FOREVER YOUNG
Steel-High running back concludes historic career with over 9,000 rushing yards
By Joshua Funk
For PA Football News
Jeremiah Young did a lot of things during his career for Steelton-Highspire. So it might come as a surprise that he couldn’t answer a question following the Rollers’ 35-16 victory over Clairton for the state title.
That question: How does he want to be remembered?
“Oh man, I can’t answer that,” Young said, smiling, then turning away for a minute. “That’s a really good question. I can’t even answer that.”
With a little prodding, though, Young did come up with an answer as to how he’d like to be thought of in the future.
“The best player in the state,” he said. “The best player in the state playing for a small school and doing big things.”
Break down that last line of that quote. Young was one of the best players in the state, maybe, maybe a very close second this year to Schuylkill Haven’s Zach Barket. #5 ran for 2,802 yards and 30 touchdowns this past season.
Young also played for a small school. Steelton-Highspire plays in the smallest of the state’s four classifications – Class “A” – and in recent history, the District 3 class “A” tournament has become the Steel-High invitational. The Rollers have won four straight D3 titles (nine overall) and 25 straight games.
Finally, Young accomplished a lot of big things during his career. He not only set the state’s career rushing record, but he also owns the District 3 record mark as well. Young’s career rushing total, 9,027 yards, ranks in the top-10 nationally. Last season, Young hit 400 carries and ran for 3,344 yards and 41 touchdowns. He hit three straight seasons running for 2,000 or more yards.
To boot, Young passed Emmitt Smith’s career high school rushing total in a Week 14 victory against Bishop McCort. Young’s 352 rushing yards gave him 8,858 yards at the time. Smith, in his career at Pensecola-Escambia High School in the middle 1980s, ran for 8,804 yards.
Young had been asked about that during a March interview for a feature in the yearly PA Football Digest magazine, for which he was one of the exclusive features.
Young said in the interview that even though he was a true-to-heart Eagles’ fan, it was still neat to accomplish the feat because Smith, who played the majority of his career for the Dallas Cowboys, was a legend, and knowing that his own level was comparable to Smith’s was something special.
So, given all of the feats that he accomplished, on top of being the 10th-ranked student in his graduating class, what does it all mean?
“It’s real special because not many people get that,” he said, not just pertaining to the 9,000 rushing yards, but everything else in his career.
To put Young’s career rushing total in perspective – think about it like this: there are 1,760 yards in a mile. In his four years at Steel-High, Young gained over 5.1 miles alone in rushing yardage.
Young’s career rushing total is nearly twice the length of Interstate 283, a spur interstate on Harrisburg’s Capitol Beltway connecting Interstate 83 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike spanning a mere 2.8 miles.
Young finished his career against Clairton running basically on one leg, running for 81 yards on 20 carries. He had a badly sprained ankle, and he was operating about 50 percent capacity. Rob Deibler, the Rollers’ head coach, said Young told him pregame he couldn’t cut.
“I just told him, ‘then we’ll run you straight ahead,’” Deibler said. “There wasn’t any way he was going to sit out this game.”
#5 said he wouldn’t have missed the game for the world.
“It meant everything for me because it was my senior year, my last game, my last game as a Roller,” Young said. “I wanted to go out with a bang.”
And even though he set all kinds of records, Young still operates under the “team-first” mentality. This last quote is evidence of that.
“The state title means more, because it’s a team thing,” Young said.
Team first. Records second.
That, in a nutshell, is Jeremiah Young.