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Where Are They Now?: Namba turned on power in '74
Wednesday, November 8, 2000
By DAN RALEY
The Metro League football rushing record belongs to a guy named Gary, not Corey. It was set against Franklin High, not by someone in a Quakers uniform.
On a cool afternoon in 1974, almost exactly a year before Corey Dillon was born, Roosevelt's Gary Namba got loose for 308 yards on 20 carries in a 29-0 victory over Franklin, scoring on runs of 91 and 51 yards.
The record has outlasted the test of time, including the Dillon era. Dillon broke the NFL single-game rushing record last month and holds several University of Washington marks. Yet when he passed through the Metro League eight years ago, Dillon's best effort for Franklin was 218 yards.
Today Namba, 44, is a Seattle electrician, married and the father of two young children. He coaches youth soccer, but is far from the football limelight. It's been that way since his famous Friday at Memorial Stadium.
Namba played only three more football games after his record performance, turning to track at the University of Portland and on an international level.
"I really did miss football; even now I miss it," he said. "That could be me on TV."
His steps have never been predictable. Namba, a twin, grew up in the Ingraham school district, one of five football-playing sons of a Greenwood dentist.
Namba attended neighborhood rival Roosevelt because he needed special classes provided for the hearing-impaired. He lost much of his hearing when he contracted spinal meningitis as a toddler.
His brothers, Ralph, Dean, Jim and twin Larry, also were running backs and all wore jersey No. 20 for Ingraham. To be different, Roosevelt's Namba settled on 21.
He might have been robbed of one physical attribute, but Namba was gifted in another. He could run faster than most, finishing second in the state in the 100-meter dash as a junior.
Two knee injuries, one as a junior, the other as a senior, slowed him on the field, robbing him of playing time.
But in the fifth game of his senior year, Namba let it all out against Franklin. In the first quarter, he took a handoff and raced 51 yards for an opening score. He had 117 yards rushing by halftime. Early in the second half, he got free again and zipped 91 yards to the end zone and a 14-0 lead. The P-I headline the next day said, "Teds' Namba Runs and Runs and Runs and Runs."
"I have no idea how it happened, really," Namba said of his total, which exceeded the previous mark by 43 yards. "The two touchdowns I scored were on the same play, off tackle."
When he played, Namba wore a hearing aid taped to his ear and connected to tubing that led to his helmet earhole. The only thing he didn't hear was a solid scholarship offer when he was done. A 665-yard rusher for the season, he got a few calls from colleges, including one from a first-year Huskies coach named Don James.
"He asked me if I played any defense and I said, 'Oh, yeah,' but I had very little experience playing defensive back," he said. "I never heard from him again."
He didn't have a football in his hand, but Namba never stopped running.
He competed in the World Games for the Deaf, winning three gold and three bronze medals in Romania in 1977 and Germany in 1981.
Meantime, Namba remains a few steps ahead of Dillon and all comers in the Metro record book.
P-I reporter Dan Raley can be reached at 206-448-8008 or danraley@seattle-pi.com
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