All ready to run

Chris Hunter is prepared to carry the football as many times as his coaches ask. That's just about all he's thought about this off-season.

The Westside senior ran for 1,558 yards last season on a leg-numbing 24.3 carries a game. He's planning on touching the football more. Hunter says he sometimes runs two miles around the track after practice. He has even inquired about a yoga class at the YMCA to help ease the tightness he sometimes feels in his leg. He's gained nearly 20 pounds and is now 5-foot-11, 204 pounds.

"He's worked harder this time to prepare himself than any other time I've seen," Westside coach Gerald Barnes said. "I've been impressed with his work ethic. And you know what you put into it, you expect to get out of it. I hope he has a big year, because that means we will."

Hunter is one of nine area backs ready to run their way back to glory after establishing lofty reputations last season.

Despite the proliferation of spread offenses, which mostly call on the quarterback to run or throw the ball, the abundance of potent area running backs is obvious.

Nine running backs who rushed for at least 1,000 yards last season return to try again.

They come from all corners of the area, from the largest and smallest of schools: from Barnwell's Colby Carter to Glascock County's Montavious Myricks; from Evans' Jonathan Finch to Thomas Jefferson Academy's Taylor Barrentine. They are a group of runners who represent a bygone era relative to today's love affair with four-receiver sets and game plans designed to let the quarterback make all the important decisions, reads and runs.

"The running game ... seems to be overlooked today," said Aquinas coach Matt LeZotte, whose team will meet five area 1,000-yard rushers this season. "Everyone wants to go out and do the pretty passing stuff. The running game is where you grind, where you find out a lot about your guys."

Hunter was plopped on his aunt's couch one day last week, his eyes trained to a laptop computer showing his highlights from last season.

His classmates had pieced together a 9-minute, 59-second highlight video in technology teacher Brian Hadden's class and posted it on YouTube. He perked up at the 1:52 mark, when he saw something pleasing.

"I like this move right here the best out of all of them," he said.

On the video, Hunter dashes up the middle, then stops, as if he reached the edge of a cliff. A Lakeside defender whizzes by. Hunter continues up the field for about a 20-yard gain. He sometimes watches the video at nights to remember plays like one of his favorites, Houston Option Right, and to correct his running style, which he says is sometimes too upright.

"I've got to get behind my pads," he said, pointing to the video screen.

Hunter often wanders around the Sand Hills neighborhood he grew up in and sees what might be his future: athletes past their glory days that didn't, as he said, "make it big."

Hunter desires to make it big, since he first saw what that would be like while watching former Westside basketball stars William Avery and Ricky Moore play on television in college. He remembers hearing of their legendary one-on-one games at 3 a.m. at the Wheeler Road park that now bears their names and desires to work that hard.

"Watching them made me think anything was possible, that if you put your mind to something, anything can happen," Hunter said. "The biggest thing you can do after a big year is (to) fall back. I'm working so that doesn't happen to me."

Reach Matt Middleton at (706) 823-3425 or matt.middleton@augustachronicle.com.