Nine months ago, I was interviewed by Adam Kramer of Bleacher Report, who was working on a story about New Palestine running back Charlie Spegal. During our conversation, he asked me a simple question — “What’s it like watching Charlie play football?”
That’s a loaded question. I’m still searching for the right answer.
At the time, I likened watching Charlie run through and around defenders to playing the Madden video game on easy mode.
Somehow, that answer still seems inadequate.
Charlie has produced the most memorable football play I’ve ever seen: His 27-yard touchdown run as time expired in the first half of the 2018 Class 5A state championship game had to be seen to be believed. I watched him run to the top of the national leader boards a year ago, scoring an absurd 70 touchdowns and rushing for 3,356 yards.
He’s somehow topped himself twice already this year. First was Week 2 at Center Grove, when he ran for over 200 yards against a much bigger, supposedly stronger and supposedly faster Trojans team. Rushing for 100 yards against that team would have been incredible. Getting 200 was stunning.
Friday night, he topped himself again. His second run of the game wasn’t particularly special — he took a handoff, plowed ahead and gained a modest (by his standards) 10 yards.
The run was pure Charlie. Where other running backs might have gained two or three yards, he just powered through people to get to his goal, which was two-fold — a first down, and the all-time Indiana state rushing record. It probably doesn’t even rank in the Top 50 or so runs I’ve seen in my two seasons covering him and the Dragons, but it was obviously special.
It was obvious that the Dragons wanted to get the record out of the way early, and it didn’t surprise me at all. Charlie Spegal doesn’t really like all the attention. He’d rather people focus on his team and their accomplishments.
It’s hard not to pay attention or notice what Charlie has done in his high school career, though. His name is literally atop the record books, now, both at the state and school levels.
What’s shocking is how little college recruiters seem to be paying attention. They are missing what everyone who has seen New Palestine or Delta play during Charlie’s career. He’s got the strength, speed, athleticism and, maybe most importantly, the work ethic to succeed in a big way.
The one thing he is missing, the one thing he doesn’t have at all, is an ego.
Charlie Spegal is one of the most humble athletes I’ve ever gotten a chance to interview. He views playing as a privilege, and he just likes to go out on the field, do his job and win football games with his teammates. He doesn’t like talking about himself or his accomplishments. He’d rather talk about his team.
He does his job at an incredibly high success rate, and that has him at the front of any Mr. Football conversation. He’ll end up playing at the next level, and whatever school is lucky enough to get him will be getting a big-time impact player.
It’s going to be fun seeing just how far out of reach he can put the state rushing record. It’ll be fun watching others chase that record in the coming years.
If you ask me the big question again, the answer has changed a little bit. My old response still fits, but there’s more to it.
It’s like watching history being made right before my eyes. It feels like a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing, because it probably is.
We’ve got two to three more months of having the most prolific running back in Indiana history playing in Hancock County. It’s going to be a long time before we ever see anything quite like this again.
Don’t miss it.