Former Poly High Star Walks On, Lights Up Mt. SAC Win Column

It was not the world’s best recruiting effort that attracted former Long Beach Poly High All-American running back Leonard Russell to Mt. San Antonio College.

It was more like a world of good fortune.

In fact, Mt. San Antonio Coach Bill Fisk did not even have to step foot outside his office on the campus in Walnut to recruit Russell.

“We were very fortunate,” Fisk said. “His parents moved close to our school, and on the first day of classes he just walked into my office and asked if he could come out.”

Well, it was not quite that simple. Russell said the academic environment surrounding the football program at Mt. San Antonio also played a vital role in his decision.

“When my mother and father moved out to Walnut, I knew the JC (junior college) was right down the street but I didn’t know they had a football team,” he said. “So I came down here and found out they did. My mom talked to the coach and he seemed like a good guy and he was concerned about academics, so I came out (for the team).”

Fisk said the presence of the 19-year-old sophomore at Mt. San Antonio has been instrumental in the renaissance of the school’s football program.

“It was something we didn’t expect,” Fisk said of Russell’s arrival. “Something like that can turn your program around.”

In the case of Mt. San Antonio, it has turned the program around.

After not producing a winning record since 1982, the Mounties finished at 8-3 and won the Southern California Bowl last year in Russell’s first year with the team. Mt. San Antonio was even ranked as high as No. 3 in the state at 2-0 this season before dropping two of its last three games by close margins. Last weekend, the Mounties beat San Diego City College, 35-14, to run their won-lost record to 3-2.

Fisk said it is no coincidence that the program blossomed as soon as Russell joined the team.

“This is my 24th year of coaching here, and he’s probably the best back I’ve had come through as far as the things he can do,” he said. “He’s a team leader, he’s our team captain and he’s a very hard worker.”

The coach is hardly overstating his point.

In only 15 games with the Mounties, Russell has already shattered most of the school’s rushing records. He ran for 1,618 yards and eight touchdowns in 278 carries last season--a school record for yards and carries.

With 723 yards and six touchdowns in 117 carries this season, he has already surpassed the school’s all-time career record for rushing yardage with 2,341 and is on a pace to break his own single-season record by the end of the season.

Russell did not play last weekend because of a sprained ankle. But he is expected to return to the lineup in a game against Long Beach City College at 7 p.m. Saturday in Walnut.

From Russell’s perspective, the success on the field has been gratifying. But for Russell, the biggest satisfaction has come from his improvement academically.

“As far as the academics, I knew I wasn’t as disciplined in the classroom as I was on the football field,” Russell said. “I wanted to be in a program where people pushed me academically, and that’s the way it’s been here.”

He said the coaching staff is concerned with more than just the results of the players on the field.

“Before I came here I didn’t know what to expect, but Coach Fisk and Coach (Paul) Russell really care a lot about us,” Russell said. “I know some programs that just let the player take enough units to keep playing, but at Mt. SAC they get you to take the classes you need so you can get your (associate of arts) degree and have a choice of (four-year) schools that you can attend.”

Russell said the academic climate is far better for him at Mt. San Antonio than it was at his first college stop, Arizona State.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better situation to come into,” he said. “I feel I’m a better student-athlete--not just an athlete. I’m a much better student than I was before I came here. I was lacking academically before, but now I know I’ve improved a lot. When I came from Arizona State, I came in with a 1.8 (grade-point average), and I’ve been here a whole year plus summer school and it’s now at 2.8 and getting better.”

He said his academic problems started when he was a high school star at Long Beach Poly.

“I was not studying as hard as I could,” Russell admitted. “I was going to class. I wasn’t the type who didn’t go to class. It’s just that when homework was assigned I didn’t do it. It was like I wasn’t a bad student when I was in class. I paid attention and I tried to contribute. It’s just that once I left the classroom I didn’t have the discipline and I didn’t take it home with me.”

There was more attention paid to his athletic skills in high school, he said.

“There was more pressure on me to be a better athlete than a student at Long Beach Poly for some reason,” Russell said. “Maybe it was because we always had such good athletes there and you were always compared to people in that way. You never heard about academics. It seemed like there was more pressure to do well on the field and academics came later.”

Once he was recruited for college and signed a national letter of intent to attend Arizona State, Russell’s academic situation did anything but improve. Because he did not have a 2.0 grade-point average in high school, Russell had to sit out his freshman season under the NCAA’s Proposition 48 guidelines and the adjustment to life as a college student was not easy.

