Working His Way to Top of the List : Crespi’s Williams Plays Big in Team’s Big Games

Shaun Williams has clipped a list of the top running backs in the San Fernando Valley and taped it to his locker at Crespi High.

His name is not on it.

One recruiter ranked Chaminade’s Franklin Saunders, who is now out for the season because of a knee injury, Montclair Prep’s Wilbert Smith and Sylmar’s Tyrone Crenshaw ahead of Williams.

Also on Williams’ locker is a note saying, “Big backs have to play big in big games.”

And therein lies Williams’ chance to be included on the next list. Crespi seems to have a big game every week.

This year, Williams’ first as Crespi’s primary ballcarrier, the senior has outgained Saunders and Canyon’s Ed Williams in head-to-head matchups.

Next? Bishop Amat’s Rodney Sermons, the best player on the best team in California. Crespi will meet the Lancers on Friday night at Pierce College in a Del Rey League opener.

“Of course I think about it when I’m going against these backs, because everyone considers them to be the best around,” said Williams, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound tailback. “But I’ve really just got to go out and play my game and not worry about what anyone else is doing.”

Williams, who often flashes a broad, Magic Johnson-like smile, has gained 701 yards and scored nine touchdowns in 107 carries. He has gained at least 100 yards in the past four games.

The first game? Forget about that one.

The Celts (3-2) opened against Taft, which fields one of the area’s best defenses. Crespi alternated Williams and Deron McElroy in Crespi’s one-back offense. Crespi lost, 3-0, and Williams gained 18 yards in seven carries.

By the following week’s game against Canyon, a chain reaction left Williams alone in the backfield on virtually every play. Tight end Mike Glendenning moved to wide receiver to replace Wayne Emerson, injured before the season. McElroy moved to tight end to replace Glendenning.

Williams gained 138 yards and scored three touchdowns against the Cowboys.

A star was born.

The following week against Chaminade, Williams played most of the game with a hip pointer and a twisted ankle, both injuries incurred while he was playing safety. He still gained 219 yards, including a 58-yard touchdown run on a fourth-and-one play that assured Crespi’s first victory.

“He’s a very durable, tough kid,” Chaminade Coach Rich Lawson said. “I think we gave him some good licks and he kept coming. He ran all over us, then he kicked our butts on defense. I think he’s one of the better athletes we’ve faced all year.”

An assistant from an NCAA Division I school on the West Coast said: “He’s a special talent. When you gauge the caliber of competition he’s going against and see the things he does, it only upgrades your opinion of him. He’s one of those kids you wish would be hidden, but he’s not going to be hidden. People are going to find him.”

The natural question is: Where had he been until a month ago?

Williams, who started playing football at 7 because he just happened to be there when his older brother, Dereck, signed up, lived with his father in Carson from the time he was 8 until the summer before his sophomore year.

After playing freshman football at Serra, Williams moved in with his mother in Lake View Terrace and transferred to Crespi, where Dereck was a defensive back. But the Southern Section denied him varsity eligibility, ruling that a move from one parent to another was not a suitable change of address. Williams spent his sophomore season playing junior varsity football.

“I looked at it like a learning experience,” Williams said. “I’d play sophomore ball and work on my fundamentals.”

When Williams reached the varsity last season, Torie Lee was entrenched as the starting running back. Williams played safety and carried the ball occasionally, gaining 70 yards in 12 carries.

“Torie had been here for three years,” Williams said. “He paid his dues like I paid my dues. I was more worried about the team. And Torie is a good back (1,168 yards in 210 carries in 1992) so it’s not like I was way better than him. I had to go through the learning process on the varsity level.”

Among the important lessons Williams has learned is the value of his blockers. So he makes a point of sitting with his linemen at pregame meals. “Without them, we can’t do anything,” he said.

If they can make a hole, any hole, Williams can shoot through it. Also a sprinter and triple jumper for the track team, Williams has run a wind-aided 10.5 in the 100 meters, making him as valuable a defensive back as he is a running back.

He says now he has no preference for one position over the other--”I just like playing football, actually”--but that will be one of the major factors when he eventually decides on a college.

Washington State, Illinois, Nevada and Fresno State are among his top choices now, but he has yet to schedule any of his five official college visits.

Of course, one of the best ways for Williams to raise his stock as a blue-chipper is to make a good impression in games such as Friday’s against Bishop Amat. All he has to do is keep college coaches from fast-forwarding through the videotape on Crespi’s possessions to see the next carry for Sermons, who has gained 406 yards and scored 11 touchdowns in 48 carries.

“As far as me and Rodney Sermons, I would love to outgain him,” Williams said, “but I’m just going to concentrate on myself and not worry so much about what he’s doing.”