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Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

Shawn Jansen: Who's Merced High's best running back ever?

One of the great things about sports is the debates they can spark.

Watching Eric DeAnda break the Merced High single-game rushing mark with his 307 yards last week against Buhach Colony got me thinking: Who is the best Merced running back ever?

There have been so many.

Just listen to the list former Merced coach Mark Speckman came up with off the top of his head.

"I wish I could take all the credit, but I was blessed with some great players," said Speckman, who coached Merced from 1986-93 and won two section titles.

"Freddy Bland was a guy that could do it all. He carried us. Jhay Roland was a special player. He was big and fast. We had a better team around him and he didn't get as many carries.

"Stephon Jackson was a special talent. The Eastman brothers, Marvin and Jeff, should both be mentioned.

"Anthony Volsan and John Rushing were great."

The list has continued to grow under current coach Rob Scheidt, who can tout players like Wendell Mathis, Garrett Turner and Stephon Mathis.

Another back on the short list might be Greg Mills, who was a big name in the 1970s.

Or Rodney Ellison, who played in the '60s and may have been the first back with breakaway speed, setting a trend at Merced High for years to come.

Who is the best ever?

"Objectively, I vote for Bland. But in my heart, it's Jeff Eastman," said former Sun-Star sports editor Joe Cortez, who covered Merced for 18 years. "When I was 11 years old, I played junior football in Merced, and on one November night, all the junior football players were granted free admission to the game at Stadium '76.

"Eastman gave us all a treat that night. He rushed for a then-school record 256 yards against Sonora in a driving rain. I thought he was superhuman. To this day, when I see him around town, I'm too embarrassed to talk to him. And as a sports writer, I've talked to all kinds of professional athletes. But to me, Jeff Eastman is still superhuman. He was a hero to a lot of kids in town back then."

Ask four different people and you might get four different answers.

I picked the brains of people much older and wiser than I, former coaches and people who have been around the program.

It wasn't easy.

Asking coaches to pick their best players is like asking a parent to choose their favorite child.

But that's why I'm here: To ask those tough questions.

Here's the four players most people mentioned when asked to name the best running back out of Merced High.

Lloyd Winston

Winston played for Merced in the '50s. Legend has it he was a man amongst boys.

Defenders just bounced off the much bigger Winston.

"He was hell on wheels for his time," said Harlan Dake, who has been around the Merced program since 1969 and has heard stories about Winston.

Cortez worked alongside another former Sun-Star sports editor in Vern Williams, who worked at the paper for almost 40 years.

"I know Vern always voted for Lloyd in these types of conversations," Cortez said.

Winston definitely has impressive credentials.

He went on to play at USC and played a couple of years in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers.

"Football in those days was a lot different," said Sam Diele, who was an assistant coach at Merced from 1955-72. "Kids are a lot bigger now. If we had a 220-pound tackle, we thought we were doing great.

"Lloyd was big, but he had a good blast. If he got through the line he was hard to bring down. He was powerful."

Jhay Roland

Roland could do it all -- and did.

He helped lead Merced to three straight section title games.