Heir To A King -- Lewis Rivals Mcelhenny As UW's Greatest

CUTLINE: SEATTLE TIMES, 1950: ONE OF THE FIRST OF THE CUT-BACK RUNNERS, HUGH MCELHENNY WAS, IN MANY WAYS, AHEAD OF HIS TIME.

CUTLINE: MARK HARRISON / SEATTLE TIMES: NOW THAT HE'S LOOKING TO GOD, GREG LEWIS' LIFE IS POINTED IN A NEW DIRECTION.

CUTLINE: VIC CONDIOTTY / SEATTLE TIMES, 1949: HUGH MCELHENNY WAS SIDELINED FOR MUCH OF THE '49 SEASON, INCLUDING THIS GAME AGAINST NOTRE DAME IN HUSKY STADIUM. THE IRISH WON 27-7.

Hugh McElhenny almost cringed at the sight. Greg Lewis, the University of Washington's senior running back, burst through the line and into the secondary. Lewis weaved right, then left and right into an opposing cornerback.

``I don't like to be highly critical of other backs,'' McElhenny said, ``but Lewis ran right into that tackler. He didn't feel him.''

McElhenny felt.

Along his road from Husky All-American to NFL Hall of Famer, what he felt most was fear.

Growing up, few things frightened McElhenny more than being summoned by his mother at night to fetch groceries. To get them, he had to traverse an alley behind his home in the Watts district of Los Angeles. At the end was a mom-and-pop store.

McElhenny spent nearly every day playing in that alley. He knew its every nook and cranny. But night turned it into a black hole, something to fear. He'd race as fast as he could through that darkened alley, swerving to evade doorways and garbage cans he instinctively knew laid in his path.

He ran the same way with a football.

``I ran with fear,'' McElhenny said. ``It wasn't a fear of getting hurt, but of getting caught.''

Fear was only one of McElhenny's weapons. He also had speed. He ran the 100 in 9.6 seconds in high school and once held the intercollegiate record in the low hurdles.

Speed, on the other hand, was not a necessity during Lewis' childhood. He seldom ran from trouble. Never embraced it, mind you, but never shied away from it, either.

``Let's just say he held his ground,'' said Eugene Harris, a Washington running back who grew up with Lewis.

Lewis spent a lot of his formative years protecting turf in South Seattle. At the Rainier playfield, he did so as an offensive lineman, providing escort service for Eric Metcalf, a first-round pick of the Cleveland Browns two years ago.

It wasn't until Lewis got to Ingraham High School that others started blocking for him. His instincts honed by years of creating holes as a blocker and plugging them as a linebacker, Lewis felt comfortable carrying the ball amid the mayhem. He developed a hopping, skipping, cutback style that reminded many of Curt Warner, the ex-Seahawk running back.

In spite of Lewis' impressive college credentials, many NFL scouts peg him for the second to fourth rounds in the league's upcoming draft. Some believe he simply doesn't have enough breakaway speed. Others say he doesn't put whatever speed he does have to optimum use.

The scouts' doubts overtook Vince Weathersby even after Lewis' workmanlike Husky predecessor had overtaken McElhenny on the UW's career rushing list. Weathersby, now ranked No. 3 after Lewis, went untabbed in the NFL draft. Lewis aims to ward off the critics as Weathersby could not and the tacklers as McElhenny once could.

``My initial burst is just as fast as any other running back's,'' said Lewis, who has improved his time in the 40 from 4.6 seconds to 4.4. ``Sure, I got caught from behind, but some of the guys who caught me from behind were world-class sprinters. And there were other reasons why I got caught. I think I can prove I have that long-distance speed.''

Doing so may be Lewis' best shot at measuring up to McElhenny's legacy.

This year, Lewis finished fourth in the nation in rushing and seventh in the Heisman Trophy balloting. The Doak Walker Award winner, for academic and athletic excellence by a running back, he also was named the Pac-10 Conference's offensive player of the year and to several All-America teams. He walked away from last month's team banquet with four awards - player of the year, athlete of the year, back-receiver of the year and most inspirational player.

Along the way, Lewis also nudged past McElhenny in the Husky record books, erasing his career record for 100-yard games and passing him on the career rushing list.

Even so, some say Lewis cannot carry McElhenny's chin strap as a runner. McElhenny's comparative greatness is mitigated by several factors:

Lewis was the one back in Washington's one-back offense; McElhenny shared Washington's attack with an All-American quarterback, Don Heinrich. Lewis had 11 games per season; McElhenny only 10. Though a full-time starter for only two, Lewis had four years at Washington; McElhenny played only two full seasons.

