Tigers' Heart
A Shreveport native who's fiercely proud of his home state, LSU's ironman tailback, Jacob Hester, is vital to his team's hunt for a national title.
Monday, January 07, 2008
By James Varney
Staff writer
SHREVEPORT -- Whatever LSU senior tailback Jacob Hester was or becomes after his student athletic career ends tonight in the national championship battle between Louisiana State University and Ohio State, this he will forever be: a great college football player.
Hester doesn't need a home-state newspaper to make that declaration. Figures in the game no less accomplished than Urban Meyer at Florida and Jim Tressel at Ohio State have identified him as the unceasing heart of the Tigers' offense. Meyer admiringly labeled the seemingly undersized runner, "a tough nut," after Hester's terrific performance in LSU's victory against Florida, and Tressel announced weeks ago that stopping "18" in the Superdome will be one of the Buckeyes' paramount goals.
There are several reasons Hester has emerged as No. 2 LSU's featured weapon and, ironically, one of them is the same knock No. 1 Ohio State has endured for a year. Hester is widely regarded as slow -- even though he has set breakaway run records everywhere he played, rushed for more than 1,000 yards in the Southeastern Conference this year and, at Alabama in November, caught a Tide defensive back from behind on an interception.
With his customary aplomb, Hester always claims he's just fine with the perception.
"That never bothers me," he says. "As far as I'm concerned, that's an advantage for me. Let 'em think that."
But the ineffable quality that has stamped Hester an LSU hero isn't one measured at a combine and isn't the cliché of some guy who just works harder. It is instead what in Louisiana might be dubbed a pigskin je ne sai quoi. There is a kind of grace over Jacob Hester on the football field; he can seemingly perform any task. In the same game he can bang through the middle for a first down, burst outside the tackles and knock an allegedly stronger safety base over apex, and force fumbles on kickoff coverage tackles.
Indeed, while he scored several key touchdowns and displayed almost scary durability as the Tigers' remarkable string of 2007 games played out and teammates went down all around him, Hester only made one boast. And that was for a play on special teams.
"I made Darren McFadden fumble when I hit him on a punt return. Did you see that?" he asked after the Arkansas game. "I guess that's a claim to immortality."
Hester's emergence as the Tigers' cog is surprising for two reasons, one a matter of history and the other a case of that demonstrably false conventional wisdom that he's slow and succeeds only by virtue of his impeccable work habits. As to the former, he verbally committed to Texas before switching to LSU.
His teammates love him and, not suffering from any illusions about his talent, voted him LSU's most valuable offensive player: "the greatest honor I've ever received in sports," Hester said with his gift, rivaled on the team only by defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, of uttering even something banal or hokey with unquestioned sincerity. The two seniors have an uncanny ability to transmit genuine personality at the same time they say all the right things so far as the coaches and the program are concerned.
For a long time, though, including this past spring and summer when Hester was listed as both the starting fullback and halfback, he lurked as an overlooked asset. To look at Hester, who stands only 6 feet tall and weighs 224 pounds, it simply doesn't seem possible that such a small, comparatively speaking, guy can do so much. And as it happens, the tailback who has done so much to get his team to the national title game began his high school career on defense.
When he arrived at LSU after playing on an Evangel Christian Academy team quarterbacked by his good friend and now back-to-back Rose Bowl winner at University of Southern California, John David Booty, he didn't even understand the concept of fullback when coach Nick Saban made him one.
"I came out of a place that was always shotgun with four wides," he said. "I was like, 'What's a fullback?' "
Charles Tilley, Hester's offensive coordinator at Evangel and now his father-in-law, said as much as he loved, "Jake," as he is known throughout Shreveport, even he was slow to realize Hester's huge talent. He looked back at his error recently with Ronnie Alexander, the defensive coordinator while Hester was at Evangel.
"I said, 'Do you realize we had one of the best running backs in the country and we almost made him a nose tackle?' " Tilley said. "And Ronnie thought about that for a second and said, 'Yeah, but he was one hell of a nose tackle.' "
Tribute to the King
A background riddled with doubts about his offensive talent might bother the featured running back on some No. 2 teams. But none of it bothers Hester and none of that indifference is artifice. The only affected thing about Jacob Hester are his sideburns, which appeared recently trimmed when he arrived in New Orleans but for most of the season were long, thick bands of hair that ran below the earlobe out of all proportion to the rest of his cut and his head. His brothers roll their eyes when asked about the fungus, partly because they, too, think it's a bit absurd and partly because a visitor has missed the obvious connection with Hester's idol.
"Elvis Presley!" younger brother, Chance Hester, blurts out. "He's got those things because he loves Elvis Presley!"
Hester's brothers -- their father christened the trio with names linked in some way to John Wayne movies -- expertly play their required roles. Chance, now a freshman defensive back at Calvary in Shreveport, is unabashedly and fiercely proud of Jake: "He can't be hurt," he boasted.
