MORGANTOWN —
Somewhere, deep in the forest, there is said to exist a factory. Much like the Keebler cookie factory, it is staffed by elves.
Instead of turning out chocolate chip and peanut butter treats, this factory manufactures miniature running backs, none near 6-feet, all of the quick and strong and fast. If they don’t look alike, they do play alike and most of them, or so it would seem, are found in a cabbage patch outside West Virginia University coach Bill Stewart’s house or under his pillow.
They have names like Noel and Jock and Daquan and Tavon.
Each is exceptionally talented, as is the running back who was part of the latest delivery from the factory that is deep in the forest.
His name is Trey Johnson and if he isn’t the Oreo, which is America’s best selling cookie, of the running backs, he surely is the chocolate chip.
“He’s probably the strongest 170-pound back I’ve ever seen,” Stewart said this week, fully impressed with Johnson’s play after a stunning performance in the camp-closing scrimmage. “He’s thin, but he’s fast. Just because you don’t look big doesn’t mean you’re not strong, so he’s going to be a pretty good one.”
“He has a lot of heart for being a little guy like me,” said Noel Devine, the Heisman Trophy candidate who holds the job Johnson some day would like to inherit. “He has a strong heart, he can run, avoid tackles and he’s going to be a great back in the future. He reminds me of myself when I came here. We hope to make each other better and practice around each other. I don’t think I’ve given him many pointers but just encouragement. He has a positive attitude and wants to play.”
All his life, Johnson has heard that he’s too small to play major college football. He has paid no attention to that, deciding instead to believe his backers.
“A lot of people say I’ve got a big heart and that I’m tough,” he said.
That he would not stand out because of his size was one of the reasons he came to West Virginia.
“Noel Devine may be small but he is packing a lot of muscle. I don’t look at him as small — he is real big in my eyes,” Johnson said.
A bigger story than Johnson’s rise up the depth chart in camp is that he got to WVU at all.
Many people who know something about recruiting had scratched him off their list because it didn’t seem as if he would qualify.
That, like size, was just another challenge, another obstacle for Johnson to overcome.
“I knew that I had to put my heads in the book and fight hard to get out of the area I came from. It made me push myself even higher,” he said.
See, everyone had it wrong about Johnson. It wasn’t his school work holding him back, it was the mean streets of inner city Richmond that were trying to claim him as another victim, but he was driven to overcome it all.
“You learn how to stay in the house and to be to yourself,” he said of the area, knowing that there was trouble waiting on every street corner. “I made the right friends, I guess, and it’s real hard to find good friends.”
Crime and drugs were everywhere he looked and that was not the life he wanted.
You ask what was going on and he said, “Crazy stuff, gangs, things I can’t say on camera.”
Right from the start, he wanted to get to West Virginia. That was the Promised Land to Johnson. He didn’t believe they would sign him.
“It was like a miracle when they offered. I committed right away,” he said.
One reason was the recruiting job done on him by Chris Beattie, the running backs coach.
“I liked Beattie. He knew what he wanted in a running back. He trusted me, as a man, to get my grades up. He knew I would try my hardest to come here and play. I really respected that because he gave me a chance,” Johnson said.
You may wonder why West Virginia would want a 170-pound running back who was no sure thing in the academic department. Maybe this will help.
During his senior year in Richmond, he suffered a broken hand, something he did stiff arming potential tacklers.
“It was a boxer’s break,” he said, meaning it was the same kind of injury boxers often sustain form punching opponents.
He missed a few games, playing only six or seven, he wasn’t sure.
Not that it mattered, for in those six or seven games he gained 1,786 yards and scored 19 touchdowns. That’s nearly 300 yards a game.
And he wasn’t picking on weak schools. When facing No. 9 Atlee he gained 330 yards and scored four touchdowns on 19 carries.
He also lettered in track as a junior and there were some who said he was the fastest man in Virginia.
“I wouldn’t say that, but some people do,” he admitted.
The secret, he said, no matter what the size is simple.
“Stay low, keep your shoulders up, pump your knees and keep pumping your arms,” he said.
That, and a little Elfin Magic, of course.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
Bob Herzel
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