Lewis had a great offensive line; McElhenny's was makeshift. A great defense gave Lewis opportunities; a less-than-stalwart defense robbed McElhenny of more. Lewis ran and caught; McElhenny ran, caught, returned punts and kickoffs and played a little defense.

The same doubts have dogged Joe Steele, the former Blanchet High School star who remains Washington's all-time leader in career rushing yardage. This year, he and McElhenny were voted as the top running backs in the Huskies' 100-year history.

However, ``I never considered myself in McElhenny's league,'' Steele said. ``I just went out and did the best I could. In his time, he went out and did the best he could. Greg Lewis went out and did the best he could. You just have to applaud everybody. We're all different.''

Lewis agrees.

``The records are all in perspective,'' he said. ``I can't even think of myself as being in McElhenny's company. He's in the NFL Hall of Fame. Right now, I can't even say I'll even play in the NFL.''

-- -- --

``Hugh McElhenny was the greatest, they called him the king. He could play today, and if he were on this Washington team, I'd be second string.''

- Lewis, after passing McElhenny's school record for career 100-yard games against California.

Like an old photograph, a sports legend has a tendency to fade over time. Old generations die out, taking first-hand memories with them. New generations rise up and embrace their own. Records break, a compact-disk era takes hold, and digitally recorded feats are the ones that become indelible.

Though just 21, Greg Lewis has not lost sight of his Husky past. Yet he might be part of an emerging minority. For many, Hugh McElhenny is becoming little more than a name that tickles the memory.

Four decades can do that to a sports legend. But even 40 years is not long enough to forget.

George Halas, the late founder and long-time coach of the Chicago Bears whose career spanned more than six decades, once called McElhenny the greatest running back he'd ever seen.

That's sweeter than Sweetness (Walter Payton) and juicier than the Juice (O.J. Simpson). During an era seemingly dominated by Jim Brown, McElhenny was considered by many the most feared running back in the game.

``I'd take McElhenny over anybody,'' said Frank Albert, who played with, then coached McElhenny at San Francisco. ``He's the most entertaining football player I'll ever see.''

Don Heinrich, the ex-Husky All-America quarterback, said, ``Hugh had a knack, a sixth sense. His field vision was such that he really saw the second and third tacklers upfield. He'd be setting them up as he was trying to make the first guy miss.

``He had a move I've never seen anyone make where he'd go sideways in midair and change directions. He also had the ability to lower his shoulder in such a way that he'd have the leverage against a tackler. His balance was such that he could go sideways. Sometimes he looked like he was going to break away and he'd run over you instead. He'd run 150 yards to gain 50.''

Harlan Svare still remembers the feeling. A linebacker for Washington State, then the Los Angeles Rams and New York Giants, Svare spent a career (unsuccessfully) chasing McElhenny on a football field. He recalls once missing McElhenny three times during the same play.

``You can't separate one back as the greatest,'' said Svare, who now lives in San Diego. ``You'd have to consider Brown, Simpson, Payton, (Gale) Sayers. They all belong together. Theirs is a rare atmosphere, and McElhenny's certainly in that atmosphere.''

If built on statistics alone, the case for McElhenny as greatest is tenuous. He is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame for what he was, not what the numbers said he was.

Trapped for most of his career in an era of 12-game schedules, the closest he came to a 1,000-yard rushing season was 916 in 1956. Two teammates gained 1,000 yards in a season during his 49er tenure. One of them, Joe Perry, became the first back in NFL history to do it in consecutive seasons. McElhenny never led the NFL in rushing, and paced the 49ers only twice.

One of the Washington records McElhenny still holds, his 100-yard punt return against USC in 1951, is one that can only be matched, never broken, and says more about him than any of his other statistics.

He was a bomb without a timer, liable to explode without notice. He was lightning in an era of thunder, one of the lone breakaway threats among a generation of smash-mouth running backs. One of the first of the cut-back runners, he was, in many ways, ahead of his time.

And, arguably, a victim of circumstances.

During the 1950s, the 49ers were handicapped by an embarrassment of riches. With McElhenny and Perry, quarterback Y.A. Tittle and another running back, John Henry Johnson, formed the so-called Million-Dollar Backfield. All now are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. San Francisco also had running back J.D. Smith and receivers Gordy Soltau and Billy Wilson, each of whom made Pro Bowl appearances.

Unable to sort out their formidable offensive weapons, and lacking much defense, the 49ers mustered a 9-3 record in 1954, but failed to make the playoffs or deliver on their promise during McElhenny's career.

