Jamal Anderson

Captain of the football team at El Camino Real High School as senior, was All-State, All-League, All-Region, All-Valley, LA Times @ LA Daily News All-Star choice, and Most Valuable Player. At Utah, was an All-WAC conference pick in 1993, Rushing for 1243 yards, and averaging 5.7 yards per carry while gaining 242 yards on 35 pass receptions. Drafted in 1994 by the Atlanta Falcons in the seventh round. Became a starter in the 1996 season, and immediately proved to be one of the NFL's most dominant backs, running for over 1,000 yards that season and again in 1997. Jamal was only the third Falcon running back to pass 1,000 yards in successive years. In 1998, rushed for 1,846 yards, caught passes for another 319, and was All-Pro for first time. Rushing yardage was second only to Denver's Terrell Davis, who broke 2,000. He established a new NFL record with his 410 carries. Jamal was the central force in garnering the Falcons' first division title in 18 years, in addition to the Falcons only Super Bowl appearance.

As the steamroller running back for the Atlanta Falcons, Jamal quickly became a National Football League superstar. At the time Jamal's 1,846 rushing yards was the seventh-best all-time total in NFL history. Anderson is nearly as well known for his personality as for his rushing power. Having grown up surrounded by many of the world's most high-powered celebrities including Muhammad Ali, Richard Pryor, Mike Tyson, and Michael Jackson he takes to the limelight like a natural entertainer. Supremely confident, talkative, friendly, cocky, and witty, Anderson was a journalist's dream come true. Fortunately, he delivers his bluster with a pinch of self-parody, enough so he always remains likeable. As one of his teammates has said, the braggadocio is just Anderson's ''shtick.''

On the field Jamal gained notoriety for creating and popularizing the Falcons' 'Dirty Bird' celebration dance. While Jamal did not possess pure breakaway speed, his low center of gravity and tremendous power (he can squat 670 pounds, and bench 465) made him exceedingly tough and damaging to tackle. Jamal had a brutally effective stiff-arm technique that can sledgehammer a defender or two in an instant. Moreover, he has surprisingly quick moves for a 6', 240-pound juggernaut. Anderson was a superb receiver. He is the type of runner who strikes fear in the souls of defenses.

As Atlanta head coach Dan Reeves (another major factor in the team's miraculous turnaround from '96 to `98) told The Sporting News, ''He's an extremely powerful runner and he's got great hands. He's also got unbelievable confidence in himself.'' Quoted in CNN Sports Illustrated, Reeves also said, ''To combine the power he has with the quickness, well, there's not many people that size who can make people miss. And when he does get tackled, he's hard to bring down.'' As Reeves put it in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, ''he doesn't give you much of a target to hit. All you see is helmet, shoulder pads, and knees, and those things are no fun to hit.''