During his freshman year at Timberline High School in Lacey, Wash., Jonathan Stewart’s coach, Kevin Young, drove his young running back some 227 miles to Eugene for a one-day football camp at the University of Oregon.
“It was the first time he’d been to a college campus,” Young said of Stewart. “We knew how good he was going to be so another coach and myself drove him there, basically to start getting him some exposure and let him see what it would be like. We knew he was a big-time recruit even then. He was going to be pretty special.”
At the camp, Stewart met Oregon’s running backs coach Gary Campbell.
“Coach Campbell was really good to him and helped him in the drills and talked to him a lot,” Young recalled. “Jonathan never forgot that, and they kind of developed a special bond.”
Fast forward three years and after an unimaginable career at Timberline, Stewart was widely considered one of the nation’s premier recruits. ESPN.com tabbed him the second-best recruit in the nation and The Seattle Times ranked him as the fifth greatest running back in the state’s history. Just how impressive was he?
For starters, he captured the all-time state rushing record his senior year – a year that he averaged 11.3 yards per carry and gained 2,301 yards, giving him 7,755 for his career. Stewart eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark in each season, including his freshman year when he was used sparingly and still managed 1,200 yards. He scored 95 touchdowns in his four years, 32 in his final season.
“I really felt like he had to be the best running back in the country as a senior because I couldn’t imagine a kid having more talent and being able to do more things,” said Young, who won a league championship with Stewart in 2004. “He was so impressive.”
So, naturally, when college coaches from across the country came knocking on Stewart’s door, he was happy to answer for Campbell, choosing Oregon over Washington State, Tennessee and Notre Dame.
“I remember that when we met, we kind of hit it off right away,” said Campbell, who is entering his 24th season at Oregon. “I liked his personality. There was just some chemistry there. He was a really easy kid to talk to, so we became really good friends.”
Stewart’s signing was considered one of, if not the, most prominent in school
history, and he wasted no time showing he deserved that label. His “welcome to college football” moment came in week one against Houston, when the 5-foot-11-inch, 234 pounder shed and carried multiple defenders at the end of a 33-yard run that earned a spot on ESPN’s SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays.
The following week against Montana, he returned the opening kickoff 83 yards but suffered an ankle injury later in the game. He finished the season leading the country in kickoff returns with a 33.7 yard-per-return average despite playing the majority of the season with nagging injuries. Behind incumbent starter Terrence Whitehead, Stewart gained 188 yards and scored six touchdowns on the ground.
Now as the unquestioned starter at running back this season, many are anticipating big things from Jonathan Stewart.
And while hype is certainly nothing new for him, he admits it’s still not something he welcomes.
“It doesn’t really get to me. It’s just ‘Wow, they really think that much of me,’” Stewart said. “I’m really not the guy that likes the attention. It’s nothing that I care for.”
In high school when recruiting services and Web sites hounded Stewart about his future plans, Young witnessed his aversion to the spotlight even then.
“He was different. He didn’t like getting his name out there a whole lot, and he didn’t really like to be bothered by personal stuff. That’s genuine,” Young said. “He was a team player first.”
Yet Campbell knows that success breeds expectations and there are plenty for Stewart.
“(The fans) expect him to be a big asset to us, and I think that’s going to happen,” Campbell said. “Obviously, he’s got the starting role now, and he’s got to stay healthy. That was the problem last year. I think he would have gotten a lot more playing time had he been healthy in the early part of last season.”
Stewart’s health remained a concern for Campbell in fall camp, and he was held out of the final scrimmage entirely and for the majority of the one prior due to a sore
shoulder and hip flexor, injuries that are not expected to hamper him on Saturday against Stanford.
Campbell said in fall camp that rest and health are bigger priorities than repetitions for the already battle-tested Stewart.
Part of the reason for Stewart’s continual injuries is that, at a powerful 234 pounds, he rarely shies away from contact. In fact, he usually welcomes it.
After all, the physical specimen can power clean 385 pounds, a school record for running backs and topped only by Haloti Ngata and Igor Olshanski, two former defensive linemen now in the NFL. He also achieved his personal best of 410 pounds in the bench press during winter testing.
His unusual strength is mostly natural, Young said, as Stewart grew up one of the strongest kids. He became a regular in the Timberline weight room where he became the only player in school history to power clean over 285. Before his sophomore season, he could bench more than 300 pounds and squat more than 500.
“If there was ever a guy that didn’t need to be in (the weight room) every day, it was probably him,” Young said. “But he did it anyway, and that set a great example for other guys because they saw that he could probably get away with not lifting a lot, but he didn’t and that made him a better player.”
When asked what he was most proud of about Stewart, Young described a player with top-notch abilities without the added baggage of an inflated ego.
“He’s not selfish or cocky,” Young said. “I’ve never heard of a superstar player like that not having a little bit of attitude or taking a practice off. I’m just proud that he’s been able to stay that way.”
Stewart’s team-first mentality bodes well for Oregon’s dual running back approach this season. Campbell intends to complement Stewart’s power with the quicker Jeremiah Johnson, a fellow sophomore who pleasantly surprised the coaching staff last season after appearing for the first time against Stanford as a result of other backfield injuries.
“It’s great,” Johnson said of playing alongside Stewart. “I could be his supporter, he could be my supporter. We just feed off each other, and that’s how dual backs work.”
Campbell said the number of carries for each player will depend on what the defense is allowing. Either way, the coach is expecting marked improvement from last season when Oregon averaged 134 yards rushing per game but just 95 yards per game from the tailbacks.
“I expect to get a lot more than that this year because we’ve kind of tweaked the offense so we can get the ball to the tailback more and take the load off the quarterback,” Campbell said.
Campbell is accustomed to using dual running backs in the past. During the 2001 run to the Fiesta Bowl, Maurice Morris and Onterrio Smith, both NFL draft picks, rushed for 1,000 yards apiece. Even considering that duo, Campbell said Stewart and Johnson have the opportunity to be the best in school history.
“I think that’s possible,” Campbell said. “They complement each other so well. Probably the best duo I had is Maurice and Onterrio, but they had similarities about them. These two kids (Jonathan and Jeremiah) are totally different. Jonathan’s a powerful, fast guy and Jeremiah’s really smooth, very athletic.”
For Stewart, his increase in practice repetitions and transition to the starting role has made him more comfortable in the spread offense than he was a year ago. One of his main focuses during the offseason was to improve his hands catching the football, something Whitehead did often last season as the team’s third-leading receiver.
“I’m way more comfortable (catching the ball)
than I was last year,” Stewart said. “Last year, I came into this program with two catches my whole high school career. I
really wasn’t used to it but over the spring and winter, I’ve been working a lot more with my hands so I’m way more comfortable.”
Stewart can also draw comfort from the fact that he is teaming with a quarterback who has game experience in Dennis Dixon and is running behind an offensive line that returns every starter. With that, Stewart is thinking big for the Ducks in 2006.
“I think we will exceed last year, for sure,” Stewart said. “Undefeated.”