Hoboken’s Anderson next in line of great backs in family
When Stephon Anderson was a little boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, there was nothing he liked better than hanging around the Hoboken High School football team, where his cousin, Ravon, was an All-State standout.
“I was the team’s water boy,” Stephon Anderson said. “I managed to go all over the place with the team. It started with Ravon. I just wanted to be around it all the time.”
“Stephon was the football version of a gym rat,” Hoboken head coach Ed Stinson said. “He was a football rat, I guess. He was always around, at practices, at our pre-game meals, at games. He always wanted to learn everything that was going on as well.”
After one cousin, Ravon, left, first to the University of North Carolina, then on to Rutgers, another of Stephon’s cousins was ready to make his mark in the Red Wing backfield, another All-State wizard named Tyrell Dortch, who is without question the finest of all Hoboken running backs.
“It carried on for me when Tyrell came on,” Stephon Anderson said. “When you’re young and you see older family members that you love do so well, it just pops into your head that you want to be just like them. That’s only natural. They were so great. They made it look easy. Tyrell made the impossible stuff look simple.”
In 1999, Dortch rushed for 2,605 yards and 32 touchdowns, earning New Jersey Player of the Year honors, before heading off to Michigan State, where he still remains as part of the Spartan backfield.
So Stephon Anderson wanted to be just like his two older cousins when he finally got a chance to put on the Red Wing football uniform.
“We’ve definitely watched the young man grow over the last 10 years,” Stinson said. “He is a true product of the program. He wanted to be around all the time and we were happy to have him here. We’ve had a proud tradition of players here at that [tailback] position, a lineage of players that had already been established.”
A list that included two former greats who were Stephon’s family members.
“I think that made the expectations for me a little harder,” Stephon Anderson said. “I had to go out and be my own person, go my own way, without being expected to be like Ravon and Tyrell.”
The expectations were a little higher, because Stephon Anderson also wore No. 34, the same numeral that graced the backs of both of his older cousins.
“It was a big honor for me to wear No. 34,” Stephon Anderson said. “When I was younger, playing Pop Warner, I got to wear No. 34 and I loved it, so I stayed with it. But I found there was a lot of pressure on me at first to be like them and do the same things.”
Which was next to impossible, because Ravon Anderson was a great player and Tyrell Dortch was simply the best. To ask Stephon to even come close to those players would be totally unrealistic.
Stinson never expected Anderson to be exactly as talented as his cousins. He just wanted him to be the best player he could be. The coach never had to worry about his knowledge of the game or his work ethic.
“There’s an academic sense to football, where you have to learn the different techniques and schemes,” Stinson said. “We never had to worry about Stephon learning about what we were doing. He already knew. He had been around so long that a lot of the terminology and dialogue came natural to him. He can respond when someone talks about a blocking adjustment. He can respond when talking about what the other team is running. He was ready for all of that.
Added Stinson, “It would be unfair to put Stephon in the same class with the others. We never did that.”
However, last week, with the Red Wings’ season pretty much hanging on the line against Snyder, Stinson had no choice but to totally rely on his senior running back. At 2-3, the Red Wings couldn’t afford another loss, especially if they wanted to participate in the upcoming NJSIAA Group I state playoffs.
“We decided we had to push the envelope a little and feature Stephon more,” Stinson said. “So we lined him up at fullback and gave him the ball. We put him at tailback and gave him the ball. Basically, we decided that they were getting a dose of Anderson.”
Which was fine with Anderson.
“After we lost to Bayonne, I was tired of losing,” Anderson said. “After all, Ravon lost once in his career. So did Tyrell. We lost two in a row. I felt terrible, horrible. It was frustrating for me. I knew that if I wanted to get a state championship like Ravon and Tyrell got, I had to play harder and do more than what’s expected. That’s the main goal right now. They got a ring. I want a ring.”
Last Friday night, Anderson did whatever he could to make that dream of a getting a state championship ring a reality. He carried the ball 21 times for 210 yards and scored four touchdowns, leading the Red Wings to a 41-12 win over Snyder, evening the team’s record at 3-3 and making a trip to the state playoffs closer to fruition.
For his efforts, Anderson has been selected as The Hudson Reporter Athlete of the Week for the past week.
“I definitely looked at it as ‘do-or-die,’ so I had to step it up,” Anderson said. “If we lost, we were out. So it was definitely a good feeling for me to be able to have my best game when we needed it.”
Stinson was pleased with Anderson’s performance.
“He’s been here many years and he knows the tradition of what the program is all about,” Stinson said. “Stephon deserves to feel the tradition of this program. I used him as a barometer to the rest of the team. I told them that if we want to give a kid like Stephon Anderson a chance to compete for a state championship, then we all better pick it up. Right now, because of our success, we have a tremendous amount of pressure on us to get to the state playoffs, so I put the pressure on the players. Kids like Stephon Anderson responded.”
Anderson knows that the road to a state championship is never easy. He was on the field last year when the Red Wings fell a point shy of the elusive title to Ramsey in the North Jersey Section 1, Group 2 title game. He’s not ready to let his final chance slip away.
“I want to take my team to the state championship, like my cousins did,” Anderson said. “I want to feel what they felt. I think I want it more even than they did. We have to take it one game at a time, but I can feel it.”
Just to make winning a complete family affair.
—Jim Hague