ESPN RISE

TWIN CITY, Ga. -- Should Emanuel County Institute repeat as State Class A football champions Saturday, a back-dated legend will take root forever in the sandy soil of this humid east Georgia town.

Talk all you want about Washaun Ealey's state scoring records; the senior running back already is viewed through a Paul Bunyan-esque prism here.

Yet if ECI (14-0) beats Wesleyan (12-2) in the Georgia Dome, all those touchdowns -- a state-record 135 in his career, 43 this season, a state-record 58 in 2007 -- will pale in scale to "The Drive" that helped the Bulldogs make it to Atlanta.

Locals looking back on a hard-to-comprehend 27-play, 97-yard possession that seemed to eat half the night (and maybe the souls of the Bremen Blue Devils) in a 13-7 playoff win on Nov. 28 won't even have to exaggerate in telling grandchildren how amazing it was.

And it doesn't happen without Ealey, whose internal drive is a story in itself.

From the stands, you could see him carry 15 times for 56 yards on that march, like a chisel pounding through a wall, chip after chip.

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Emanuel County Institute

Washaun Ealey has scored 43 touchdowns this season for Emanuel County Institute.

If you were there, you didn't see the half of it.

You had to be in the huddle, or be listening in on the coaches' headsets, or perhaps be the doctor driving needles into Ealey's back to really wrap your mind around what was happening.

Ealey is not a one-man team. Five of the team's seven seniors will play college football on scholarships, three in the SEC or ACC.

But if the 5-foot-11, 205-pound back is not the team, he is ECI's soul.

"He's so competitive that sometimes it can be a double-edged sword because he has such high expectations of himself and others," coach Milan Turner said.

Most of the time, the sword cuts for the 'Dawgs.

Ealey sprained his ankle early in that game.

"I had got tangled up with somebody's foot, and they twisted it even more under the pile," he said.

"He came up to me and said, 'Hey man, my ankle is swelling up; it's getting pretty big," senior end-linebacker-running back Dexter Moody remembered. "He said he was going to get it taped up, and see what he could do in the second half."

When Ealey started doing it, as the Bulldogs took the ball on their own 3-yard-line with about three minutes left in the third quarter of a tied game, it wasn't so much what he began to do that mattered most, but the fact that he was doing anything at all.

"He already had a bad, bad deep bruise in his lower back," said Turner. "He got lidocaine and cortisone shots for it; earlier in the week, he couldn't even pick up his leg. He might have been, might have been 60 percent. I think because he played that hurt, our guys maybe sucked it up a little more, got that extra little explosion off the ball."

With 2,727 rushing yards on 284 carries this season, including 114 rushes for 861 yards and 11 touchdowns in four playoff games, Ealey's put the Bulldogs on his back plenty of times. He's rushed for 8,007 yards in his four-year career, during which the Bulldogs are 45-6, including 39-1 the past three seasons. They've won 29 straight.

"He's a horse," said ECI lineman J.C. Lanier, who is committed to Georgia Tech. "He'll keep pushing us, and we'll keep pushing him. He tries to get in practice sometimes [when coaches limit his carries], and they'll kick him out. He'll keep sneaking back in. He'll crawl out there on the field."

Much as some might have wanted to crawl into a bed that night, Ealey did not. He, junior quarterback Michael Robertson and their teammates kept inching the chains forward.

"He didn't have any acceleration that night, or he might have broken off some long runs," said ECI offensive coordinator Chad Simmons. "But he finds a way to get what you need.

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Emanuel County Institute

Ealey has verbally committed to Georgia.

"He may need to run over you, he may need to use a stutter-step, cutback, spin. Whether it comes to letting blocks set up, knowing when to accelerate, knowing when to use whatever move, whether it's a stiff-arm or whatever, he's pure with the ball in his hand."

Not the most vocal player (that might be ECI lineman Cody Todd, who will play at Carson-Newman), Ealey is no church mouse, either.

He had a few things to say in the huddle that night. His version: "I was just trying to get the offense to settle down because we had got a little rattled up. I told them to calm down, and get on their blocks, keep their eyes up and run hard."

In reality, in the hometown of pool shark Johnny Archer, the 1992 and '97 world nine-ball billiards champion who grew up in Twin City, Ealey can be a shark too.

Remember that double-edged sword?

"There is something special that he has," coach Turner said. "He's so competitive, we've had to guard against him getting upset. Sometimes, he has to understand that every play is not going to go for 20 yards."

That means coaches chat with No. 3 occasionally to help him re-calibrate his emotions.

"Far less now than in ninth and 10th grade," Turner said. "Every few weeks you have to pull him in and help him understand that the guys play with him and for him. He has such a great feel and understanding of the game, he knows every player's assignment on every play, and he can tell you who missed a block or whatever.

"The kids see him as such a star, a catalyst, that if they see him get upset, it can throw them into a panic."

Ealey, who has very good -- if not Percy Harvin-esque -- speed go to with what Turner calls above average skills as a blocker and receiver (five of his scores this season came on receptions), said field vision and acceleration are his greatest assets when he's healthy.

His ability to see the big picture is improving.

"I try to keep up with everybody's role because I like to help everybody, and I don't want them to mess up," Ealey said. "When I get frustrated, I try to take a walk, separate myself from everybody so I can clear my head and stay focused."

There was no deep thought required for Ealey to decide he wants to play at Georgia. He committed to Georgia's 2009 recruiting class on Jan. 28.

"It was always something I wanted to do since I was young," Ealey said. "The colors [identical to ECI's], the tradition, coach Mark Richt is a great guy, and I like his religious beliefs. It's like a dream come true."

Ealey can recruit, too, convincing Moody to play at UGa as well.

"I used to be a big Florida Gator fan, and Washaun, all he talked about was Georgia, Georgia, Georgia," Moody said. "One day, me and him were watching a Georgia game back when [quarterback] D.J. Shockley was there, and that's when I started liking Georgia."

In Twin City, population 1,750 (until Saturday, when most of the town figures to make the 195-mile trip to Atlanta), the young man who led "The Drive" with his drive gets what he wants most of the time. Lanier's decision to go to Georgia Tech is a notable exception.

He got what he wanted against Bremen. The last carry of his 29-carry, 194-yard night ended in the end zone with 1:11 left in the game, 14:13 after "The Drive" began.

"When he's on the field, and I'm not exaggerating, not even a little bit, if somebody is confused anywhere on offense, Washaun is the one that they can go to," said Simmons, who deploys Ealey at all three running back positions, the slot and split end in the Bulldogs' Wing-T attack. "His savvy and desire are what separate him."

Matt Winkeljohn recently left The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after spending 21 years there. He can be reached at mattwinkeljohn@yahoo.com.