and Marcus Allen, telling Jason he'd be the school's next Heisman winner, and Henry Bibby wanted him for basketball. Arizona's Lute Olson also had him on speed dial, and Nicole -- by then a hurdler at the U of A -- remembers "Lute wanting to kick it with me to get on my good side." But little did Olson know Charles was going to practically will his kid to USC.

Of course, then came another riddle. In the third game of Jason's senior year, September '97, he turned a botched quarterback sneak into a roll-out, stubbed his left cleat in the grass, broke his fibula, dislocated his ankle and needed six screws inserted in his lower leg. The next morning, only one man called his hospital room: Robinson.

"Please take me," a scared Jason told him. Robinson replied, "Trust me, we'll give you a scholarship even if you never play again."

Which was nice, except Robinson was fired after that season. He was replaced by a nervous NFL offensive coordinator named Paul Hackett, who had a pro offense to run and fell in love with an Orange County dropback passer, Carson Palmer. "I told him we already had a commitment from Jason," says assistant coach Hue Jackson, a holdover from Robinson's staff. "And Paul Hackett said, 'Then I'll bring in two.' "

Jason began weighing his options, but Charles Sr. was appalled to hear his son was considering Nebraska now. They would argue, with the father saying, "You gave your word to USC. Honor it!" Then, when Turner Gill, the Husker assistant, made a home visit, Charles wouldn't set foot in the room. But he did sit in on Hackett's home visit, and all he and his wife asked was that Jason be given a fair chance to win the QB job. They didn't want him switched to linebacker or tight end, and they say Hackett gave them those assurances. There were no worries now -- they still had Jason in their backyard, at USC.

Only they hadn't expected the limp. Jason's leg injury flared up in preseason, and he admits he didn't rehab diligently enough. He needed minor surgery, red-shirted and grew suspicious when Hackett would walk by without saying a word. Then, the next spring, the staff had the gall to ask him to shag punts. "I don't know any starting QBs who return punts," Jason says. "One and one made two. I was like, 'It doesn't look like I'll be out here playing quarterback.'"

That summer, Hackett announced Palmer as the definitive starter, and rumors had Jason playing everywhere from linebacker to strong safety. He decided to transfer and, at his exit meeting, Hackett told his family the grand plan was for Palmer to go pro after Palmer's junior year, leaving Jason two years "to be the next coming of Joe Montana ... and I've coached Montana." Jason still wanted out, but his family says USC wouldn't release him if he transferred to a school on their schedule -- a common practice in college football. Charles thought about suing, but when Jason mentioned UNLV and John Robinson, USC set him free. UNLV had gone 0-11; Robinson could have him.

But it had clearly been a bitter time, and, to this day, it's a he-said, he-said story:

Charles Sr. on Hackett: "The only thing we'd asked was the coach not lie to us. If you didn't expect my son to be good enough to play quarterback, then tell us that. Don't convince us that he needs to go to your school because you're the best quarterback coach alive. And at the same time not give him that chance."

Hackett: "His leg never allowed him to compete on an even table with Carson Palmer. He needed the time to rehab his leg properly. And once he did that, obviously, he'd be able to compete."

Charles Sr.: "But Hackett named Carson the starter before they ever had a chance to compete."

Hackett: "Because he had success as a freshman."

Charles Sr.: "Coach Hackett is the one we felt reneged on his promise. When we asked him about that, he said, 'I'm the head coach, I determine who is going to be the starter, I'm not giving up that right.' He might as well have said, 'Take it or leave it.' " So they left it. And, of course, the riddles continued: 1) Palmer got injured early the next year. 2) Jason became eligible and, after three seasons off, scored a 45-yard TD on his first UNLV run. 3) Jason, playing his last six games with a hairline fracture in his right foot, still rushed for 11 TDs on the year and threw for 14 more and led UNLV to a Las Vegas Bowl win over Arkansas. 4) Hackett got fired.

Robinson, asked if he was flattered that Jason said he wanted to play for him and only him, says, "It wasn't flattery. It was salvation." Here was a school that had had 10 All-Americas in its history, and three were punters. So Robinson knew he had a rare toy, and he didn't want to share him. Where he'd been hands-off with his offense at USC, he and Jason have private X's-and-O's meetings. Jason calls him JR, not Coach.

"People ask me if Jason's going pro early," Charles Jr. says. "He'll do whatever JR says."

And he is a probable top-5 NFL pick next April -- maybe No.1 overall. They know he can run the quarterback draw one play, throw it 75 yards the next and bump chests with his offensive linemen after both. "I'm the new millennium quarterback," he says. Robinson is always telling him to "unleash the cannon," and accurate deep passes are his asset. But he could use a softer touch on short balls. ("I do massage," Charles Jr. says, "and I can't afford to play catch with him 'cause he tears up my hands.")

His parents have moved to Las Vegas and they display photos of little Lois in the corner of their living room. It's the only place Jason likes visiting more than the end zone: Lois' shrine. They talk about her all the time. And they know if they're feeling down, they can call Jason and he can just swing by.

It's their way of keeping him in the front yard.

This article appears in the September 3 issue of ESPN The Magazine.