In 2006, Marquis Roberts was just a fledgling football player, a 9-year-old member of the Jersey City PAL grid program, still learning how to play the game properly, when he made his declaration of where he wanted to play high school football some five years later.
“I picked up a newspaper and I saw a picture of this guy running with the ball,” Roberts said. “He wore No. 2 and had the wings on his helmet and the stripes on his shirt. I asked, ‘Who’s this?’ I said I don’t know if I could go there, but I wanted to go there.”
Roberts found out that the player in question was former Hoboken High School All-State running back Damien Bates, who rushed for an astounding 2,200 yards and scored an amazing 34 touchdowns that year.
But back then, Roberts was just a third grader living in Jersey City. He couldn’t have known a single thing about the New Jersey Interdistrict Public School Choice Program, which has enabled many Jersey City students to attend other schools like Hoboken.
Many Hoboken football players over the past 15 years have come from Jersey City by way of school choice, including top players like Duval Kamara (Notre Dame) and Isaac Holmes (Rutgers and currently an assistant at Hoboken).
Rahmein Herron was a standout fullback for the Red Wings back then, lining up in the same backfield with Bates. Herron’s father was one of the coaches with the Jersey City PAL program and made a promise to Roberts.
“He told me that if I wanted to go to that school, he would do what he could to get me there,” Roberts said. “I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was the uniform. Maybe it was the color. I saw him [Bates] in the paper more than once. I told my coach to make it happen.”
Yes, Marquis Roberts was all of nine years old and just learning how to play.
Sure enough, five years later, Roberts was indeed enrolled at Hoboken High. His parents had to fill out all the necessary paperwork and go through all the proper channels to get him to be eligible for the school choice program.
But things didn’t exactly start out spectacularly for Roberts and he was wondering whether he had made the right choice.
“It was tough for me at first,” Roberts said. “I thought that maybe Hoboken wasn’t the place where I should be. The coaches were tough on me and I wasn’t used to that. There were other running backs getting all the attention and I wasn’t getting anything. I really thought about leaving.”
Roberts had help changing his mind about leaving Hoboken.
“I don’t think my parents were going to let me leave,” Roberts said.
So Roberts stuck it out and bided his time. It didn’t take long for Roberts to earn his place with the Red Wings, gaining quality playing time as a sophomore in the secondary and sparingly in the offensive backfield.
“I saw into the program and started to earn my stripes,” Roberts said. “Each day, I felt like I learned something and I kept hearing that I had to earn my stripes. I didn’t know what it was, but I was earning them.”
At the same time, veteran Hoboken head football coach Lou Taglieri knew that he had a promising player on the rise, one that would eventually fit in nicely with the famed Hoboken Delaware Wing-T offense.
A year ago, Roberts was one of several talented running backs on the Red Wing roster that included Josh Mercado, who went on to play at Wagner College. Roberts rushed for almost 800 yards and scored 11 touchdowns in 2014 as a junior.
But as preparations were being made for the 2015 season, Taglieri knew he had to make a drastic change to his offensive strategy, scrapping the Wing-T set, which had been in place since legendary coach Ed Stinson was in charge and going with a new-fangled spread formation, using one running back and four wide receivers.
And that one back was going to be the 5-foot-8, 165-pound Roberts.
“He knew what he needed to do to be the lone back,” Taglieri said. “He knew what was expected of him. He had to be ready to carry the load as being the lone back. It’s a little different, going from three backs to being by himself back there. He used to have two other backs to help block for him.”
Roberts didn’t mind the challenge.
“I loved it,” Roberts said. “Especially going into my senior year and hoping to get noticed. I knew I had to do it. I had to carry the team. There was a lot to learn, but I was willing to do it.”
Taglieri had faith in Roberts.
“We always knew he would turn into something special,” Taglieri said. “Maybe we didn’t use him enough last year. He could have taken the load off Mercado. But once we decided to switch the offense, he had to be the one to carry the ball. There was no hesitation at all with the coaching staff or him. He wanted it and embraced it. If it meant him carrying the ball 60 times a game, he would have done it.”
Taglieri never takes Roberts off the field.
“Very rarely does he want to come out,” Taglieri said. “He’s been with us for four years and I don’t remember him ever coming out.”
That’s a remarkable feat, considering Roberts’ size _ or lack thereof.
“He just loves the game of football,” Taglieri said. “He practices with a big smile on his face. He’s always smiling.”
Roberts was certainly smiling a lot last Friday night at JFK Stadium during the playoff rendition of Friday Night Lights. The Red Wings took on Glen Ridge in the opening round of the NJSIAA North Jersey Section 2, Group I tournament and Roberts was more than ready, carrying the ball 20 times for 277 yards and two touchdowns of 74 and 57 yards respectively, leading Hoboken to an easy 36-0 victory.
For his efforts, Roberts has been selected as The Hudson Reporter Athlete of the Week for the past week, much like Bates, the guy who inspired Roberts’ desire to want to go to Hoboken almost a decade ago. Now, the two have something in common, besides leading the Red Wings in rushing.
As the lone back, Roberts has almost doubled his production from last year, gaining 1,400 yards and scoring 14 touchdowns this season.
Because he’s in a one-back formation, the responsibilities have increased.
“A lot of what he does relies on his speed,” Taglieri said. “He relies on his vision. He has great vision. A lot of what he does is on his own. You can’t teach that. He’s special. If he was 6-foot-1 and 210 pounds, he would be going to Michigan. But he doesn’t have a lot of size. But when you watch the tape of him, it doesn’t lie. The tape is the tape. He’ll go somewhere to play college football. He’s not done after this year.”
Roberts believes that he has better abilities in a one-back formation.
“The cuts are different, the holes are different, the reads are different, the vision is different,” Roberts said. “There are a lot of times I need multiple cuts to get through holes. There’s a lot of decision making. I didn’t have to have vision to go through holes in the Wing-T. I think I got this offense down pretty well. It took a good week or so. I just kept running. After a couple of days, it came to me more and more.”
Taglieri said that he’s going to miss Roberts’ personality.
“He’s fun to be around,” Taglieri said. “He’s well liked in school. He’s a leader on and off the field. He listens well and takes criticism well. I hate to lose him. It’s going to be tough to see him go.”
Roberts has only one thing in mind – and that’s Weequahic this weekend in the sectional semifinals, also on Friday night, also in the Mile Square City.
“I’m going to give it my all, put the team on my back if I have to,” Roberts said. “I’m not ready to pack it up yet. We packed it up early last year and it didn’t feel good. I’d be blessed if we could play for a state championship. It would be a dream come true. I feel pretty confident right now. I knew I could do this. But then again, I feel pretty confident every time I have the ball.”
Sounds like he’s a pretty confident young man, much like when he was 9 and promised he was going to Hoboken, thanks to the picture of another talented Red Wing running back in a newspaper. – Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.