Raphael Emerges as a Force in Kennedy’s Campaign

Elijah Raphael has heard the cliches, but he knows better.

For umpteen years, football has been equated to military battle. The line area is called the trenches. Deep passes are termed bombs. The quarterback is called the field general, his arm often is called a gun, he leads the aerial attack and defenses hope to sack him with the blitz. The whole premise of the game is to take the opposition’s land.

Coaches speak of winning the battle, but not the war, or vice versa. Raphael understands the war metaphors better than anyone, and he realizes how inane they are.

Last year at this time, the Kennedy High running back’s family was glued to the television, watching daily updates of the crisis in the Middle East. Grandille Raphael, Elijah’s father and a member of the Air National Guard, was expecting a call to active duty at any time.

The mobilization notice came in February, and Grandille was sent to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Storm. Elijah and family were on pins and needles.

“We were obviously very worried,” said Raphael, a 5-foot-10, 170-pound senior.

The elder Raphael tried to allay the fears of his family by sending back videotapes from Saudi Arabia, snippets of his life designed to put the family at ease. The tapes featured Raphael and some of the other servicemen stationed with him.

“One time, while they were taping, they had a red alert,” Elijah recalled. “There was actually a scud missile being fired.”

It was a frenetic time. The telephone would ring, and family members would nervously glance at one another, fearing the worst. Television broadcasts from the region were heavily monitored, as were political developments on the home front.

Finally, Grandille Raphael returned home to Sylmar, safe and sound. He was among the last of the allied servicemen to be recalled. Elijah, his mother and three siblings were, at long last, at ease. Their prayers were answered.

“It was a strange time,” Elijah said.

The timing was perfect. Grandille returned in time to witness his son’s superlative senior season.

Raphael, in his first year as a Golden Cougar starter at tailback, has erased the school’s single-season rushing record and has helped lead Kennedy to the forefront of the City Section 4-A Division.

Last week, Raphael rushed for 214 yards in 17 carries in a 54-0 defeat of Belmont in the first round of the 4-A playoffs. The performance gave Raphael 1,759 yards, moving him past former Kennedy standout Ontiwaun Carter (1,563 yards in 1989) on the single-season list.

As the season has progressed, Raphael has gotten better and better. Over the past three games, he has rushed for 604 yards and scored 12 touchdowns, although he barely has played in the second half.

Things haven’t always gone so smoothly. Over the first few games, Raphael was unable to pop the big play. His team, expected to dominate area City teams, struggled and underachieved at times. Raphael did little to make anyone forget the lightning-bug Carter, a 1990 Kennedy graduate who now plays at Arizona.

That, perhaps, was precisely the problem.

“I went out really hard on every play,” Raphael said. “I had high expectations.”

He finally realized that some of his sights were set too high. No running back can consistently make something out of nothing. As the offensive line has improved, so have the Golden Cougars, who are seeded second in the 4-A playoffs. Kennedy (10-1) will play host to Lincoln in the second round tonight at 7:30.

“Now he just plugs away, takes what he can get, covers up the ball and goes back to the huddle,” Coach Bob Francola said. “Sometimes, you can try to make too much out of nothing.”

Lately, there has been much ado about something, though for Raphael, the moment has been a long time coming.

As a sophomore, Raphael had the option of playing full time for the B team or sticking with the varsity as a reserve. He chose the latter, though he knew his shot at tailback would not come until two years later, after Carter graduated. Last season, Raphael started at wingback.

There were previews of what was to come, however. Two years ago, Carter missed a start and Raphael rushed for more than 100 yards against El Camino Real. A year later, again filling in for an ailing Carter, Raphael topped the century mark against Chatsworth.

“I waited, but look how it’s turned out,” said Raphael, an upbeat and religious person with an infectious personality. “It was worth the wait.”

Raphael’s performance has not gone unnoticed, though few were aware of him entering the season. He already has received a scholarship offer from Oregon State and is being courted by several other colleges.

“What’s really been fun for him has been that he wasn’t one of the guys that Cal-Hi Sports (magazine) (publicized),” Francola said. “He didn’t have any national attention, he wasn’t on any lists.”

Raphael is quick to emphasize that Kennedy’s is not a one-horse show.

The offensive line includes four returning starters, all of whom are seniors. Linemen such as three-year starters Craig Garner (6-2, 260) and Troy Bregel (6-3, 240) have been firing on all cylinders over the past few weeks, and putting their size to good use. Kennedy, as a result, finished Northwest Valley Conference play with a record of 7-0 and has won eight consecutive games.

“You don’t have to ask, ‘Where’s the beef?’ on this team,” Raphael cracked.

Said Francola: “The kids up front have really been taking care of business.”

Kennedy, with Raphael as the main course in its meat-and-potatoes attack, continues to grind out the rushing yardage. Eli’s coming. It’s it and that’s that.

Fancy passing? Triple reverses? Zero-back shotgun formations with five wide receivers? Not.

“That’s the thing about our team,” Raphael said. “We run right at you, and you have to try to stop us. We don’t change for other teams.”

Raphael and the rest of the offense have been posting predictably high yardage totals for several weeks, despite the team’s rather rudimentary attack. Raphael leads the area with 244 carries--he is averaging 7.2 yards per carry--yet no team has been able to successfully take away the run.

“We’ve got a lot of other plays,” Raphael said with a laugh. “But these work.”

In biblical circles, Elijah was known as a prophet. Had anyone asked Raphael what his goals for the season were a few months back, his soothsaying powers would certainly have been called into question.

Raphael said he hoped to rush for 2,000 yards, although no Kennedy back had ever done so. He hoped to lead the Golden Cougars to the 4-A title, which again is untrodden ground. At Raphael’s current pace, should Kennedy play two more games, he would easily satisfy the yardage target. Two more victories, of course, would put the Golden Cougars in the 4-A final.

Francola’s expectations were a tad more realistic, though in retrospect, he had room to be reckless.

“I didn’t get into totals,” Francola said. “I didn’t want to hang number goals on him.

“I had performance goals and he’s reached them and then some . . . Consequently, the yards have been there.”

Best of all, Raphael’s father has been here to see it happen.