Tailback Enjoys Saturday Rush Hour : Football: New offense and off-season training program have helped Ira Moreland become the Western State Conference’s leading runner.

Gaining yards was tough and often painful for Harbor College tailback Ira Moreland in 1991, but he battled through the season and was named to the Western State Conference second team.

“Last year, carrying the ball meant getting pounded by the linebackers,” Moreland said. “This year I’m up against the secondary. It’s much better.”

The 5-foot-8, 195-pound Moreland was a member of the conference’s worst offense last year, when the Seahawks finished 3-7. This season, however, Harbor is 2-0 and Moreland leads the conference in rushing with 300 yards in 44 carries.

He gained 199 yards in 25 carries and scored a touchdown in the Seahawks’ 17-13 victory against East Los Angeles on Sept. 19.

After the game, Moreland was named conference player of the week and the JC Athletic Bureau’s state player of the week, the first time that a Harbor offensive player has won either of those honors.

“He’s slippery,” Harbor Coach Don Weems said. “He just slips by people because he doesn’t have super fast speed. He’s elusive. He has good vision and ability.”

In Saturday’s 10-0 victory against Pierce, Moreland gained 101 yards in 19 carries. East L.A. Coach Al Padilla predicts Moreland will get only better.

“He’s an exceptionally strong runner and we really had a difficult time tackling him,” Padilla said. “If he doesn’t get hurt, he’s going to have a fine year.”

Moreland, a Hawthorne High graduate, says there are two reasons for the Seahawks’ success and the improvement in his play: new offensive coordinator Leo Hand and an intense, off-season weight-training program.

Hand has installed the Wing-T offense, which uses three running backs: Moreland, T.J. Palaita and Damon Moore. The Wing-T helped Hand to a 24-1 record in two seasons as Serra High coach.

Moreland, 18, said he gained 10 pounds with the weight-training and conditioning program.

“Last year a guy would hit me and I’d be down,” he said. “This year I can take more hits. With this weight I feel better and stronger.”

Moreland says he was motivated after learning that Hand would coach the offense. Last season Harbor’s offense ranked last in the 12-member conference with an average of 267 yards a game.

This year Harbor is ranked fifth with 314.5 yards. The Seahawks lead the conference in rushing with 287.5 yards.

“It was really tough last year,” said the soft-spoken Moreland, who wears two gold hoop earrings in his left ear and a small gold ball in his right ear. “It was tough coming back to practice on Monday. My mom really helped me through that, though. She would say, ‘You’re the tailback. They need you. You can’t quit.’ But I thought of doing that many times.”

Learning the Wing-T was confusing at first for Moreland and his teammates. Once they adjusted, however, Moreland realized it was an improvement from the 1991 offense.

“It was like a fire drill,” he said, laughing. “At first we were all running into each other. It took about two practices to get it down.”

Moreland says the offensive line has also improved.

“They have made it a lot easier for me,” Moreland said. “They’re a lot more dedicated this year because coach Hand is really pushing them. They’re a lot better and it shows.”

Hand likes what he sees in Moreland.

“He’s a good running back and he has good potential,” Hand said. “So far he’s been running the holes correctly. He’s a hard-working guy.”

Moreland started his senior season at Hawthorne. He was a running back and backup quarterback at Crenshaw as a sophomore, but sat out his junior season because he didn’t get along with the coach.

He picked Hawthorne because his Pop Warner teammate, former Hawthorne standout Curtis Conway, had told him of the school’s tradition of producing standout running backs.

Former Hawthorne Coach Goy Casillas says Moreland didn’t have the speed of other backs who had attended the school, but that Moreland compensated in other areas.

“He was an extremely hard worker and dedicated football player,” said Casillas, who is the vice principal at Redondo. “He wasn’t the kind of guy that had a lot of speed, but he made up for it in his intensity.”

Moreland, a criminal justice major, hopes to earn a scholarship and become the first member of his family to graduate from college.

He says the pressure of earning a college degree is greater than leading a football team that has struggled for the past six years.

“I know I can do the football part,” he said, smiling. “Losing all those games last year helped me as a person. It made me tougher. It let me know I can play through anything, under any condition.”