Top Gun camper Derrick Green transforms himself into elite running back
Derrick Green remembers how painful it was less than two years ago to be told he wasn't running back material. For a kid who wanted nothing more than to play the position, the words were like daggers.
The worst part of it was Green's coaches and trainers were right. At 268 pounds, and with a 40-yard dash time of 5.2 seconds as a freshman at Hermitage High in Richmond, giving Green a big role in the backfield was out of the question.
"When I first started working out, I told my trainer I was a running back," said Green, who is working out this week at the Football University Top Gun camp at the Warhill High sports complex in Williamsburg. "He said, 'You're not a running back. I see a (defensive) tackle.' I said, 'OK, I'm going to show you.' What he told me just stuck with me. I knew I couldn't be a running back at 268. It just wasn't happening."
That's when the transformation started.
In less than two years, Green has shed almost 50 pounds and trimmed nearly an entire second off his 40-yard dash time. With a breakout junior season this fall, there's a good chance he could be one of the nation's most heavily recruited running backs in the class of 2013.
Virginia and Virginia Tech are already two of a handful of huge programs that have taken notice. At a one-day camp in Blacksburg early this month, he ripped off a 40-yard dash time of 4.37 seconds - a time that has become fairly routine for him. Before he left the camp, he had a verbal scholarship offer from Tech.
He also has offers from U.Va., Penn State, Ohio State and Tennessee. That's an impressive list of suitors for a 16-year-old kid that ran for just over 700 yards and 10 touchdowns last season.
