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December 19, 2009
I am sure you have heard by now. The story has been on PTI and has been on Jim Rome almost all week in addition to multiple other national shows. Apparently, Tennessee Titans RB Chris Johnson challenged Miami Dolphins WR and Cleveland’s own Ted Ginn Jr. to a race on South Beach. The story has bubbled up in the national press this week with those two teams facing off on Sunday. Johnson says Ginn no showed for the race and Ginn is receiving lots of flak over supposedly ducking Johnson. Ginn denies this and is rightly focused on football. It’s a silly and inconsequential story but it certainly, for me, triggered images of Ginn’s athletic ability, in particular his speed, that we witnessed locally on the football field and track at Glenville HS and on a larger stage at OSU. At Glenville he was a state and national champion in track and in football was an immediate threat to take any interception, return, or catch to the house within seconds.
I’m biased in favor of Ginn here and would put my money on Ginn in any race over any football player on the planet. He may not have been and is certainly not now the most productive football player, but he was probably the most athletic football player Ohio has seen this decade. The publicity of this supposed race combined with Columbus Northland and future OSU basketballer and current No. 2 recruit in the nation, Jared Sullinger, being broadcast nationally on ESPN on Thursday got me thinking about some of the most exciting and dominant athletes our region has seen in high school. A list like this could go on forever but I tried to be exclusive and focus just on modern athletic freaks instead of prolific HS legends. The results are listed after the jump. Who are some of the best athletes you’ve witnessed in person on the HS level?
Until this year, Robert Smith was the only two-time Ohio Mr. Football winner. The Euclid product was simply a man amongst boys as a running back. He was also the State Champ in the 100-meter dash. After Euclid he went on to enjoy success at OSU in both football & track and he is still the all-time leading rusher for the Minnesota Vikings – a record he achieved through multiple injuries and in only 8 professional years before an early retirement. But nothing compares to the display he put on at Euclid in the late 80’s which included 2300 yards and 34 touchdowns his Senior year. Perhaps his dominance on the high school level created unlimited expectations at the next levels which led to some tumult for Smith. But for the purposes of this examination, I’d say he is the most dominant athletic football player this area has seen.
I would have to say that Warren Harding’s Maurice Clarett definitely approached Smith in the “man amongst boys” athlete category. While Clarett was not the sprinter like Ginn and Smith, he ran right through HS defenses and was fast enough to break away long distance once he ran over you. High school defenses considered it a success to hold him at 200 yards rushing. As with Smith, we’re all aware of the larger stage success achieved as a true frosh in OSU’s championship run and the subsequent ignominy in his life. But he has to be included in the discussion of most dominant HS athlete. In his Senior year, he rushed for almost 2200 yards and 38 touchdowns which was capped off by an insane 785 yards and 8 touchdowns in only 3 playoff games against the best big school competition – he was an athletic freak and widely considered the best HS player in the entire country.
When it comes to athletes in basketball, a generation in this area worshipped Clark Kellogg as the greatest basketball player and most dominant athlete that they had ever seen. He took descriptions of athleticism to a new level in this area. Much like the candidates mentioned above, he did not go onto to have a dominant professional career as his body failed him. His basketball career at St. Joe’s is considered the greatest in Cleveland history. Kellogg’s most famous high school achievement is his 51 point game in the ‘79 state title game which is still a record. He most certainly achieved the “man amongst boys” status and was a groundbreaking athlete.
While Kellogg was once considered the most athletic HS basketball player in Ohio history, that title was recently taken over this decade by a youngster from Akron. Ohio has a long history of incredible HS basketball players going back well before Kellogg played at Joe’s, but in the end, LeBron James will probably go down as the greatest of them all. I do not need to re-hash all the success he enjoyed at St. Vincent-St. Mary. He won Mr. Basketball three years in a row and that feat will probably never be matched. As an athlete, he was the man amongst men/boys/machines – whatever you want to compare him to. He grew taller and filled out as each HS year passed which combined with his freakish athleticism to dominate every single notable HS player and team on SVSM’s national schedule.
When discussing athletic ability, someone nicknamed “The Helicopter” would probably have to be included. I remember watching Melvin Levett at VASJ in the 90’s and every time his feet left the floor the entire crowd held its breath. While he was not as prolific as some and would not be considered one of the all-time greats in Ohio, as a leaper and an athlete he has to go down as one of the best I have seen. It was an urban legend that you could place a quarter on the top of the backboard and Levett could jump and grab it. True or not, if this sort of legend is being passed around as plausible then you have to have some athletic chops. If you have forgotten about Melvin, check out this amazing dunk from his playing days at Cincinnati:
I surveyed some of my fellow WFNY writers and who had personal experience with the following and I thought they warranted mentioning:
DP – Vouched for Charles Woodson who I would think has to be mentioned in this list and is at least comparable athletically to Ginn with much more success as a football player. DP also mentioned the freakish athletic ability of big man Orlando Pace not only on the football field but in the frontcourt as a HS hoops player.