Heinrich, who played with the New York Giants, Dallas and Oakland, said, ``Had Hugh been in a system like the Giants' or Green Bay's, where they knew how to utilize him, he'd have gone down as the greatest without having to make a case for it.''

-- -- --

``He's more humble now than he's ever been.''

- Husky running back Eugene Harris on Lewis, his childhood friend.

After all the pros, cons, numbers and circumstances are taken into account, there is only one area in which Greg Lewis bowled over the most regal of his University of Washington predecessors, Hugh McElhenny.

Lewis will wake up New Year's Day and smell the roses. McElhenny never got a sniff.

Though his team never was, Lewis himself was nearly thrown off the scent.

For the past six weeks, he has undergone a rigorous, twice-daily rehabilitation from arthroscopic surgery to repair cartilage damage suffered in his left knee Nov. 18 against UCLA. His manic devotion has positioned him to play in the Huskies' first Rose Bowl since 1982.

Lewis had one thing that McElhenny lacked - control over his destiny. Bad karma, more than anything, robbed the King, as McElhenny was known, of a crowning achievement.

Fifty-one years ago, during a touch-football game on a littered field in Watts, McElhenny, then 10, planted a shoeless left foot on the jagged remains of a milk bottle. His misstep severed several tendons. Initially, it was feared he would be crippled.

Ten years later, in 1949, the injury resurfaced and sidelined McElhenny for most of his first season at Washington. In 1950, the only full season he and Heinrich played together, the Huskies twice fumbled away the Rose Bowl inside the California 10-yard line late in the fourth period. Two weeks before the 1951 season opener, Heinrich suffered a shoulder separation, prematurely ending Washington's last hope of getting McElhenny to Pasadena.

``If Heinrich was playing in 1951, we probably would have won the conference,'' McElhenny said.

If he can locate a pair of tickets, McElhenny, now director of government trade relations for the Alpac Corp. in Seattle, plans to follow Lewis and the Huskies to Pasadena. There, he'll celebrate his 62nd birthday Dec. 31 and attend the Rose Bowl for the first time in years the next day.

It may be only coincidence that will bring Lewis and McElhenny together on New Year's Day. But coincidence, after all, was what united them in the Husky record book.

From his father, Bobby Mitchell, a star running back for Garfield High School and Shoreline Community College, Lewis inherited football talent and a quick temper that frequently was tested on the streets of Rainier Valley. His mother, Letha Matthews, provided the counterbalances - discipline and a commitment to academics.

Lewis took some of his mother's spirit with him to Ingraham, where he was an honor student. He also lost some of it. Puffed up by his on- and off-field successes, Lewis became more full of himself, strutting down Ingraham's hallways, the back of his letterman's jacket emblazoned with ``All-World.''

By his senior year at Ingraham, Lewis became the life - and death - of his classmates' parties. A few drinks rendered him boisterous and served to ignite his short fuse. Quarrels turned into fistfights.

During the interlude between his Ingraham and Washington football careers, Lewis picked fights with the wrong crowd. The retaliation took on frightening proportions. Twice, he had a gun pulled on him. Once, a rival tried to run his car off the road.

What's more, Lewis' episodic lifestyle began to erode the respect of his peers.

``He thought he was the best thing going,'' said James Clifford, a Husky linebacker who then was Ingraham's defensive leader, ``and he let everyone know it.''

When he arrived at Washington, Lewis had calmed somewhat. Still, he felt a hole in his heart, one he saw filled in freshman roommate Donald Jones, a devout Christian. After a series of late-night conversations with Jones, Lewis decided, ``I'd give this Jesus guy a chance.''

Once he did, Lewis says, the transformation was nearly instantaneous.

Aug. 21, 1989, brought another revelation. On that day, he and Felicia Gipson became parents of a daughter, Briana. The birth, coupled with his commitment to God, stripped Lewis of the last vestiges of his overinflated self-worth.

``You can't get carried away,'' Lewis said. ``You can't get so high on yourself that nothing can bring you down. When you get that way, it takes something really big to bring you down.''

It had taken McElhenny longer to come to the same realization.

In 1954, with the 49ers off to a 4-0-1 start, he suffered a separated shoulder and had to sit out the rest of the year. The following season brought a recurrence of his foot ailment. The two events underscored the frailty of his professional career and all the perks and self-indulgence that went along with it.

Though McElhenny played nine more NFL seasons, including some of his best, he wasn't the same person or player. He no longer took things for granted.

