Sub Stockman: A running back to remember

Early in the fourth quarter of the Penn football team's game against Cornell on Saturday, Big Red defensive end George Paraskevopoulos broke through Penn's offensive line and turned Quakers running back Kris Ryan into a pretzel. The big Greek grabbed Ryan by the scruff of his neck and bent him backwards at the knees.

The 2001 Ivy League rushing champ lay on the ground as Penn's trainers ran out onto the field and the referees signalled for an injury timeout.

"Oh no," was the general sentiment in the Franklin Field press box. Ryan -- who battled injuries most of last season -- had remained injury-free this year, and for him to go out this way, well... it would've been an inauspicious end to an impressive career.

"I'm a little sore right now," Ryan said at the post-game press conference. "But I didn't want to leave the field like that.... I get banged up a lot in the course of a game, so it wasn't anything too different. I also knew that I didn't have to save myself for anything."

It's 1999, Ryan's sophomore year, and everyone following Penn football is lamenting the loss of Jim Finn, who carried the Quakers to the 1998 Ivy League championship.

Instead of worrying about Finn's replacement, all the talk is about quarterback Gavin Hoffman, the transfer from Northwestern who has seen Big 10 secondaries and is getting most of the ink. But it's Ryan who scores the first touchdown that season, against Dartmouth. The second-year player, whose only other action had been an 18-yard carry against Harvard the year before -- a play on which he blew out his knee -- busted 48 yards up the right sideline and into the end zone.

As Penn fans celebrated, Ryan did something odd. He dropped to one knee and rested his helmet on his fist and said a little prayer.

Ryan did it nine more times that season, on his way to becoming Penn's second straight Ivy League rushing champ. He did it eight times the next season and 15 times this year, including twice on Saturday. Thirty-three touchdowns in all, and thirty-three prayers after each one.

I didn't buy it that day against Dartmouth, though. I was sitting on the aluminum bleachers near the 30-yard line on the west end of the field, and I thought about all the athletes who professed thanks to God after every basket or home run or big win, and I thought, "He's showing off." But then, I can be an idiot.

The bottom line is that anyone who knows him knows that Ryan is a straight shooter, a guy who you always know where he stands. He thanked God at least three times in the press conference Saturday. He knelt and gave thanks and meant it, every time he scored.

When I think about Kris Ryan, I'll remember a tough, quick runner who had the ability to not only bowl over the big defenders, but to outrun the little ones as well. At the same time, I'll remember a guy who wouldn't think of laying a hand on someone away from the field.

That's why I was more than relieved when Ryan come back out on the field Saturday.

He came back in on the next play and gave the few remaining Penn fans a couple more plays to remember him by. He caught a short Hoffman screen pass and took it for 20 yards. He dropped a pitch to the right on fourth and two, before picking it up and taking it for six yards and a first down.

And with just 1:34 remaining -- on his final play in Red and Blue -- Ryan gave us the perfect ending to a great career and cemented the way I'll remember him: taking the handoff three yards deep, a tiny little stutter step and then high knees through the hole, before the defender plants him flat on his back -- in the end zone.

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