Older brother, Adam, is more circumspect with his comments while transparently harboring the same admiration as Chance. Adam was a player of some consequence, too, until a back injury ended his football days.
Today he is an assistant football coach at Captain Shreve High School, but the rear window and bumper of his car parked in an LSU star's home carport boast an astonishing sight: Texas Longhorns stickers, for Adam's favorite team.
"Thank goodness they haven't played while Jake was at LSU," Adam Hester said.
The burnt orange decals may be incongruous outside a presumably purple-and-gold household, but another carport feature is more indicative of Hester's stature in his hometown. His mother, Nancy, a nurse at the LSU Health and Science Center in Shreveport, has placed a wicker basket outside that friends, acquaintances and sometimes strangers stuff with items for Hester to autograph. True to his Wheaties image, Hester signs every one, according to mom.
Nancy Hester is surprisingly relaxed about her son smashing into the line. A close friend she sits with at all games, quarterback Matt Flynn's mother, Ruth, says she worries constantly about injuries. ("It is a contact sport, Mom," Ruth says Matt will say to her with some disgust). But for some reason, the thought of Hester blowing out a joint or ligament doesn't enter her thinking.
The difference between the mothers' reaction was reflected in a similar maneuver the wired tight backfield partners pulled this year. Hester faked an injury on the goal line after scoring the winning touchdown against Florida so LSU wouldn't have to burn a time out, while Flynn, after catching a pass from wide receiver Early Doucet on a razzle-dazzle play at Alabama, did the same. In Flynn's case, though, his chin strap broke when tackle Carnell Sewart bumped him in celebration after Flynn jumped off the ground so Flynn mysteriously collapsed back on the grass.
The delayed and odd reaction caused a flicker of worry in the Flynn camp, but Nancy Hester said she never doubted the two friends were pulling a nearly identical stunt. That attitude has been ingrained throughout Hester's frighteningly responsible 22 years on earth. As a youth, only once caused momentary concern for her and Hester's father, a Shreveport area law enforcement officer named Joey.
"When he was 14 years old he was spending the night at a friend's house and the mother called me," Nancy Hester recalled. "She said, 'I think the boys took my van out for a joyride, but don't worry, Jacob's driving.' "
A local legend
Driving up the southern approach to Shreveport on U.S. 49 in December, a traveler crosses a landscape flatter than a swimmer's stomach over which gorged hawks patrol the fallow fields. Now, though, the highway also boasts a handmade "Geaux Tigers" billboard replete with Hester and Flynn jerseys atop it, and Shreveport is aware a native son will be an integral part of LSU's championship shot.
Over at Reeve's Marine, which has serviced northern Louisiana boaters for some 75 years, owner Rodney Reeves converted a sliver of his display floor to LSU merchandise last summer. "Tiger Island," as the display is called, quickly metastasized as a venture and now covers almost half the store making it the largest LSU merchandise outlet in Shreveport.
In the past year, Reeves has sold four bass fishing boats painted a metallic purple-and-gold at $44,000 a pop, but said the LSU side of his business is truly booming. Recently, it was the only place in town that still had No. 18 LSU jerseys -- with more than 500 sold, it's the most desired item in the store.
Behind the Evangel football grandstand, a huge color banner of Hester is one of six hanging like museum billboards from the top row. Other Evangel standouts so honored include his good friends Chase Pittman, a former LSU defensive lineman, and both John David Booty and his older brother, Josh, who had a mediocre LSU career after first trying professional baseball.
"I don't think there's any sports figure close to him in this town now," said Tilley, Hester's former coordinator at Evangel.
Hester was a pretty big deal at Evangel, too. His junior year he rushed for 1,593 yards and 24 touchdowns while leading Evangel to the state championship, and he was the 5A offensive most valuable player. As a senior, his carries declined but he still racked up 868 yards and 22 more touchdowns.
But Hester might never have gotten out of the trenches were it not for an injury suffered by Evangel's starting running back in a game against Longview, Texas. The coaches gathered to discuss their options the next week and someone suggested they move "Jake" to running back. He rushed for 250 yards in the next game. The following week he gained 300 yards.
"You should have seen him then, playing at 250 pounds because he'd been a nose tackle," Tilley recalled of a time when a beefy Hester earned the nickname, "Freight Train." "You talk about seeing someone run over people. It was really something."
Impressing the players
But the reissued, condensed version of Hester can crunch a defender as well. Most recently Hester has gotten props for bowling over a Tennessee safety in the SEC championship game, but he did the same thing earlier in the year against Florida and Alabama. Especially near the goal line, where Hester's technique is superb, the first person to get to him rarely brings him down and often absorbs the hardest hit.
After crumpling the Florida safety like a cone on a driver's education course on what would prove the winning fourth-quarter drive, Hester said he did it mostly in an attempt to impress his blockers and there's no question the burly Tigers linemen appreciate that kind of effort.