Denny – Resident WFNY runner and track expert detailed the experience of watching Canton Glen Oak track star Derrick Williams dominate the state hurdles in 2001.
Both TD and Craig had experience watching or playing against Twinsburg’s James Posey and attested to his explosiveness on the basketball court his senior year before moving on to X and a successful pro career.
A list like this could be endless. I have at least 25 others on the tip of my tongue but this was triggered by the story of Ginn being called out for refusing to race. To me, he is the fastest HS football player I have seen so I tried to focus on others with superior dominant athletic ability and not just those who had productive and legendary HS careers (although those obviously often overlap). Ohio’s history in producing amazing HS athletes matches up to any other state and we are lucky to see some of these future stars in NE Ohio before they become famous. They often distract us from the inadequacies of our own professional teams. As I stated, I will take Ted Ginn in a race against any NFL player. Who are some of the athletic freaks you have seen on the high school level?
25 Comments
Although he is nowhere near the studs on your list, I witnessed Rob Rose destroy a pretty good solon team at cle browns stadium. If I remember correctly he injured the starting rb/mlb and roughed up their qb/db. He was an animal, one of those man among boys type players. too bad he never put it all together when he got to tOSU.
Tony Stockman had a helluva senior year at Medina High School, leading the Bees to the Elite 8 of the State Basketball Tournament. Sharing the Ohio Mr. Basketball award with Chet Mason, before heading to Clemson and eventually playing two years for the Buckeyes.
Again, not on the same level of some of the studs mentioned in the article, but definitely an Honorable Mention type guy.
Two basketball players: OJ Mayo and Jon Diebler. Mayo was smooth in high school with N. College Hill. Made everything look so easy.
Diebler, believe it or not, might be the best pure scorer I’ve seen at the high school level. In the state final four his senior year, he nearly averaged a quadruple double in those two games, including dropping 50 in the state final loss (I think it was 50…may have been something like 46 or 48.) He was unreal…much more than the spot-up shooter he’s become at Ohio State.
I’ll have to vouch for Smith having seen him play in person. Saw him single handedly keep Euclid in a playoff game against St. Ignatius. Played both ways and was all that Ignatius could handle.
I graduated from Ignatius a few years back, and was lucky enough to see the tail end of Anthony Gonzalez’s career (now with the colts). The Massilon game in 2001 where he caught two td’s and pick six’d another in the final ten minutes to win the game was incredible. But the best I have seen in person has to be Delvon Roe when he was at Ed’s.
Has anyone seen Erick Howard? His numbers are amazing.
Saw him last year…great bowling ball back but not the athlete of a Smith or a Clarett.
I second the Tony Gonzalez mention…just an incredible burner who had the ability to take over games from the receiver position…at times I remember qb Nate Szep (who was a pretty solid qb in his own right but was always overshadowed by Justin Zwick over at Massillon) bombing it deep and tony finding an extra gear to catch a ball that to 99% of other people would’ve been overthrown
i also robert smith play in high school. he was hands down the best id ever seen at that level (until i got to see lebron). also got a chance to see jimmy jackson play in high school. another man among boys. honorable mention goes to earl boykins. fantastic to see play in high school.
Ginn would have been an Olympian in the hurdles. Just an incredible runner in HS.
Marc Sylvester was the second-best HS track runner I’ve ever seen. State record in the 800m.
One more vote for Robert Smith. I was a freshman in 1988 standing on the sidelines as he tore up my varsity squad for something like 350 all purpose yards. Our football team was only average (5-5 that year, I think), but we were absolutely, positively unable to stop him.
I didn’t actually SEE him run in person, but Scott Fry was the national CC champ from Sandusky Perkins in the 80’s. Our coach Jim Hauser had a tape of Fry running the 3200 at state his senior year, and he was LAPPING kids in the state finals. The kids he passed all moved to the outside lane for him. Pretty unreal to watch.
He got a standing O from the entire crowd in the Horseshoe.
Well if we are talking sports other than basketball, football and track by default, I’m going to say Joe Hudepohl’s 50 yard freestyle at the state swim championships in Canton 1992 might be the greatest athletic performance Ive ever seen. While all his competitors were shaved and tapered (swim terminology) for that meet, Joe showed up with long hair and a drag suit and swam the first ever sub 20 second 50 yard freestyle in high school history. He broke 3 national records (one still exists) at that meet. A couple months later he won the Olympic trials in the 200 freestyle and a few months after that won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics as the youngest member of the team. Dude was baller even though he was from Cincinnati.
