Jackson's Kirton has huge football talent — and he's still growing

MILL CREEK — Johnie Kirton unleashed everything they thought he could that day last winter, picking a random basketball game to preview this year's football season and show off his boundless talent.

Doug Kirton, his father, and Joel Vincent, his coach, saw the same thing. They watched the game from different vantage points and came to eerily similar conclusions.

Both had always wondered how far Johnie would take his talent. When would athletic ability befriend work ethic? When would Johnie Kirton jump from one of the best athletes in a conference full of them to one so freakishly talented no one could explain it?

"What we're seeing now is work ethic put into place," Doug Kirton said. "He was always so naturally good at things that he would cruise because he could. I saw him play with passion that day that I'd never seen before. That's when I thought, 'Now he knows.' "

Said Vincent, "It was like he realized something that day. Like he figured out how physically gifted and talented he is. That's when I knew."

Nine months and more than 1,000 rushing yards later, everybody knows. And not one person who knows Jackson's Johnie Kirton — which seems like everybody these days — is surprised at what's unfolding.

Kirton gazes somewhere far away, lowers his voice until it's barely audible, then sheepishly addresses a topic that makes him entirely uncomfortable.

Yes, he's the leading rusher in the area. Yes, he set the school rushing record in Week 3 then broke it one week later and then nearly broke it again last weekend. Yes, he has four 200-yard games under his belt through five games this season.

But they taught him to be humble, to blend in, to crack jokes and make friends and never be the loudmouth superstar. They call him "Bubba, the great big teddy bear" because of those big cheeks stretched out by that omnipresent smile.

"To tell you the truth, I haven't been surprised," Kirton said. "The last two years I've basically played the role that coaches wanted me to play, knowing that I'm capable of a lot more than what they want. I came in this year knowing this is my time."

The first thing everyone notices about Kirton is his size — 6 feet 3, 248 pounds of punishment he calls a frame. Last thing everyone notices about Bubba is his speed. He's long gone before it registers that someone so big could move so fast.

Doug Kirton figures it's just the laws of physics: Get a mass that large moving that quickly and whatever it hits should not be standing.

Vincent compares Bubba to super-sized NFL running backs Jerome Bettis and Christian Okoye.

"You don't see many big backs like him at this level who can run between the tackles as well as they run outside, who have vision, who can cut, who have that kind of speed," he said. "Those guys come to mind, but I hesitate to compare them because Johnie runs better outside than those guys do."

Kirton switched from fullback to tailback this season after dropping 20 pounds after a summer of agility drills and weightlifting. His specs are downright scary: 4.6 seconds in the 40-yard dash, 320-pound bench press, 585-pound squat.

Scarier still, Kirton is still growing. His mother, Heather, is Yugoslavian and all his cousins are over 6 feet, with the tallest 6-9. X-rays of his growth plates last year showed four more inches of possible growth.

But that's about all that's scary about Bubba. Off the field, he's that teddy bear, the oldest of five siblings and the only male.

"He's actually one of our most sensitive kids," Heather Kirton said. "You should see him with his baby sisters, the softer side of him. He plays with them so delicately. They all light up whenever he comes in a room. It's special to watch."

Nothing's delicate about Kirton on the football field, although plenty of special moments were on display last Friday against Kamiak. Like when Kirton spotted a defensive back 25 yards, but chased him down on an interception return to prevent a score.

Where will Kirton play next year? Oregon, Washington State and Montana are among the finalists.

"He has all the tools," said Vincent, who ranks Kirton in the top five players he has coached at Jackson. "He's started down the path of realizing just what a special talent he has. His future is going to be determined largely by how hard he works to achieve what he wants."