"When you see a guy fighting for another yard, when you know you have a back who's not going to step out of bounds but instead lowers his head and tries to crush somebody, it just makes you want to play that much harder for him," LSU junior center Brett Helms said. "We love running backs like that."
Most big-time safeties would be hushed and embarrassed by such physical abuse, but the Gator's tongue wagged freely. After the play, he told Hester, "You still got nothing, Vanilla Ice." The comment, Hester told Sports Illustrated, wasn't the first time he'd heard a crack from an opponent about his skin color. In Knoxville, Tenn., last season, the Volunteer linebacker Jerod Mayo asked him why he didn't play for Air Force.
Mayo approached Hester on the field on Atlanta on Dec. 1 after the SEC championship and said, "I was wrong about you. You're a great player."
Fellow running backs Keiland Williams and Charles Scott, both African-American, are featured in framed photos in the Hester living room. Nancy Hester says the veiled knock against her son because of his pallor bothers her to no end.
"I hear and see it all the time that he's not fast enough," Nancy Hester said. "And sometimes it makes me want to yell, 'What you really want to say is he's white!' And Keiland and Charles just burst out laughing."
Once a week, usually on Thursdays, the running backs at LSU try to have dinner out together, Williams said, and Hester is the acknowledged role model for them all.
"Hester's a great guy, and all of us know we can call him at any time about any need," Williams said. "He's just a great guy to model yourself after. Anywhere on the field he runs like it's his last carry, and that's something he's handed down to everyone on the team."
'The complete package'
This year, Hester has joked he single-handedly, as a 2-star-rated recruit, cost LSU the best recruiting class in the country in 2004. Apparently, former coach Nick Saban, who got Nancy Hester's ready approval to stay on Jake's trail after the Texas verbal, didn't think so. Hester was the first player from that class to start. Further evidence of the vagaries of recruiting and reputations: Adam Hester said his brother was a 4-star recruit when he verbally committed to Texas.
LSU coach Les Miles said that he wants people who can handle the madness that surrounds these teams as much as someone who can get the first down on fourth down. On the other hand, Miles never seems to tire of talking about what Hester brings to the game. And there is no doubt in Miles' mind that Hester will find work as a professional athlete, too.
"He's a special guy, he really is; he was named team captain you know," Miles told a cluster of national reporters in Baton Rouge last month for LSU's media day. "I mean here's a guy who says, 'I'm on the punt team,' and, 'Let me run down on kickoffs.'
"If there isn't a place for him in the NFL, then football's not football," Miles added. "I've got to be honest, I've never had a guy who is the complete package like Jacob Hester."'
A rare fumble
The complete package himself, however, did stand for one moment on the Tiger Stadium turf -- it was in the Arkansas game -- lost, moving slowly and shaking his head.
Jacob Hester had fumbled. He got the ball right back, but for that moment it was if the cosmos themselves had cracked.
"That was only the third time in my whole life I've ever fumbled," he said. "And I've only lost one. I didn't lose any in high school; I fumbled once when I was on junior varsity. And so when it happens, it is a shock. It's something I pride myself on and I didn't do my job on that play. I was trying to do too much and didn't worry about ball security.
"So definitely that hit home," he mused. "Golly. I didn't get over that until the last game. Even though we got it back, that ate at me for like two weeks."
Is it all surprising that an offensive coordinator would give his daughter in marriage to such a man?
Hester proposed to Katie Tilley after the Arkansas game last November. Before the game, everyone was in on the pending pitch except Katie before the game, and before this championship game she expressed bewilderment at the way people looked at her husband when they arrived in New Orleans last week.
"Regularly he's, you know, he's a normal guy. And then when we get here, everybody's screaming at him and wanting to take a picture with him so it's different having a celebrity as a husband," she said. "But it's great. I think I might be more excited than he is. He's used to it."
But can her husband really be this good a person? Can it be true that the whole time they dated in high school he never once, as Chris Tilley emphatically declared, ever missed a curfew? That the man who dated his daughter never once, not even slightly, got under her father's skin? "Oh, no," Katie Hester said, shocked at the idea. "No, no, no, no, no. My dad doesn't have to talk, he just has that look in his eyes that you know you've overstepped the boundaries. And Jacob knew he didn't want to get that look."
Right now, the young couple is packing in Baton Rouge as Hester plans to work out somewhere in hopes of the NFL draft. But the future for both is Louisiana. Like Dorsey, Early Doucet, Craig Steltz and some other prominent seniors, Hester has spoken several times in the past month about how much it means to him to be representing LSU, his home state, and to be playing his final game in New Orleans.
"No matter where you are in the state if you're an LSU football player, everyone knows who you are," Hester said. "I plan to live in Louisiana the rest of my life; not sure if it will be here or Shreveport. I love Louisiana. I'm just glad I got the opportunity to stay in Louisiana."
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James Varney can be reached at jvarney@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3413.
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