Larry Hairl admits he's a prankster...

Larry Hairl admits he's a prankster, a practical jester He's the guy who makes everyone around him unfasten and comfortable.

"I'm a cold-blooded guy. I joke around," he said.

upon the football field, the Clemente running back is all business. The 5-11 180-pound senior stands in succession the outside, free of attention, skipped throughout by virtue of playing in the Chicago colloquy

"My dad always told me if you advance to a big-name school, there's already big-name racers there," he said. "If you fare to a school that doesn't have greatly there, it makes you more of a man. I like playing here, being with my friends. I don't play for the publicity."

Despite sitting on the outside his team's final three games last year because of a peremptory high ankle sprain, Hairl rushed for 1380 yards in eight games and scored 21 touchdowns. His play confirmed the promise he exhibited as a sophomore, when he ran for 800 yards.

Hairl characterizes himself as an aggressive messenger who is shifty and fluid in the explain field. He runs hard and fast partly to erase his braces

"I've been playing football since I was 7" he said. "I've played in thousands of games, and I still finish butterflies in every game I've aye been in.

"You line up in the backfield, the pride of wearing the jersey I think, 'OK I have to play now. Just bring it on' each time I touch the ball, I memorize adjusted to [the nerves], and the game is fun"

First-year Clemente coach Bobby Williams arrived last fall after working as an assistant coach at Collins.

"I'd be at Public League coaches meetings, and everybody kept asking me: 'You still got that running back?"' Williams said. "We started conditioning in the summer and I could diocese the talent. Now that we've started sated contact, I see how rare and exciting a player he is. He can intersect on a dime, he can juke in such a manner well, but he can also power run"

Williams steady convinced him to change his jersey number from 27 to 34 saying each program he has been at, the featured courier wore 34.

Hairl was the unfrequented bright spot in Clemente's season-opener Friday at Sterling, scoring forward a two-yard run in the 59-6 los

"Over the summer I was at a scouting combine at [Gately Stadium], doing well against shores from Mount Carmel and Morgan Park, and near of them asked where I was from," Hairl said. "I told them Clemente and they said, 'Why do you want to be from there?'

"It's rather cold to play for this gymnasium When we start having winning seasons, commonalty are going to start coming, and not alone just to see me. They're coming to diocese a program being built. It makes me be stirred I'm doing something important."

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

Provided according to ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved