Sept. 5, 2007

Link To Clarion-Ledger Article

By Kyle Veazey
Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger

Matt Forté is a heckuva running back, there's little doubt about that. Take what the Tulane player did last year in Starkville. He ran 29 times for 170 yards and a touchdown, which turned out to be the game-winning score.

But Forté's season didn't wind up as promising as it looked that September night in Starkville. He suffered a season-ending knee injury in a 42-21 loss at Marshall on Nov. 4. He spent the offseason rehabbing it, and didn't work out in spring drills. He didn't need to, and Tulane really didn't need him to, since he's the team's lone big-time returning offensive starter.

"He's an excellent back with excellent size, speed, change of direction," Croom said, "and he can catch the ball out of the backfield. He's also one of those guys that can run over you in tight quarters but can also make you miss in space as well."

But for all that Forté has accomplished as a player, Sunday's New Orleans Times-Picayune chronicled what he means to the program as a person. I was especially struck by this passage, again from Ted Lewis' story in the T-P:

Working to get better is not something Forté just discovered. In fact, in his summer between high school and Tulane, Forté's father, Gene, awoke in the wee hours one morning to discover that Matt wasn't in the house. "Matt's not a kid that goes out to bars and stuff at night," said Gene Forté, who played defensive tackle for the Green Wave in the mid-1970s. "So we were pretty worried. Then we looked outside, and he was running sprints, just getting himself ready for college."

It's Forté's continuing desire to improve himself, much more than his words, that inspires his teammates.

"He's a gym rat," said quarterback and roommate Scott Elliott. "He's a fun guy to be around, but he also sets the tempo for everybody."

This summer, Forté regularly went through two workouts each day, running in one and lifting in the other, while most of his teammates limited themselves to a single activity.

"Your body tells you that you're tired and can't go on," Forté said. "But then your mind tells you that you can't quit."