HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK : Brookins Helps Sylmar Keep in Step : Prep football: Junior tailback picks up where Jerome Casey left off in Spartans’ backfield.

Following in the footsteps of one of last year’s top running backs might have been a difficult task for some athletes, but Sylmar High’s Tobaise Brookins has taken the challenge in stride.

Brookins, a 5-foot-11, 170-pound junior, has gained 793 yards in 137 carries and scored eight times since succeeding Jerome Casey as Sylmar’s tailback this season. Last week, in a 48-0 Valley Pac-8 Conference win over Birmingham, Brookins rushed for 172 yards in 22 carries and scored twice.

Sylmar continues to rate as one of the surprise teams in the area with a 6-0 record (4-0 in league play).

As a sophomore, Brookins played behind Casey, who rushed for 1,447 yards in 181 carries last season and scored 26 touchdowns to lead the Spartans to a 7-3 record. Casey, who is a part-time student at Mission College, committed to USC but lost his freshman eligibility when he failed to score 700 points on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

“Last year we were basically No. 35, and everybody knew it,” Sylmar Coach Jeff Engilman said, referring to Casey. “Toby is going to try to make people forget No. 35, and he has worked awfully hard (at doing that). He is up there doing running drills every day, whereas Jerome didn’t have to do the running drills because Jerome was Jerome.”

Brookins worked out daily during the summer with assistant coach Darrell McIntyre.

“We worked out hard and it’s paying off,” Brookins said. “What keeps me going is my work ethic. I’m not going to let anyone take that away from me.”

McIntyre can be a taskmaster but Brookins has rarely balked. “(McIntyre) is on him all the time,” Engilman said. “It’s almost like a father-son kind of relationship.”

Brookins, 16, probably will never know a true father-son relationship. In fact, he doesn’t know who his biological father is, and he has lived with his mother’s parents for the past eight years. He doesn’t talk much about his mother, whom he rarely sees and barely knows.

Henry and Laura Brookins, his legal guardians, have never missed one of their grandson’s football games. And they are equally proud of their grandson’s involvement with the Calvary Baptist Church, where he has been a choir member for years.

They have steered him away from the rough life that has claimed some of Brookins’ childhood friends such as “Lucky,” who is now serving a prison sentence for stabbing a teacher to death.

“I was on my way to being someone else,” Brookins said. “I was hanging out with people who were a bad influence on me.”

Engilman recognizes the anguish Brookins’ family situation causes but counsels his star back to try to overlook what he does not have and be thankful for what he does have--grandparents who care about him.

“I think he has some deep remorse that he doesn’t have a real good relationship with his mother,” Engilman said. “I said, ‘You aren’t the only one in this boat; you’re not the only one who is going through this. You’re lucky you’ve got a grandmother that has been strong with you.’ ”

Although Brookins might have trouble surpassing Casey’s numbers on the field, he already has bettered Casey’s academic record. Brookins said he had a 3.7 grade-point average last year as a sophomore and scored 720 on the SAT in June.

Brookins has grown tired of the frequent comparisons to Casey. He prefers talking about the success of this year’s team and rarely misses a chance to praise the offensive line.

Ezel Henry (6-1, 255), Kenny Green (6-2, 235), Manny Vasquez (6-1, 250), Chris Schultz (6-0, 210) and Randy Banaga (6-3, 230), the largest offensive line in the conference, make up the Spartans’ front five.

“As long as our offensive line stays healthy we can continue to win,” Brookins said. “They’re an intelligent line too. They make calls on the line all the time and they talk to each other. They are the most valuable guys on the team.”

The same linemen blocked for Casey last year. But Green, Henry and Schultz, returning all-league selections, expressed lingering concerns to Engilman in the off-season.

“I didn’t realize how much dissension we had last year on the team until after I sat down with the guys who were coming back,” Engilman said. “They said, ‘Hey, we didn’t get any credit at all, it was all Jerome.’ ”

Since that meeting Engilman promotes the team concept and Brookins fits neatly into that game plan.

“He’s a very unselfish ballplayer,” Engilman said. “He is always telling the guys what a good job they do.”

Perhaps the only player Brookins shortchanges in praise is himself.

“I never would have thought I’d be doing this,” Brookins said.