The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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NOVEMBER 2019 THE WOLVERINE 23 BY JOHN BORTON M any were shocked by Has- san Haskins' dominant dozen carries in Michi- gan's wind-whipped win at Illinois. Two in the Memorial Stadium stands most definitely were not. Hassan Haskins Sr. and Lynette Haskins — parents of Michigan's emerging redshirt freshman running back — certainly matched and ex- ceeded the excitement level of those bedecked in maize and blue. "Oh, my goodness," Lynette of- fered. "The crowd was going crazy, and of course, we were losing our minds. We had a ball." So did her son, who averaged 10.4 yards per carry on those 12 tries, rack- ing up a game-high 125 rushing yards. He also broke away on a scintillating 29-yard touchdown run involving a spin and sprint away from heavy traf- fic at the line of scrimmage. "Every play, I'm trying to get a touchdown," Haskins assured. "I felt that after that spin, there was nobody around me. I took off and ran with it." He's beginning to do the same with an opportunity in the Michigan back- field. He'd gotten a taste prior to U- M's 42-25 win at Illinois — nine car- ries for 45 yards against Rutgers, 22 on a pair of tries versus Iowa. But this marked the first time when eyebrows elevated and jaws dropped in unison — again, except for two sets of them. "This is the honest to God truth," Haskins Sr. observed. "He's been run- ning the ball and playing like he's playing ever since he's been 10." The younger Haskins remains soft spoken — "He's always been super quiet, and humble," Lynette noted — but he remembers his not-so-humble debut as well. "I had like seven touchdowns," Haskins said, regarding the first time he performed in an organized game. "I don't know how many yards, but it was a good game, for sure. "A lot of people talked to me about it. Anybody that watched the game, they told me good job — even the people from the other team. I knew it was special." "That first game, he played almost all the positions, defense and offense," Haskins Sr. said. "We really didn't know the skill level. He just wanted to play football, so we found him a team in the neighborhood. "His very first game, he just broke out. He scored all the touchdowns, he played on defense and everything." Commentators and fans mention the fact that real football isn't a video game. Yet the Haskins saw some fa- miliar carryover from their family room to the football field. "I would watch him playing the Madden game, and he was play- ing since he was 2 or 3, 5 years old," Haskins Sr. said. "He was so good he started beating his older brothers. "When I came to his first game, he actually ran like he was in the game. All the special stuff he would do in Madden, that was stuff he'd do in the actual game." Proud parents with a decade of watching their son's success at the neighborhood, junior high and high school levels are expected to exult. Watching it in a Big Ten game repre- sents something altogether different. They weren't the only ones who noticed either. Jim Harbaugh hasn't seen a de- cade's worth of Haskins highlights, but he certainly saw enough out of the Eureka, Mo., athlete to offer the consensus three-star prospect a schol- arship. He has also seen enough develop- ment out of the second-year Wolver- ine from the outskirts of St. Louis to not regret it. "His progression has been ascend- ing each and every week … we've seen some 'wow' type of plays in practice, and now we've seen them in the games," Harbaugh said. "He's consistently getting better and better. This [Illinois] game, he had a great game. "His ability to see holes and get yards after contact really showed up in this last game. He was one of our two Offensive Players of the Game." CAREFULLY LAID FOUNDATION Haskins comes from a large fam- ily, with three sisters, two brothers — including Buffalo Bills linebacker Maurice Alexander — and a host of near-by cousins. Whereas Alexan- der didn't play football until high school, because of a concerned mom, the youngest in the family started in the fourth grade. Haskins Sr. prevailed there, al- though there were some concessions made to a still-fretting mother. "We sat there every practice, in the beating sun, the cold," Lynette said. "We sat through it all to make sure he wouldn't get hurt. I was afraid that he might get hurt." He never did, other than a dislo- cated toe that cost him half of his sophomore season. There were weightier concerns, though, when it came to safety. St. Louis features one of the higher crime rates in the nation, with the chances of becoming a victim of ei- ther a violent or property crime cited at one in 12 by NeighborhoodScout. com. "It was rough in St. Louis, es- pecially when I was growing up," Haskins said. "I've just always had an aggressive mindset for anything I do." So did his parents, who attacked protection with an enthusiasm un- known to guardians. "You can read the news," Lynette said. "It's very rough here, and we did live in a very rough neighbor- hood. We still do. The neighborhood is just horrible." "There are shootings all the time," Haskins Sr. interjected. "When he comes home for break, we still won't allow him to hang out," Lynette continued. "It's just real bad. Unless he's going to Eureka with his friends from school … other than that, no." They liked Eureka High, and made ON THE ASCENT Running Back Hassan Haskins Is Moving On Up Haskins had a breakout game at Illinois Oct. 12, carrying the ball 12 times for 125 yards (10.4 yards per attempt) and one touchdown. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN