Best of show: Prep leaves indelible mark
Column by Carl Steward
BERKELEY — Jahvid Best hasn't even officially enrolled yet at the University of California let alone slip on a pair of football pads, but he already has left an indelible mark on its campus. Saturday at Edwards Stadium, the lithe, explosive Salesian High track and football star repeated his North Coast Section Meet of Champions sprint double of a year ago, blowing away the competition in the 100 and 200 meters as expected. For Cal football fans who can't wait to see this kid move up the hill to Memorial Stadium as one of Jeff Tedford's prized incoming tailbacks next fall, you have to love this: Best is significantly faster now than ever. Already the state leader in the 100 (and second-fastest in the nation) with a 10.36 clocking, Best narrowly missed the long-standing MOC record with a time of 10.44. A poor start probably cost him the meet mark. That was not in the case in the 200, where Best blasted out of the blocks perfectly, and despite running into a slight headwind, obliterated the meet record of 21.24 with a time of 20.92.
For comparison's sake, Best won the NCS 100-200 double last year with times of 10.78 and 21.77, respectively, then clocked 10.56 to finish fifth in the state 100 and 21.31 to finish third in the 200. His times Saturday made those clocked as a junior look silly. Goodness, he was nearly a full second faster in the 200. "I wanted to go out here leaving a mark, leaving something to remember," said Best of his spectacular 200. "I think everybody who saw me run today saw me at pretty close to 100 percent of my capability." A splendidly cut 185-pound package of power and speed, it was easy to envision what Best might be capable of when he puts on a football uniform at Cal. It's tough to say how much playing time he's going to get as a freshman with a number of backfield candidates vying for the void left by Marshawn Lynch's departure to the NFL. But there's little doubt Best has a chance to make an immediate impact with the kind of incredible breakaway speed he possesses. Simply stated, one nice hole and nobody's going to catch this guy. Gone. See ya. Touchdown. To see him burn up the track in the 100, leaving Deer Valley's Taiwan Jones in his dust after Jones got the early jump out of the blocks, was a frightening sight but a fantastic one if you're a football fan. Does Best ever think about being on a football field while he's running one of his track races? Not really, he confessed.
"When I run track, I'm thinking about my form while I'm running," he said. "But in football, I just run." But what about those breakaway runs, of which he had so many memorable ones for his small parochial high school in Richmond? "Well, yeah, then I start to run like I'm running the 100," he said. "I get my knees pumping up a little higher." Best has one last challenge as one of the most remarkable East Bay dual-sport athletes in recent years. He wants to be a state champion next weekend at the state meet in Sacramento. He'll be the 100 favorite, but faces a formidable challenge in the 200 against Long Beach Poly's Bryshon Nellum, who has the nation's fastest time of 20.58 (Best now has the second-fastest nationally in both the 100 and 200).
Nellum, who signed a track/football scholarship with USC, is a wide receiver in training but primarily a 200/400 track star. He won't try to play football until 2008. Best, on the other hand, will have football on his mind first when he arrives at Cal, even though he also will run track at Berkeley. Can he beat Nellum? "I don't know, we'll see," he said. "But he's not going to walk away with it." Best tried to size up what it's going to be like being the favorite in one race and the underdog in another at the state meet.
"I'd rather be the underdog, but being on top is just as hard because you've got to worry about somebody," he said. "When you're the underdog, you see the top dog and you have to try to beat them. But when you're on the top, you don't know who's coming, so you have to be ready for everything." If nothing else, Best looked more than ready for Cal on Saturday. I asked him if he left tickets for Tedford to watch him run his two electric races. He chuckled. "Nah, he's probably busy doing something else," Best mused. It's hard to believe anything else could take priority over watching this young man run. Except maybe designing a stack of football plays for him, and then watching him run.
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