THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 27, 1995 TAG: 9501270867
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: JIM DUCIBELLA
DATELINE: MIAMI LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
The kid who dreams of becoming an NFL running back, then patterns his play after Walter Payton and Earl Campbell is either goofy or gifted.
Or Natrone Means.
The only star in the offensive constellation of the San Diego Chargers probably is the most unusual running back in the NFL.
Like Campbell, the former Houston Oilers great, he's a tow truck, packing 237 pounds on a 5-foot-10 frame. Tie a shovel around his waist and he could plow a football field on a snowy day.
But like the former Chicago Bears star Payton, he churns up ground like a jack rabbit - shifty and quick, a guy who's feet are so light they barely touch the ground. Tie kite string around his waist and he'd have that sucker soaring toward heaven.
``Natrone has super skills,'' said Chargers running backs coach Sylvester Croom. ``We feel he's more capable of delivering the 10- and 20-yard run on a consistent basis than any man his size.''
``No doubt, he's unique,'' teammate Ronnie Harmon says.
And in every way. Seldom has a team staked so much on one so young, a kid who left college a year early and should be a rookie. But if the Chargers are to have any chance at beating the odds - and San Francisco - in Super Bowl XXIX, Means must guide them.
Ball control is the issue. If the Chargers keep the football in their hands, the 49ers won't have it in theirs. San Francisco coach George Seifert called stopping Means his team's top priority.
``This whole game is centered around ball control,'' Means said Thursday.
He has learned something about control. Self-control.
The Chargers were so delighted Means' 1993 rookie season, when the ex-North Carolina Tar Heel gained 645 yards and averaged 4 yards a pop, that they dealt popular veteran Marion Butts to New England during the offseason.
Their only concern was Means' weight. He'd played at 225 pounds in high school. As a UNC freshman, he jumped to 231. The next couple seasons, he played at 240. Last season, his first with the Chargers, he tipped the scales at 245.
``In college, I'd basically lie around and eat until a month before practice began,'' Means said. ``Then I'd play my way into shape. By the third game, I was in peak condition.''
He peaked all right. Means arrived for Chargers' mini-camp in May packing 260 pounds of pure pork.
``We got scared, sure,'' offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen says. ``We told him we wanted him to stay here and work out with us.''
Means said no. He asked the Chargers coaches to trust him to take care of his own business. They agreed, but told him they wanted him back at 237.
The kid delivered. For years, his favorite meal was mom's fried chicken and cheesecake. Ate it all the time during his college days.
Now his favorite meal is baked chicken and salad. When he's home with his mother in North Carolina, he does the grocery shopping, a considerable portion of which is spent selecting frozen packages with ``Healthy'' and ``Lean'' written on them.
It was a radical change in their relationship. Before last spring, Mother Gwen called the shots, all the shots, in the Means family. Years ago, when she thought her son was getting a swelled head because of publicity surrounding his football exploits, she made him to sit out a year of junior high ball.
``He thought he was The Man,'' she told a San Diego paper in October. ``I had to slow him down a bit. He had to learn what was important.''
Like keeping his word to the coaches. In addition to the diet, Means began driving to the University of South Carolina to work out with other NFL players.
He made 237 pounds easy, though the number that made the Chargers even happier was 1,350. That's his rushing yardage for the season - a Chargers record.
``He has the two things that make a running back great - speed and power,'' Friedgen says. ``When he gets into the secondary, he can make a guy miss, or he can run him over.''
Means wishes he knew where all this talent originated. He didn't jump rope to improve his agility. He didn't do yoga to improve his flexibility.
``I wasn't always a running back,'' he offers. ``In sixth grade, I played quarterback, which was great because every play, we ran a quarterback sweep.''
Means has grabbed more of a leadership role among the Chargers than anyone in the organization imagined.
When Pittsburgh stuffed the Chargers on three consecutive goal-line runs in the AFC Championship game, forcing San Diego to settle for a field goal, Means unleashed a verbal barrage at his offensive linemen that was so out of character almost everyone on the San Diego bench stopped to listen.
``I heard this cussing, and I turned around and there was Natrone,'' Friedgen said. ``He was telling the linemen, `We're the Chargers, we can't let this happen to us. We're not going to let it happen.' I'd never seen that side of Natrone before. It didn't sound normal.''
Nothing about Means does. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
FILE
``Natrone has super skills,'' Chargers running backs coach Sylvester
Croom says. ``He's more capable of delivering the 10- and 20-yard
run . . . than any man his size'' - lately, 237 pounds on a
5-foot-10 frame.
by CNB