It only took one play to cut running back Grant Rushing’s junior season short.
But after separating his shoulder with four games left last year, the senior has come back to set school records, win awards and bring the Glenbrook North football team back into the playoffs.
After watching Rushing play as a freshman, Head Coach Bob Pieper put him on the varsity roster for his sophomore year. Before that season, Rushing was unsure that he was going to start or even get much playing time. Seventeen touchdowns and 1,162 yards later, Rushing was awarded all-conference honors and Central Suburban League North Offensive Player of the Year as the team ended the regular season with an 8-1 record and a playoff appearance in his first year on varsity.
“Going into [sophomore] season we had to write down our goals, and my goal for the year was to get three touchdowns,” said Rushing. “I exceeded that by a lot.”
Rushing’s shoulder injury kept him on the sidelines for four games the next season as the team fell to a 4-5 record.
“It’s rough,” said Rushing. “Obviously [the injury] made my stats go down, but more importantly I couldn’t be there to support my team and help them win games. It’s the worst feeling.”
Although Rushing said he received interest from colleges before the injury, no offers were made.
“A lot of scholarships now are advanced and everything’s happening after your junior year, so I think that [Rushing would] have a Division I scholarship already if he hadn’t been hurt,” Pieper said.
Following a 36-point loss in this year’s season opener against Hersey, Rushing answered with 295 yards and four touchdowns in the next game versus Lane Tech. For his performance, Rushing was named Chicago Bears High School All-Star of the Week. With the award, Rushing has the opportunity to be recognized at Soldier Field during the Bears vs. Seahawks game on Dec. 2. Rushing was also given $1,000 to donate to a youth football program of his choice, which he said will go to the Junior Spartans football program.
A week later against Glenbrook South, Rushing broke multiple tackles and dragged defenders into the end zone with less than a minute left in the game for a 15-yard game-winning touchdown. The 21-14 victory marked GBN’s first win against GBS since 2004.
“It was a really tough game the whole way, it was a huge fight,” said Rushing. “It was a goal for the season to beat GBS, to have that final drive my mentality was just to not go down.”
Three games later, Rushing set a single-game school record by running for 411 yards against Niles North, surpassing GBN alumnus James Velissaris’ (‘03) previous record of 346 yards, set 11 years ago. This time around, Rushing was featured as the Chicago Sun Times Athlete of the Week.
“I had gotten word that he was 27 yards away from the record, so I told him, ‘The right thing to do is to take you out of the game because we’re winning by a lot. So you have three carries, you have three carries and that’s it,’” said Pieper. “He went in and made three big runs and not only broke the record, but added to it.”
In addition to being the starting running back, Rushing also plays free safety, punter, kick returner and punt returner.
According to Pieper, Rushing earned the job as a punter during a practice this past summer when each player was trying out different positions.
“He didn’t particularly want to punt,” said Pieper. “One day he went out there and kicked it and we said, ‘Alright, you’re our punter.’”
Wide receiver Tommy Senft said Rushing stands out as a player primarily because of his drive to succeed.
“He expects so much of himself,” said Senft. “When he fails it just pushes him that much harder to do better next time, and his relentless attitude towards the game is something that I’ve never seen before.”
GBN ended the regular season with an eight-game win streak, a playoff berth and a conference championship. As of Oct. 25, Rushing has 1,635 rushing yards, 28 total touchdowns and 12.02 yards per carry on the year, with his longest run coming on a 97-yard touchdown, another school record. “Everybody thinks he’s just having a breakout year, but if they would have seen him in the offseason, they would know that that’s why he’s been so successful,” said Pieper. “What he did in the off-season, putting on weight, putting on strength, working on his speed, that’s the difference. It’s not what he’s doing right now, it’s what he did to build up to this.”
As of Oct. 22, Rushing said he has received offers as a walk-on at Northern Illinois University and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Purdue University is among the schools that have also shown interest, but have not made any offers yet.
“He’s Division 1,” said Pieper. “If [Rushing] doesn’t get a scholarship then I’m going to go take a college job and bring him with me.”
Rushing said the injury in his junior season has slowed down the amount of offers he’s received to play college football.
“Teams are running out of scholarships right now, so it’s tough to land one now at the end of my senior season,” said Rushing. “It would’ve helped to have a good junior year, too.”
Offensive lineman Jeremy Kahen agreed with Pieper that Rushing deserves to play football in college.
“We’re proving people wrong and putting our name out there by how we’ve been playing,” said Kahen. “Based on what [Rushing] has been doing, it’s got to catch someone’s eye, either as a running back, fullback, something. Any team can use a Grant Rushing.”