ESPN RISE

It was the spring of 2007. Miami Palmetto head football coach Larry Coffey had just put his team through a long scrimmage when then-sophomore running back Jaamal Berry asked if he could take the team's weight sled home.

Berry planned to perform a workout where he attached a weight plate to the sled and dragged it by the affixed harness. Coffey immediately nixed the idea, knowing Berry was already tired from the scrimmage and risked hurting himself.

Although Berry listened to his coach about the sled, he still itched to get in some form of a workout. So he jumped into a pickup football game at the park on the way home but ended up fracturing his left thumb. When Coffey learned of the injury, he simply told his star pupil he needed to relax.

Of course, telling Berry to relax is a lot like giving the same advice to wired NFL star Ray Lewis. Now a 5-foot-11, 193-pound senior, Berry's desire to constantly improve his already considerable talents is a big part of why he's rated the nation's No. 1 running back in the Class of 2009 in the ESPNU 150.

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Ren Dittfield for ESPNRISE

Jaamal Berry is one of the nation's most talented and fastest running backs in the Class of 2009.

"I'd rather have a kid that loves to compete that I need to harness than a kid I have to push," says Coffey, who's in his third year as head coach. "It's a good problem to have."

Berry does get a chance to use a sled during the summer when he's working out with his friend, Roberto Morales, a JV assistant at Columbus. Berry's summer workouts include hauling the sled up the hill at Tropical Park, climbing the stairs and performing various other footwork drills at Miami Dade College, and weight and plyometric training at a local gym.

The workouts are exhausting, but Berry understands they're necessary for him to reach his goals.

"You get your biggest gains when you don't feel like doing it," he says. "I just think about being the No. 1 running back in the country. Every time I think about quitting, I think that someone is out there working harder than me."

All of the rigorous exercises have led to significant gains for Berry. He benches 340 pounds and clocked a blistering time of 4.31 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the Miami Under Armour/Scout.com Combine in April.

On the gridiron, he ran for 1,033 yards and 14 touchdowns on only 140 carries (7.4 yards per carry) as a junior to net All-Dade honors from The Miami Herald. Berry has a devastating blend of power and speed, but perhaps his greatest skill is his stop-on-a-dime lateral quickness, which allows him to maneuver through even the tightest spaces.

Berry showcased those attributes back at the Pop Warner level when he was selected to play in the 2004 Global Football Youth Jamboree in Cancun, Mexico. Playing running back and linebacker, Berry guided his USA Red squad to a first-place finish.

"The instincts he has to run the football you can't teach," says Coffey.

"I have the complete package," adds Berry. "I have defenders on their toes because they don't know what I'm going to do. I can burn them with my speed, run over them with my power and juke them with my quickness."

Don't mistake Berry's confidence for complacency. Each day, he goes to recruiting websites to watch highlight videos of all the other top backs in the country, which motivates him to become an even better player. He also studies the college programs he's considering, paying close attention to the players on a team's depth chart as well as the number of running backs that program has sent to the pros.

"When I first saw any little writeup on him, I started crying because I know how hard he works to prove himself," says Berry's mother, Eartha. Berry owes much of his work ethic to Eartha, who has found time to help out Palmetto's booster club by cooking the team meals. In addition, she attends every game while also teaching Berry valuable life lessons off the field.

"She's always having me do the right things to make me a better person," Berry says.

So is Coffey, whom Berry views as a father figure. Coffey, who played running back in the old USFL and had tryouts with the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers, provides Berry with plenty of football knowledge. But like Eartha, Coffey also preaches to him the importance of schoolwork, which Berry has come to appreciate after struggling in the classroom his freshman year.

On the field, Berry hopes to help the Panthers better last year's 3-7 finish. He's excited to see how much Palmetto's young squad has improved and hopes he can help some of team's top underclassmen get noticed by recruiters who've come to watch him play.

Berry knows that with his rise in stature, he'll be the focal point of opposing teams' defensive game plans this fall. He also understands he'll need to pick a college sometime in the near future - Ohio State and Florida led a list of 10 schools at press time. But even with all that's on his plate, Berry understands how lucky he is.

"It's a really cool experience," says Berry, who was selected to play in the 2009 Under Armour All-America High School Football Game. "I know a lot of people wish they could be in my shoes. I've got to take advantage of it."

That means there's no time to relax.