On your list I had seen LBJ, Ginn and Smith. I alway admired the way Robert went about his business and the fact that he walked away from the game on his terms and in his free-agent year.
Two others I would like to add. I played against OJ McDuffy, he caused my high school to install a special defense to go up against him (didn’t work). I was a baseball coach at Lake when Joe Jurevicius was there. Those teams were outstanding and he was a freak.
Clark Kellogg was absolutely unstoppable with the ball in his hand. He did what he wanted when he wanted and had the most fundamentally sound game I’ve ever witnessed.
I also think Raymond Williams from Benedictine could have been 10 times the college back Maurice Clarett ever was, but the law caught up with him a lot sooner than it did with Mo. So sad.
The best three FB players I’ve seen (not mentioned so far) have been Euclid’s Pepe Pearson (OSU) and Copley’s Delone Carter (Syracuse)and then Orrville’s Justin Zwick. But,seriously, how can anyone’s #1 not be LBJ for his dual accomplishments on the gridiron and the hardwood?
I’ll 2nd Cody’s nod to Joe Hudepohl. I was at that State meet (’91?) as well as his senior year in ’92 when he tied his 50 free record. If I remember correctly though, he didn’t break 20 seconds. Both races he went 20.01. There was a huge sigh of disappointment in the crowd when he tied the record….then everyone remembered “holy crap, he just went 20.01 again!” and started clapping and screaming again. Those are still some of my best high school swimming memories that didn’t involve me.
For me, Chris Spielman was the best HS athlete I’ve ever seen in person. Completely dominated games offensively, defensively, and special teams. He did everything.
Definitely missing O.J. McDuffie. O.J. went to Hawken School and earned like 25 varsity letters (I realize I am exaggerating), including Football, Basketball, Track and Baseball. The News-Herald named McDuffie the number 3 player of the 20th century in Northeast Ohio. During his senior year in 1987, he was named the A-AA Ohio Player of the year. At Penn State he was star in both Football and Baseball and was the Fiesta Bowl MVP in 1992. McDuffie was selected in the first round (25th pick overall) of the 1993 NFL Draft by the Miami Dolphins. McDuffie’s 415 career catches are fourth all-time in Dolphins history. In 1998, McDuffie caught 90 passes, leading the NFL in that category.
Alot of these stats are from Wikipedia as I am not a walking encyclopedia on OJ McDuffie.
You are right on with McDuffie. My dad used to some scouting for a local high school back in the 80’s. He says McDuffie was hands down the best HS footbal player he has ever scouted.
I third Tony Gonzales, and second Marc Sylvester (I was able to run with them a bit at the end of both of their high school careers, and they were just amazing athletes. Normally I wouldn’t put a track-focused guy like Sylvester on a list like that, but the dude ran a sub-1:50 800 meter run when his lung collapsed DURING the race.
However, as much as I was impressed with those guys, to just go with them would be biasing myself towards my teammates. The greatest athlete I’ve ever seen has to be Ted Ginn… I raced hurdles against him a couple times, and being a mediocre white dude, I didn’t belong anywhere near the same track as him. He was by far the sickest athlete I’ve ever met.
We had a scrimmage with Glenville and Rob Rose had ALL of our LB’s scared because he was their TE. I was a junior and he had been the biggest man I had ever seen (until Shaun Rogers at training camp).
Also, Tyrell Sutton was a freak. My senior year we held him to his least amount of rushing yardage his high school career. Dude was fast as all hell.
this name will be pretty unknown (and a definite bias on my part) – Kevin Porco. Crestwood high school 88-90. 1st team all state RB, 1st all american RB, qualified for state in 200, 400, 4*100 and 4*400 his senior year. Never got to see how good he could be at state or in college. He was in a car crash the day after graduation and life support was cut several days later.
Might not compare to Smith, etc but he definitely fits in the HM category.
I know this article came out over 3 years ago, but the greatest Ohio athlete I’ve ever seen is Massillon’s Devin Smith! Smith was an all world wide receiver currently playing for the Buckeyes now. On the hardwood he averaged 15pts and 5 reb a game. On the track he jumped 7′ in the high jump, won the state title in the 100m, 2x state title winner in the long jump. I can go on forever with stats with this kid. Hands down the greatest all around athlete I’ve seen.
Kevin graduated in 91. And should most definitely be on this list! Thank you for mentioning him gone but never forgotten!