Before, McElhenny could afford to. He originally enrolled at the University of Southern California, but left for Compton Junior College because USC ``wouldn't pay me some money it owed me.'' He later chose Washington because it ``gave me the most lucrative offer.''

When McElhenny left the Huskies for the 49ers, it was jokingly said he was taking a pay cut to turn pro. It was no joke, however. His first NFL contract paid him $7,500. Through jobs provided by his deal with the UW, McElhenny and his wife, Peggy, earned nearly $10,000 per year.

After his mid-career injuries, ``I became more serious about life,'' McElhenny said. ``Before, I was carefree, happy-go-lucky. I figured somebody was always going to take care of me. I think my biggest mistake was not taking the opportunity of an education more seriously.''

Lewis hasn't made the same mistake. He has maintained a 2.9 grade-point average and will graduate - on time - this spring with a political science degree. He plans to either attend law school or pursue a graduate degree in business. Lewis has a handle on the future - with or without football.

It shows.

``He is a perfect role model for everybody on the team,'' Clifford said. ``He has his whole life together. A lot of people really look up to Greg for how he's turned his life around. I think he'll be successful in anything he does from now on.''

That may be true not only because of how, but where, Lewis grew up. Washington recruited him heavily, in large part, because ``we felt he was the best running back we'd seen in this city since Joe Steele,'' according to Dick Baird, UW recruiting coordinator. Which is saying a lot, for Steele is the school's career leader in rushing yards.

It also says a lot that Lewis managed to flourish in his hometown. According to Steele, the hometown-boy-makes-good role isn't always what it's cracked up to be.

``At first, it was difficult to make the transition to the business world,'' said Steele, who sells commercial real estate on the Eastside. ``Some people have the perception that all athletes can do is athletics. At first, it was a hindrance. When I was starting out, whenever people found out I was a former athlete during the introductory period, somehow there'd always be a problem in the transaction.

``I'm not an athlete anymore. I didn't want to be an athlete anymore. I wanted to move beyond that. I wanted to grow up. Notoriety helps, but you have to have the gunpower behind it. I think I have that now.

``Being a hometown kid is a big deal to a lot of people,'' he added. ``I don't go through a day when I'm making business calls and somebody doesn't mention something about my career or about Washington football. I think I'm always going to be remembered as a football player.''

However history judges Lewis in comparison to McElhenny, the 1991 Rose Bowl game will give him at least one measurable advantage. The fact that his run for the roses began in his backyard should ensure him an account in local memory banks.

``He's going to reap a lot of rewards down the road as he raises his family here,'' Baird said. ``People are always going to remember Greg Lewis.''

HUGH MCELHENNY FILE

Age: 61.

At UW: Known as ``Hurryin' Hugh,'' McElhenny perhaps is the most famous player to ever wear the purple and the gold. He held 16 Husky records at one time and still ranks first in single-season and career scoring and all-purpose running. He played from 1949-51. He suffered a foot injury in '49 that sidelined him for most of the season. He and Don Heinreich, All-American Husky quarterback, only played one full season together, in 1950.

Husky highlights: In 1949, in his second game as Husky, he took the opening kickoff against Minnesota and returned it 97 yards for a touchdown...In the season finale that same year against Washington State, he gained 296 yards, still a single-game UW rushing record.

UW honors: Unanimous All-Coast selection in 1950 and an All-America selection in 1951.

NFL career: Played for four teams - San Francisco (1952-60); Minnesota (1961-62); New York Giants (1964) and Detroit (1964).

NFL honors; Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1970.

GREG LEWIS FILE

Age; 21

Position: Tailback, University of Washington.

High School: Ingraham (Seattle)

Husky highlights: Became the first UW back in history to gain 1,000 yards in back-to-back seasons. he gained 1,279 yards in 1990. 1,100 last year...Holds school record for the most 100-yard games in a season and career...The first UW back to lead the Pac-10 in rushing since Jacque Robinson (926 yards) in 1982...Gained more than 100 yards rushing in each of his first nine games in 1990...Was fourth in the nation in rushing his senior year.

Honors: Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Year and first-team all-Pac-10. Other 1990 awards include winner of the Doak Walker award (athletic and academic excellence by a running back), first-team All-American (Sporting News) and second-team All-American (Associated Press and United Press International).

Don James on Greg Lewis: ``Greg has got a unique ability to make a cut, to find space to run in when it doesn't appear to be there.''

Greg Lewis on Hugh McElhenny: ``Hugh McElhenny was the greatest. He could play today, and if he were on this Washington team I'd be second string.''