Team Players : Santa Margarita’s Newman Puts Winning Before Personal Gains

Billy Newman got the nickname early in life. “Thumper” was given him by his parents because he kicked so hard in the womb, he cracked his mother’s ribs.

“I was trying to run then and I’m trying to run now,” Newman said with a laugh. “It was a little tougher back then.”

Running comes easy for Newman these days. He is Santa Margarita’s running back, holds 21 school records, and last week ran the Eagles right into Saturday’s Southern Section Division V title game.

His four-touchdown, 211-yard performance helped Santa Margarita to a 31-0 victory over Tustin in the semifinals. He’s hopeful of something similar against Newport Harbor at Cal State Fullerton. But the records, the accolades?

“It’s absolutely not important at all,” Newman said. “The most important thing is getting to the finals, and now we’re there, so the most important thing is winning.

“That’s the beauty of this team; it’s a complete, unified group. There are no individuals, only spokesmen.”

Newman, a senior, makes a terrific spokesman. He has rushed for 2,056 yards this season--the third-best total in the county--and his 8.7 yards per carry is highest among the top five rushers.

Most impressive is the competition against which he amassed those totals. Ten of the 12 games he has played--he sat out the second-round playoff game against Valencia with a tight hamstring--were against playoff teams, including four that reached section semifinals. In those 10 games, he rushed for 1,833 yards and 16 touchdowns.

“We thought [Santa Margarita] had the best offensive line we faced all year,” said Irvine Coach Terry Henigan, who has watched Newman on the varsity the last three years. “It’s tremendous. And he’s good.”

Henigan was referring to linemen Matt Strickroth, Bryce Jackson, Ryan Thigpen, Shaun Jackson and Stan Bennett. But Jim Hartigan, Santa Margarita’s coach, admits there’s more to it than that.

“[Newman] makes our offensive line look really good,” Hartigan said. “He makes your blocks look better, [because] you don’t need to hold your blocks as long. He’s made some bad plays turn out to be good plays, and some good plays turn out to be great plays.”

But Newman, bringing the discussion full circle, said, “[My linemen] open the holes for me to look good. They do all the work, I just run through the holes.”

He expands further: “All they have to do is get a little opening, but it’s that little opening that’s the hard part to get; it’s not hard to run through an opening.”

Like in the semifinal game against Tustin. Newman twice took draw plays and scored from 62 and 47 yards. A little opening and . . . boom!

“He probably doesn’t have the top-end speed that some of the other [upper echelon] backs have,” Hartigan said, “but he makes up for it with his moves and his vision.

“I think his best moves are inside the line of scrimmage; he does a good job of reading the way the blocks are going to develop, reading where the defender is going to be and then cutting to the opposite direction.”

And presto, Newman scores 22 touchdowns, including one reception and one kick return.

When Santa Margarita (12-1) beat Newport Harbor (12-1) in the teams’ first Sea View League game, Newman rushed 28 times for 268 yards and two touchdowns in a 36-22 victory that decided the league championship.

And though it has probably been long forgotten by most, there was his 354-yard, three-touchdown performance against Trabuco Hills in Week 1. It was the fourth-best single-game rushing performance in county history.

“That maybe set the tempo of the season, that we were going to be a good running team and that we had a good offensive line,” Hartigan said. “That was big. And Billy seems to play well in the big games. He seems to have those. He’s had close to 200 yards, or more, in all the big games.”

Only one more remains to be run.

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The Record on Newman

The game-by-game rushing of Santa Margarita’s Billy Newman:

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Opponent Att Yds TD Trabuco Hills 30 354 3 St. Augustine 21 119 1 Servite 23 169 1 El Modena 14 57 0 Fountain Valley 19 230 1 Newport Harbor 27 260 2 Irvine 24 135 0 Woodbridge 14 59 1 El Toro 25 124 1 Corona del Mar 8 162 3

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PLAYOFFS

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Opponent Att Yds TD El Modena 11 176 3 Valencia Did Not Play Tustin 21 211 4 Totals 237 2056 20

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