Last man standing: Braxton Cleman, class of '98

This was supposed to be the year when Washington would have so many experienced running backs the only question would be how to keep everybody happy. Instead, a long run is as rare a sight at Husky Stadium as an "I love Mike Bellotti" T-shirt.

On letter-of-intent day in 1998, UW Coach Jim Lambright announced the signing of five running backs — thought to be the most the school has ever recruited in one class — and proudly proclaimed Washington's backfield troubles over.

Five years later, the payoff from that group should be rich. Instead, Braxton Cleman says, "I'm the last one standing."

And Cleman is barely doing that much of the time, battling a hamstring injury that has limited him to two games this season.

Still, that Cleman has persevered this long, and is all that's left of that 1998 class is, in Cleman's words, "amazing."

Lambright set out to recruit running backs that winter after the Huskies were inexplicably caught short at the position.

The UW's big targets were DeShaun Foster, who ended up at UCLA, and Willie Hurst, who was, to use Lambright's term, the "highlight" name in the UW's gang of five running backs.

Cleman arrived as the least-heralded of the quintet, playing his high-school ball at Oroville, a B-11 school, grabbing the notice of Huskies coaches mostly by running the fastest 40 at the UW camp in the summer of 1997.

"I'm the guy who wasn't supposed to be anything but a safety," Cleman said.

Instead, other than Hurst, Cleman is the only one who made much of an impact as a running back.

Matthias Wilson, a Ferndale High grad, spent four years at the UW and saw some time last season as a fullback before transferring to Western Washington this season.

Jelani Harrison, a speedster from Compton, Calif., whom the Huskies stole from Washington State at the last second, battled injuries throughout his UW career and is now at Montana, finally scoring the first touchdown of his college career last week.

Andrae Perry, another Southern Californian, never played a down, leaving the UW before the 1999 season, with no one at Washington really sure where he ended up.

And then there's Cleman, who figured he'd be long gone by now. Cleman and Hurst were the only two of the five to play as true freshmen in 1998, and Cleman went into the 2001 season assuming it would be his last. Then he broke his collarbone against Idaho in the second game of the season. Coaches asked Cleman to sit out the season and redshirt, but Cleman wanted to come back and play and finish with Hurst, or simply leave with a year of eligibility remaining.

"I had a lot of things on my mind," Cleman said. "Did I want to come back and continue? With all the guys they had coming back, I didn't feel I'd get sufficient time on the field."

One of his last talks with Curtis Williams, however, convinced Cleman to redshirt and return for a fifth season.

"He told me, 'Hey, the first thing you said your freshman year was that you were never going to quit,' " Cleman said. "He's right. I had to stick it out."

So Cleman came back, feeling better about football than he had in a while, only to be felled by a hamstring injury during summer conditioning that worsened during training camp.

Last week, with Rich Alexis nursing an ankle injury, Cleman had no choice but to play. He looked good early on a 21-yard touchdown run, but seemed to slow down in the second half, finishing with just 42 yards, admitting later that he's still trying to overcome the fear of re-injuring his hamstring.

Still, he says hopefully, there will come a time this season when he will "make a stand, not only for myself, but for the class of 1998."

He's the only one left who can.

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com.