Dorsey’s Gettis Wants to Add to His Fleet Feats

For halftime entertainment at the next USC football game, David Gettis of Los Angeles Dorsey High would gladly take on the Trojans’ famed equine mascot, Traveler, in a match race. And he might win too.

Gettis won the state 400-meter track championship last spring as a sophomore. He’s playing varsity football for the first time this fall, starting at receiver and free safety for the unbeaten Dons (3-0) and inspiring some to compare him to former Dorsey and USC receiver Keyshawn Johnson.

Gettis calls himself a “USC fanatic.”

“When a football game is on [TV], you can’t talk to me,” he said. “I’m in a zone. I’ll imagine myself running out of the tunnel at the Coliseum. I’m a junior now and know it’s possible.”

Just when USC receiver Mike Williams is about to leave for the NFL, the 6-foot-3, 190-pound Gettis could be arriving on the USC campus ready to replace him.

Gettis has a lot of similarities to Johnson, the most striking being that both can talk as fast as they run. Gettis is a quote machine. He’ll take you through his emotional highs and lows whether you’re a stranger or friend.

He’s a homebody who went to private schools all his life until enrolling at Dorsey as a sophomore. His parents are former Marines who work in law enforcement.

His mother, Valerie, is a sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department and his father, Dale, is a deputy sheriff.

It would be natural to think Gettis stays out of trouble for fear of angering his parents, but there are far more reasons he makes wise decisions.

“The lifestyle I live is not based on my parents being in law enforcement,” he said. “The reason I don’t get into trouble is that I have a love for God, and there are some things the Bible says you can’t do and I abide by that.”

His parents treat him like “a normal kid,” and Mom makes sure he doesn’t get a big head.

“The other day, I told him, ‘I don’t care how good you are or if you’re the state champion, you better get in there and clean the bathroom,’ ” she said.

The tale of Gettis’ meteoric rise in track last season could be turned into a TV movie.

“It is kind of amazing when you think about it,” he said.

Gettis ran his first high school race in the middle of April and was a state champion eight weeks later, lowering his 400-meter time by more than two seconds, a rare achievement for that late in the season.

Dorsey football Coach Paul Knox had urged Gettis to try track, but he was reluctant.

“I really didn’t like it,” he said. “I had off-season for football, to relax and hang out with my friends.”

He didn’t participate in his first meet until he ran a relay leg at the Arcadia Invitational on April 12. Seeing the large crowd and the attention paid to athletes from Long Beach Poly motivated him to start appreciating track.

“I heard so much about their football and track programs,” he said. “I felt I could be at that level with the right practicing.”

He ran a career-best 49.2 to win the San Fernando Valley Invitational at Lake Balboa Birmingham in late April, then finished second in 48.14 in the City Section preliminaries May 22. His times started to drop as he took on Brandon Myles of Carson.

“I heard how Myles was demolishing everybody,” he said. “That pumped me up.”

In the City final, Gettis ran 47.99 but finished third after starting too fast and fading in the end. He still earned a trip to the state championships at Cerritos College, where it was almost as if he were lost in a foreign country.

“I was thinking, ‘I’m third in the City, how am I going to place in state? I’m running against athletes who’ve been running since they were little kids,’ ” he said. “I’m shaking. You could [see it in] my eyes. ‘How am I going to do this?’ ”

At the state semifinals, Gettis stunned onlookers by running a career-best 47.14, the fastest time in the state all season.

“I got in the blocks, there was a false start and I was getting more nervous,” he said. “They finally give us the gun. I took it out easy. When I hit the final curve, I ran my heart out and kept running faster and faster.”

In the final, Gettis was in sixth place midway through the race, then brought forth all his talent and speed to win in 47.41.

“I started pumping my arms as hard as I could and yelling out the pain because it hurt,” he said. “I just ran in and I heard, ‘A sophomore wins!’ The crowd was screaming for some reason. I turned around. I was on Cloud 9.”

Meanwhile, Gettis’ mother and younger sister were almost delirious.

“They were screaming and yelling, ‘That’s my brother, that’s my son,’ ” he said.

Said Valerie: “It just blew us away. Even to this day, I look at the different medals he’s won and we’re still in shock. We never tried to discourage him, but I’m still kind of in awe.”

Gettis will have a change in attitude in his next track season. “I remember times I didn’t want to come to track practice,” he said. “... This coming year, I’m going to be one of the first people out there because now I have to defend my title.”

The only obstacle standing in the way of Gettis’ dreams is his performance in the classroom. He was briefly ineligible as a sophomore and understands he must focus on his schoolwork to achieve his goals.

“I see the possibility,” he said. “People are telling me, ‘You can do this and do that.’ I have a dream of going to the Super Bowl and after that, training for track and winning four gold medals.”

Considering what he accomplished last spring, nothing seems too unrealistic for a 16-year-old with extraordinary skills.

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Eric Sondheimer can be reached at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.