Thursday, September 16, 2004
Elan Lewis: One elusive recruit
Randy King
Randy King's Tech Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
See Doug and Randy talk sports every week with the Sports edition of the TimesCast
Recent columns
If Elan Lewis is as hard to catch on the field as he was on the phone the past two days, Virginia Tech may have one of the best running backs ever headed its way.
I give up. I can't catch the dude. Eight phone calls. No answer. Not even an answering machine.
My guess is now that Lewis has made a verbal commitment to Tech and he's saying to heck with answering his home phone. I'm sure the thing has been ringing constantly for months. I'm certain he's grown tired of talking to college coaches, reporters and all the zealots from recruiting services. Can't say I blame the kid, really. Hey, he's got what he needs and wants now.
Thankfully, in my case here, Lewis does have a high school coach who doesn't mind talking. Phoebus High coach Bill Dee was even nice enough to give up an inning of watching his beloved New York Yankees to sing his praises of Lewis to me Tuesday night.
How good is Lewis? The 5-foot-9, 210-pound dynamo committed to Tech after watching the Hokies bury Western Michigan 63-0 in his official visit last Saturday.
"He's a hell of a running back," Dee said. "He's the best I've ever had and I've had some good ones. Antwoine Womack [former Virginia standout] played for me.
"The thing that Elan will do that a lot of great tailbacks won't do is he'll play well without the ball. He'll block. He played a little fullback his sophomore year and I think that really helped his blocking. And he can run for power. To me he's a true type of tailback, he's just not a speed guy. He's 4.4, 4.5 type kid. He's got enough speed for the big runs, he's got a lot of power and he's got great visiion, which I think is necessary for any great back."
Sounds a little like the guy who is the NFL's all-time leading rusher, doesn't it. You know, that Smith guy.
"He does remind me of Emmitt Smith," Dee said. "Emmitt never looked like he was a burner but he always made it to the end zone didn't he? And Elan is like that. He's not just straight speed but he broke the scoring record last year."
Lewis practically resided in the end zone last year a high school junior, scoring 39 touchdowns en route to a Group AAA-record 242 points in Phoebus' 10-2 season. Lewis' 2,474 yards rushing pushed him over the 4,000 mark for the past two years.
Your grandmother could watch this kid play one game and determine he's something special, Dee said.
"You don't have to be a brain surgeon to see that," Dee said. "You could tell he had it. It's pretty easy to see that he can run. He can make you miss, and, plus, he'll run over you. And the thing [the Hokies] are going to find out about him is he has great hands.
"But, see, we don't throw. It's hard to throw to the back if you're giving it to him all the time. Why throw when you can just hand it to him?"
It was a huge catch for the Hokies. Lewis is rated the state's No. 2 prospect by The Roanoke Times.
The Tech coaches fell in love with Lewis in the fall of 2002 after watching him run wild in the first half of Phoebus' game against Norcum.
"They were there looking at some of our seniors," Dee recalled. "At halftime, I was walking off the field towards the locker room at halftime. I was mad about something, we were up like 24 and I was hot because it should have been more. Then Jim Cavanaugh [Tech assistant coach] comes up to me and asks, "Who in the hell is that tailback?"
He's one big-time stud, that's who.
Need more evidence? How about these numbers? Lewis threw up 755 pounds in the parallel squat not long ago, Dee attested.
"I know you have to be there to believe that, but he did," Dee said. "I've never seen a kid as strong as he is. Actually, ever since then I won't let him squat anymore. He scared me to death.
"Of course, a parallel squat is not a full squat, but that's still a pretty great amount of weight. It's biggest number we've ever had and we've had some good kids. We had a big defensive lineman who went to Syracuse and he did like 675. That was the best anybody had ever before Elan.
"Shoot, he benches close to 400 pounds. He's always been built well and he works hard in the weight room. He's just one big muscle, I'm telling you."
Dee said he was a little surprised that Lewis committed to Tech during his visit. The trip to Blacksburg was the first of five official visits -- the others were to Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and North Carolina State -- that Lewis had lined up, according to Dee.
"I kind of knew that Tech had the inside track because Elan always liked Tech and he liked Tech ever since he was a kid," Dee said.
"Plus, Elan really looked up to a couple of our players who were already at Tech, Xavier [Adibi] and D.J. Parker. Elan was on the state championship team with those guys, so I think that had a lot to do with it, too.
"But I thought he was going to make some visits. But he told me that he knew it was the right place to go and he just wanted to go ahead and commit. If you know it's the right place to go for you, I respect that because a lot of kids want to go on their visits and have everybody kiss their butt, and he doesn't want that.
"Elan really has a certain calm about him and I think he's very happy with his decision. He knows that Virginia Tech is a great place for a tailback. He knows he's going to get to run the ball at Tech."
Will anybody catch Elan Lewis then? All I know is I'm done chasing this kid.
