The best I ever saw? That's always a tough question, regardless of sport and regardless of how many games you've seen. But as I type this, I realize I started covering high school football games 40 years ago.
So the first problem is the simple accumulation of games and players, and if you pinned me down, I don't know that I could name a player I wrote about in 1978. Or 1988. Or 1998.
But starting with the default of the best player on the best team, things start to narrow down a little. After all, I saw a lot of
De La Salle (Concord, Calif.) in the glory days, and there were obviously a lot of great players that rolled through the Spartan lineups in the 1990s.
Which brings us to problem No. 2: Who really knows how good the linemen were? When you're covering a game, you're keeping stats, so you don't have time to see what the tackles are doing, or whether the linebacker filled the gap, or how well the safety reacted to the out-and-up.
In short, I'm going to stick with visible athletes, and playing offense some of the time is pretty much a necessity.
But that said, my choice would have to be a guy who's now a linebacker in the NFL: D.J. Williams. He was so big, so strong, so fast, so fluid for De La Salle, that he controlled the game on both sides of the ball. Sure, he was devastating on defense, but he was a monster with the ball in his hands as well. He played fullback in the Spartan veer, and once through the line, he made many a 160-pound safety consider a life insurance policy.
Of course, give me a couple weeks and I'm sure I'd come up with some different names, but Williams is a pretty safe call. But Gino Torretta (Pinole Valley and Miami) wasn't half bad, as most Heisman Trophy winners aren't.
Amani Toomer (De La Salle, Michigan, New York Giants) might have had the best pro career, but a wide receiver in high school just doesn't get as much chance to shine as a quarterback or a running back.
One last shout-out to a player who never did much past Division 2 Humboldt State because the measurables just weren't there: Pittsburg High's Percy McGee was a horse, despite his lack of size, and his Pirate team was the last one to beat De La Salle before the long winning streak began, and McGee was the main man in that group.
