SOUTH PITTSBURG, Tenn. – Walk the halls of this small school and Raquis Hale will likely go unnoticed. An unassuming, almost bashful kid, he doesn’t carry himself with the swagger of the stereotypical star athlete. Instead, he blends into the crowd of teenage classmates, rarely opening his mouth except for a contagious smile.
“He’s so quiet, you’d never know he’s in the building most days,” South Pittsburg football coach Vic Grider said.
But if the second-ranked Pirates (9-2) return to the Class 1A state final for a third time in four years, it will likely be because of Hale’s determination to set himself apart from everyone else on the field.
“I don’t know that we’ve had a kid more willing to do whatever it takes to win or be successful,” Grider added. “If I could get the other 44 kids on the team to be as committed and dedicated as Raquis, we wouldn’t worry about losing.”
Hale inherited his athletic ability from his father Marcus Reynolds, an all-region back at South Pittsburg in the early 1990s whom Grider described as one of the five most gifted players to come through the program. But since his teenage years Reynolds had rebelled against authority. Whether it was on the athletic field or later in life, he rarely abided by the rules and began running afoul of the law soon after high school graduation. He now is in federal prison in Arkansas on a drug-related conviction.
Hale’s athleticism has drawn recruiters from Illinois, Middle Tennessee State, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Tennessee Tech and Georgia State.
He credits the work ethic that has led to those opportunities to his mother, Tameka Hale, as well as a determination not to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“I used to think people thought I would turn out like my dad,” Hale said. “But my mom and grandma taught me to respect my elders and how to be a good person. I think I’m pretty mature now and know how to make good decisions on my own. My family made me the person I am, and I always want to make them proud.
“I talk to my dad through e-mail every week. He talks to me about learning from his mistakes, too, and he always has some kind of advice for me before a game, and that helps calm me down because I know he’s been through big games. When I was playing in little league, he told me to stop trying to outrun everybody to the sideline and just cut it up and go. I did that and scored on a long run, and ever since then that’s the way I run it.”
Even on a team loaded with eye-catching offensive numbers, Hale’s 11.2-yards per carry average can cause double-takes. Going into tonight’s quarterfinal home game against fourth-ranked Gordonsville, the 5-foot-11, 180-pound Hale has yet to be held under 100 yards in a game, having gained 1,615 yards and scored 26 touchdowns. In limited defensive action he has 58 tackles and three interceptions.
In last week’s win over Moore County, the Pirates held a shaky 14-point lead late in the second quarter before Hale took a handoff, cut sharply to the left and raced 74 yards down the visitors’ sideline for a touchdown. He finished the game with 235 yards and three touchdowns on just 12 carries and returned an interception to the 10 to set up another score.
“Raquis could have put up better numbers than about anybody in the state if that’s what we had wanted to do,” Grider said. “When you compare how many fewer carries he’s had than any of the other state leaders, it’s pretty amazing. He could have gotten 3,000 yards if we had left him in games.
“But he sees the big picture and understood early on that we couldn’t afford to lose him to injury. He understands how important he is in terms of getting us where we want to go, so he knows why we limited his carries. He’s an attack-style runner. We’ve had guys with different styles here, but when you look at how physical he is, plus his speed and ability to see the field and know where to make cuts, he’s about as complete a runner as we’ve had.”