Stanford junior Gerhart looking to go out on top: Linked by draftdaddy.com:
Toby Gerhart is just 51 yards short of Stanford's single-season rushing record and hopes to eclipse the mark this weekend in the Big Game, the Cardinal's annual matchup with rival California.
Jack Carey, USA TODAY
Spare time is not exactly plentiful for Toby Gerhart. And that's just the way he likes it.
As Stanford gets ready to close the regular season Saturday against old foe California in the Big Game, the Cardinal (5-6) are hoping for their first bowl bid since 2001, and junior running back Gerhart is closing in on the school's single-season rushing record. With 1,033 yards, Gerhart is 51 short of the 1,084 gained by Tommy Vardell in 1991.
But even if the Cardinal don't get a postseason bid, Gerhart won't have a lengthy personal offseason. By January he'll be preparing for another year as an outfielder for the Stanford baseball team, continuing the long tradition of multi-sport stars produced by the school, a list that includes John Elway, John Brodie and Ernie Nevers.
Gerhart's heroics are coming a little more than a year after he was lost for the season with a knee injury. After running for 140 yards on only 12 carries in less than three quarters against San Jose State in the second game of the season, Gerhart suffered a torn posterior cruciate ligament. He was first expected to miss only a couple of weeks but then injured the knee more severely in practice and was shut down for the rest of the year. The team finished 4-8.
"I saw a bunch of doctors, and there was a big debate about whether surgery would be necessary or not," Gerhart says.
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Ultimately, surgery was not performed, meaning strenuous rehabilitation would be necessary. Gerhart, however, did have some arthroscopic work done to clean up some cartilage.
The news was not universally good, however.
"Some doctors were saying I may never make it back as a running back, that the knee would always feel a little looser than before and I might be a step slower," he says. "So at that point, it was more of a motivational thing to get back out there."
It didn't take coach Jim Harbaugh long to see what could be in store this year. Gerhart ran for 147 yards and two touchdowns in a season-opening 36-28 victory against Oregon State and hasn't looked back.
Harbaugh has taken to calling the 6-1, 232-pound Gerhart, "Riggins" because his rugged running style reminds him of former Washington Redskins star John Riggins.
"His durability is phenomenal," says Harbaugh. "Toby is a man. USC has four running backs who might end up in the NFL, but I'd take my guy."
After dealing with his knee issues early last baseball season, Gerhart ended up hitting .240 with seven home runs to help the Cardinal reach the College World Series.
When the team returned from Omaha in late June, he was only a couple of weeks from starting summer workouts with his football teammates.
Despite bouncing from one sport to the other, the management, science and engineering major has a 3.2 grade-point average. Time management and being able to consistently keep up with his studies are important, he says.
"I don't feel like there's a lot of stress one way or the other, and I always have time to do other things, even a social life," he says. "I'm not too bogged down."
Having the ability to play more than one sport in college was a key part of his attraction to Stanford after a spectacular high school career. At Norco (Calif.) High, Gerhart broke the state career rushing record by more than 1,000 yards, finishing with 9,622.
UCLA was also a finalist.
"I was drawn by the tradition of the two-sport athlete here and the academics, of course," he says. "Plus, the football program had been down, and I wanted to be part of turning the program around and making a difference."
