Costa Mesa Fullback Is Team’s Franchise : Football: In one year, Crenshaw, also a standout defensive end, has established himself as perhaps the league’s best talent.

DeWayne Crenshaw looks back on the incident now and laughs easily.

He was recalling his oft-repeated comment during Costa Mesa’s Pacific Coast League title run last year, when he said, “We own Century” in anticipation of the following week’s game and clinching the PCL championship. Instead, Costa Mesa escaped with a 7-7 tie--the only blemish on its first outright league title in 32 years.

“I don’t think I’ll ever say anything like that again,” Crenshaw said. “I run track, too, and Century has a couple of real fast guys. They said, ‘Are you the one who said you own Century?’

“I said, ‘I guess I am.’

“And they said, ‘Here’s a payback.’

“They really toasted me in the 100 (meters). I learned to keep it to myself.”

There have been a lot of learning experiences for Crenshaw. As a troubled student at Edison who missed football his sophomore year because he was academically ineligible, he moved to Costa Mesa and has blossomed as a student and an athlete. Mustang Coach Myron Miller paid him some attention and helped him become eligible to play football, and Crenshaw has established himself as, arguably, the league’s best talent.

The first time he carried the ball for Costa Mesa, he rushed for a 44-yard touchdown.

“He has raw power, tremendous power,” Miller said. “He can power-clean 265 pounds and he weighs 195. He can full-squat 400 pounds. He can vertically jump 39 inches. He just has tremendous power.”

Crenshaw, in one year, established himself as franchise player.

“I had two kids transfer in last year (Crenshaw and Charles Chatman) and they made the difference between a 6-4 team and losing in the first round of the playoffs, at best, to playing for the section title,” Miller said. “No one could do on both sides of the ball what DeWayne could do.”

Crenshaw, a fullback, rushed 121 times for 930 yards last year. And when he played defense, he scared quarterbacks, recording 13 1/2 sacks from his defensive end position.

He also made his teammates better. Binh Tran was more effective his senior year, Miller said, because defenses had to be wary of Crenshaw. Tran rushed for 2,303 yards. Together, Tran and Crenshaw combined for 3,233.

In addition to the raw power that Miller is so impressed with, Crenshaw also has a high tolerance for pain and a relentless attitude.

In fact, Miller even holds Crenshaw out of some practice drills “because he does everything in practice full speed and it’s dangerous to the other players.”

Crenshaw admits to one weakness, though. He doesn’t catch the ball well, but if defenses can’t catch him when he has the ball, it might not matter.

When he arrived from Edison, Crenshaw had completed a semester in which he received five Fs and a D on his report card, Miller said. Since then, his GPA has risen to the 2.3 to 2.5 range.

“When he came from the other school, I don’t think he saw himself as a college athlete,” Miller said. “Now I think he sees himself as a college athlete and he’s very motivated.”

Indeed, he is. He has received letters from San Diego State, Colorado, Washington and USC.

“I want to go to college,” Crenshaw said. “When I first came to Costa Mesa (as a sophomore), everything was going bad for me--things were pretty bad at home and at school. Coach (Miller) took me in. He showed some interest in me.

“He helped me get through my whole year and showed me that school was easier than I thought it was. Socially, it’s easier to talk to people than I thought it was. And if you sit down and study, do your work and go to class, you can pass--it’s not that hard.”