Twenty five years ago, Jim Croce penned the enduring phrase, "You don't tug on Superman's cape." Twenty-five years later, Bolingbrook High School senior Erik Smith entered the 2007 season as the Raiders' superback, the spotlight position in the Raiders' spread offense.
To him, it is more than a "S" on the chest. "You have to earn your cape," Smith said. "You have to be able to hold it, and the position entails you to be able to go out there and make plays when your time is called upon. When you step into that role, you have to be ready to do whatever it takes for the team to win."
Winning has been the team theme since the longtime days and nights of coach Phil Acton at Bolingbrook, a school that developed the well-earned nickname of "Tailback High." Under former NFL fullback John Ivlow, however, the Raiders have transformed into "Superback High."
What in the world is a superback, you ask? Look no further than Northwestern University, which now even employs a superbacks coach, for the popularity of that running back position -- an offshoot of the singleback spot that actually began in the 1950s with the run-and-shoot offense, the grandfather of the spread.
Quite simply, it takes a superb back with blurry-eye-causing speed to be a superback, and the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Smith qualifies in every descriptive sense of the word. He combines 4.49 speed with a 3.6 grade-point average and a 26 ACT, showing the fleet skill to thrill and the brains to beat anybody's defensive brawn.
He's a super running back.
He's a super young man.
Superback. Superman.
"It's that, exactly," said Ivlow, who's 46-18 in six years at the 'Brook. "It's a guy who has to make things happen when he gets the ball. We give him a lot of slack. We don't ask him to protect a lot, and on a lot of the protection he has help, but he has to be able to catch, he has to be able to run, and the main thing is to have some jets and read your blocks."
For Joliet-area football fans, Saturday's 1 p.m. kickoff represents a second reading as Smith-led Bolingbrook (7-2), the SouthWest Suburban Blue conference co-champion, plays host to Lincoln-Way Central (6-3), the SouthWest Suburban Red conference runnerup, in the first round of the Class 8A playoffs.
In Week 3, Bolingbrook bested Lincoln-Way Central 7-6, also at home, with Smith rushing for 110 yards on 27 carries. During the second half, the super-duper back totaled 72 yards on 18 carries, the dentist-like Raiders riding the joy of No. 6 so well that, according to Ivlow, "we just wore them down, kind of like Novocain."
Consider Smith's contribution a shot in the arm to Bolingbrook's spread offense, something that transcends mere numbers to Ivlow, the pride of Plainfield who twice rushed for over 1,000 yards in high school and still knows the difference between the stats and the cape.
To him, a "C" should be on the chest.
"Character -- that's it," Ivlow said. "When you have a kid with character, he's easy to coach. His natural ability, that's all a given. But Erik's character is probably the best thing about him. He understands the game, he understands what we're doing, he makes very few mistakes. And the mistakes he makes, most of them are physical, not mental."
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Dale Martin departed Bolingbrook for the University of Louisville after an injury-marred senior season that saw 1,570 yards on 218 carries with 21 touchdowns. The havoc he might have wrought if he had stayed healthy would be an interesting debate, but that altered state also gave Smith a headstart on this fall.
Without the lead-blocker benefit of the Raiders' past best from the I-formation, the Wisconsin-bound Smith sprinting out of the spread has been the epitome of Stuart Scott's standard catchphrase, "Call him butter because he's on a roll." Smith's totals scream booyah! at 1,074 yards on 153 carries with 8 TDs, an average of 134.3 yards per game.
Throw in senior quarterback Shadonta Travis (71-of-130, 960 yards, 8 TDs), the Joliet Township transfer, junior wide receiver Alfonzo Sylvester (22 catches, 359 yards, 2 TDs) and senior H-back/slot receiver Kwame Harris (21 catches, 289 yards, 3 TDs) and the Raiders stand to be reckoned with from almost every angle.
But it's the superback's show.
"At the beginning of the year, we were all kind of slow, so Erik picked up his game and improved a lot," said Travis, who brought three years of varsity experience in JT's spread. "It's pretty much open for him so he can use his speed where he needs to go instead of power. For a guy of his size, running without a lead blocker, his yards are very good."
"Since we had Shadonta come in, the coaches decided to put in some new things with the spread," Harris pointed out. "And seeing that we had an elusive back like Erik, we as players wanted to use more of the spread. Erik may not be the biggest back, but he is powerful -- a powerful guy. And once he gets the corner, he puts moves on. He has so many moves."
The initial move in the shotgun spread, though, belongs to Travis. While Harris has been the blocking equivalent of dynamite from the slot and the offensive line of senior center Vince Kowalski, senior guards Samie Sabbah and Jerry Hall and senior tackles Pat Phillips and Jordan Dillingham detonates, Travis' call must light the fuse.
"Actually, the hardest part is on Shadonta," Ivlow said. "Erik has the easy part -- Shadonta either puts it in his belly or he doesn't. Shadonta has to make all the reads and all the audibles. You look at the tailback, which is called the superback in our offense, it's the easier position to learn, and Erik does make it look easy, too."
Offensive coordinator Lou Narish expected the requisite growing pains in the evolution from Martin to Smith for Bolingbrook's "Superback, Part II" script. The dialogue culled from Smith's junior year paved a resilient path.
"Erik replaced a great running back in Dale, and Erik's strength is his explosive speed," Narish said. "It makes a lot of coaches look good, and it's the hardest thing to coach. You can tell them to run faster, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll get the results you want, and he really has made tremendous progress from last year in playing the position."