“It was a big adjustment being independent,” Russell said. “I had to get up on my own, go to classes on my own, and the teachers don’t take roll. I was away from home and I didn’t apply myself. I thought: ‘Well, I’m finally here. That’s it.’ I thought I could just show up and not have to worry about anything else.”

In retrospect, he says attending a major college such as Arizona State may have been a mistake considering his educational background.

“I probably shouldn’t have gone straight to a university,” he said. “I should have gone to a JC because I wasn’t ready for college. I didn’t know you could go to a JC first. Nobody ever told me that in high school. It was like they were just concerned about what I did on the team.

“It was kind of like, ‘Arizona State can get you in even if you don’t pass the (Scholastic Aptitude Test) test.’ So I thought I’d just go there and get good grades, and it didn’t happen.”

Despite his academic problems at Arizona State, Russell said he was in a position to become eligible to play but chose to withdraw from the school.

“I was going to summer school and I would have had the 24 units I needed, but I was feeling down about the whole thing,” he said. “I wasn’t confident in myself, so I just sat down with my parents and decided to come home and get myself together.”

Russell said he has changed his priorities for college since attending Mt. San Antonio.

“Before it was like 90% football and 10% academics and now it’s 60% academics and 40% football,” he said. “Football has always come easy to me. I’ve always been a good athlete, but academics has always come harder. Now I’ll find myself practicing on the field for an hour or two and then I’ll go home and study two or three hours.”

That is what convinces Russell that he made the right decision to leave Arizona State and attend Mt. San Antonio.

“At the time I didn’t know it, but looking back at what’s happened at Arizona State and here at Mt. SAC, it’s the best thing that could have happened,” Russell said.

It has also worked out for Russell as a member of the football team.

Russell said the success of the team has been an added bonus, considering the program’s struggles in recent years.

“I just kind of heard it around campus that Mt. SAC wasn’t a good football team,” he said. “But when I came in, three other coaches came in, and some good players from Pasadena came in and you could just see it turning around.

“When I came in, coming from a high school like Long Beach Poly that won all the time, I just expected to win. But in the environment around me here, it just felt like a winning program, and we have won.”

Fisk said Russell has matured on the football field in the same manner that the program has developed.

“He’s matured a lot, and I think last year he got better with each game,” Fisk said. “He’s also been on a weight program and he’s gotten stronger.”

At 6-foot-2 and 226 pounds, Russell combines his 4.5-second speed in the 40-yard dash with exceptional strength.

“He’s a tailback, but he can also block,” Fisk said. “He’s a big, strong guy, but he can run too. I think as the game goes on he wears people down, as most big backs will. By the fourth quarter, you can usually see the defenses dragging a little.”

It is Russell’s strength that he says has improved the most since last season. In fact, he bench-presses 475 pounds and squats 550.

“I worked real hard in the weight room and with my running ability this summer,” he said. “Before, I didn’t have an idea about the weights. It was foreign to me in high school. I feel much stronger and healthier on the field, too.”

He said he also has improved vision on the field this season.

“As far as my sight, I can see holes I wouldn’t have seen last year and my wind is much better,” Russell said. “I can carry 30 times because I’m much stronger than I was last year.”

That is why Russell thinks he can reach the 2,000-yard plateau this season.

It is also why he has been recruited by most of the top college football programs in the nation for next season.

At this point, Russell says he is still more concerned about finishing the season and completing his class work at Mt. San Antonio . But he has set guidelines for what four-year school he will transfer to next season.

“As far as trips go, I won’t take any until after the season,” he said. “I’ll have only two years to play two seasons, so I want to go to a place where I can start and a place that runs 70% of the time and likes to throw out of the backfield. I’m not going to a school that runs the wishbone because that’s not for me.

“I also want to go to a school that pushes academics, a place where they care about whether you get your class work done. Everyone needs a push now and then in academics, and the people that do (push) are the ones that really care about you.”

Russell says there are a lot of people who never expected him to be saying that after he withdrew from Arizona State.

“A lot of people thought that I was going to quit,” he said. “My mom heard that from a lot of people, so she told me to just make it. My parents (Leonard Sr. and Lillian) pushed me to succeed academically and on the field. Without them, I don’t know what I’d do. They’ve kept their faith in me.”

Russell is proving every day that their faith was justified.