Lewis Keeps Husky Offense Running at 100%

The sky is the color of bathtub ring, umbrellas are getting blown out of people’s hands, it’s raining and it’s cold. No doubt about it, it’s a perfect day to be a Husky.

In the Pacific Northwest, the rule of thumb these days is if the weather is bad, the Washington Huskies are good, and neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of day is going to keep them from their appointed rounds--namely, turning loose tailback Greg Lewis and letting him trample some Pacific 10 foe like a runaway dogsled.

So far in conference games, the Huskies have scored 31, 42, 38, 52, 46 and 54 points, and Lewis has gained at least 100 yards each time, which can’t make UCLA feel very good because the Bruins play Rose Bowl-bound Washington today.

UCLA must try to catch Lewis, a soft-spoken, studious, religious, 5-foot-10, 210-pound senior who is on his own mission. Lewis is trying to catch Marcus Allen.

In 1981 at USC, Allen became the only Pac-10 back to gain at least 100 yards in every game of a season. Lewis is nine for nine this season. It has been noted that the Indianapolis 500 happens every May, but the Lewis 100 happens every Saturday.

Of course, it hasn’t hurt that Lewis runs behind an offensive line only slightly smaller than Puget Sound. From tackle to tackle, the Huskies weigh 288, 270, 280, 290 and 315 pounds. That last one would be 6-foot-7 strong-side tackle Lincoln Kennedy, who may not be team captain, but is believed to be in the running for team president.

Behind this bunch, in the two years he has been a starter, Lewis has 14 games of 100 or more yards, 10 them in a row, and leads the conference in rushing.

Is this guy a Heisman Trophy candidate or what?

“There is not much I can do about it,” Lewis said. “All I have to do is go out and play my best.”

On the field, Lewis is not so underwhelming. He is averaging 5.7 yards a carry, with 1,229 yards in 217 carries, and his average of 136.56 yards a game ranks him fifth in NCAA Division I-A rushing.

The Huskies, of course, are No. 2 in the national polls, only a victory over UCLA and a Notre Dame loss to Tennessee away from a No. 1 ranking and a possible national championship. All those bumper stickers around town could be right. “Husky Fever” may be catching.

All this is pretty heady stuff for Lewis and his teammates, who already have crushed the other school from Los Angeles, beating USC, 31-0, in September at Husky Stadium.

There are 58,833 season ticket-holders who gather in the Huskies’ 72,500-seat doghouse where Lewis has had his best games--207 yards in a 46-7 rout of California and 176 yards in a 38-17 pounding of Oregon.

“He’s been a fantastic player,” running back coach Matt Simon said. “And when he leaves here, he’s got a real strong chance to make an NFL club, I think.”

That would certainly be a change from how his college career began. A basketball and football star at Ingraham High here, Lewis was a bench-warmer for his first two years behind tailback Vince Weathersby. But until Weathersby--nicknamed “VW”--pulled out, Lewis stayed parked.

“I was wondering if I was ever going to get to play,” Lewis said.

Sprint work lowered his time in the 40-yard dash from 4.6 to 4.4 seconds, and the hours Lewis spent in the weight room turned his thighs from average to tackle-breaking. There has never been anything wrong with Lewis’ peripheral vision, which Coach Don James said enables Lewis to find the right hole in the defense.

“Vision is part of it,” James said. “He’s got the ability to make a move based on where he feels the hole.”

There was a time when it seemed unclear whether Lewis would even have a chance to look for a hole. Instead, Lewis was heading for trouble.

Twice during his senior year in high school, guns were pulled on him. Lewis blamed alcohol.

“And alcohol and I don’t mix,” he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer earlier in the season. “When I drank, I got kind of violent.”

Lewis, from South Seattle, said it would be wrong to portray his youth too harshly: “I mean, I wasn’t like a thug or anything, but I made some bad decisions.”

So Lewis turned to the Bible. Influenced by teammate Donald Jones, he let his new-found religious beliefs steer him in the right direction.

“I didn’t want to be a tough guy anymore,” Lewis said.

He teaches Bible studies on Mondays at a dormitory on campus, holds prayer meetings at his house on Thursdays and attends Rejoice in Jesus Ministries services on Sundays.

Lewis, a political science major with a 3.0 grade-point average, will graduate in June. He will be the only senior on the football team to graduate in four years.

Said Lewis: “God gave me a brain, too.”

Father of a 1-year-old girl, Briana, Lewis said he plans to wed Felicia Gipson, his daughter’s mother, after he graduates.

After that? Well, Lewis doesn’t like to look too far ahead, no matter how attractive his string of 100-yard games must make him look to some NFL teams. “I have dreamed about the NFL, sure,” Lewis said. “But you come to realize that not a lot of people make it. At least now, though, I think I have a chance.”