"Dale had the position last year and Coach Narish would joke with me, 'You're an H-back, you're not a superback, you're not to that point yet,' " Smith recalled. "The role of superback says you have to move fast and make plays, and I thought I could make plays. When you're behind a guy like Dale, you have to wait your chance in line."
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Having an offensive line with the size of small communities -- just glance at the 6-4, 370-pound Dillingham, the 6-2, 260-pound Kowalski, the 6-3, 277-pound Phillips, the 6-1, 270-pound Sabbah and the 5-11, 260-pound Hall -- could cause some coaches to turn to the I-formation temptation.
Committed to the spread even before Travis' entry into the picture, Narish and Ivlow stared at a canvas that contained Smith and remained adamant about priming the Raiders' spread pump via shotgun and ace sets, particularly after Smith's stunning style as a junior featured 9 catches in place of the sidelined Martin.
Plus, it's the superback payoff.
"Last year helped me because it showed, no matter who you go against, we're all human," Smith said. "When you're on the sophomore team, you look at the varsity and everybody looks like a demigod. I used to watch Dale when Javon (Stewart) was out there and I was like, 'This dude is the best player I've ever seen in my life.
"You see the hits, the pows, the pops, and it's not the same as sophomores. But then when you get out there, my junior year, that leveled me out. It was like, 'These guys put in as much work as me. It's no different.' It gave me the confidence to come out here and say, 'If we put in the work and they put in the work, we'll be the better team.' It gave me the mindset."
That mindset has elevated the Raiders to third among the Joliet area's large schools in scoring offense (258 points, 28.7 a game), total offense (2,927 yards, 325.2 a game) and rushing offense (315 carries, 1,875 yards, 208.3 a game). And it's amazing what Smith, using the players-make-plays mantra, can do fully fueled.
"Last year, I got nervous before every game," he said. "I couldn't eat on Fridays. This year, I'm taking it all in stride, and I'm not thinking about it. It's natural. People always ask me in school, 'Are you worried about so-and-so?' And I'm like, 'No, I'm not worried.' I'm not going to change the way that I play because of the team we're playing.
"My thing is, I'm going to hit my holes, I'm going to break you open in the open field and I'm going to score. And if I don't score, I'm going to put us in the position where my teammates like Kwame, Alfonzo and Shadonta can score and we're going to win the game. I'm going to bring out my game -- my 'A' game."
The Bolingbrook teams of yesteryear relied on an "A" game of perimeter play. Ivlow related that periscope has been sent under the surface, adding that "we don't run the speed option anymore. We don't run the toss sweep. Erik gets all of his big yards running it up the middle or off tackle on our counters and the zones."
Those zones are another addition, Narish noted, with zone blocking schemes playing an important part in Smith's ascension. This is where his smarts join up with his speed, his ability to register and react teaming up with his ability to outrun deer to trees.
"It's sort of sophisticated stuff," Narish said. "What we're doing is it's a read, and when he's going up the middle, on many of the plays, he doesn't know whether he's getting the ball or not. He has to feel the pressure of the ball being put into him, and it's not like, 'Here's a handoff. Run.' And when he gets the ball, he has to make reads on the different blocking schemes."
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White Sox announcer Ken Harrelson has a favorite reaction: "Stretch ... Stay fair." Well, Bolingbrook has kept opposing defenses on the fair side of the ledger with the Raiders' stretch sequences. Smith, a Florida native accustomed to warmer weather, has adjusted to the cut in temperatures with his cuts on the turf.
As the superback running the Bolingbrook stretch, Smith struck for 194 yards on 23 carries in the Raiders' regular-season finale, a 31-15 victory over Sandburg. Travis finished 4-of-9 for 126 yards and tossed 3 TD passes in the first half, with Smith's scintillating 64-yard scoring run displaying the subtle cuts of the stretch.
To him, it's a "C" and a "S" on the chest.
"We ran a lot of stretches last Friday night," Smith said. "With the stretch, it usually looks like an outside play, but I was reading the safety, seeing that he was flying. They were trying so hard to stop me from hitting the outside corner it freed up a cutback lane up the middle. I was able to pivot for a lot of good yards. You have to make certain reads like that."
"It's more a cut up rather than cutting back across the field," Narish nodded. "That's why he's doing a phenomenal job in our stretch. When we first put it in and the zone concepts, the kids struggled to understand it, and he's doing a great job of reading the blocks, cutting up or going outside. To a lot of people, it looks like a sweep, but it's more than that."
Summing up his superback, Ivlow agreed that Smith is more than that. What Wisconsin will do with him resides in the future, but as Lincoln-Way Central already realizes from the first meeting, a speedster and an Einstein-studious runner with the football out of the spread from the shotgun and ace formations can be potent.
He's a superb superback.
He's a superb young man.
Superb player. Super(b)man.
"I see myself as a player," Smith said. "I see myself as someone who will do whatever it takes to contribute to the team. Put me anywhere and I will learn that position. I'm smart enough and athletic enough to play a lot of positions, and I'm a competitor, too. I like that kind of situation, and I feel I can beat out anybody.
"I always joke around with Coach Ivlow that if Dale was here, he wouldn't get his position back. I don't know if there's any truth to it, but I just like to compete. What's better than competing against somebody to be the best?"
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