High School Football: Sailors’ Spruill at home with South
Max Spruill’s Newport Harbor High graduation took place last week at Orange Coast College, inside the same stadium where he is going to play his final high school football game next week.
Spruill graduated on Thursday, almost two weeks to the day before he steps on the field at LeBard Stadium again. Spruill is in the 57th edition of the Brea Lions Club Orange County North-South Prep All-Star Football Game for recent graduates on July 8.
The day after Spruill graduated, he was hurting a little bit. He didn’t sleep much because of Newport Harbor’s grad night. Spruill showed up to the school’s gym for the event, which began at 8:30 p.m. and ended six hours later.
“It was pretty cool,” Spruill said, “but it was kind of weird to think that that’s the last time we’re going to see all those people in one place together.”
One Newport Harbor graduate Spruill has seen a lot of lately is Elliott Frye. They are the two Sailors in the OC All-Star Game.
Spruill and Frye are representing the South, and the two have been carpooling down south together since last week, when practices started at Laguna Hills High. Frye drives, because as Spruill put it, Frye has a new truck, a 2016 Chevrolet Colorado, and FasTrak to use on the Route 73 toll road.
The two used to drive back defenses as members of Newport Harbor’s offensive line. Spruill lined up at right tackle and Frye at center. The duo paved the way for tailback Cole Kinder, who rushed for 1,317 yards and nine touchdowns as a junior last season.
Spruill said he would never forget Kinder, not only for his tenacious running style, but also for his humility.
“I remember the first time I really had a connection with Kinder … was my sophomore year, on our way back from playing Dana Hills,” Spruill said. “He got pulled up as a freshman [for the first round of the CIF Southern Section Southwest Division playoffs]. Coming back on the bus ride home, he sat next to me. I played that game on defense, and … he was like, ‘You were on the defense when we got the fumble recovery!’ I was like, ‘Yeah! That was a whole lot of fun.’ He was like, ‘Do you want a Gatorade?’ He just gave me Gatorade. That’s the kind of guy he is.”
Blocking for Kinder is one thing Spruill said he would miss, as well as playing for Newport Harbor. Spruill started as a junior and senior, earning Daily Pilot Newport-Mesa Dream Team and first-team All-Sunset League honors each year.
As a right tackle, Spruill did a lot more run blocking than pass blocking last year. It was a drastic change from his junior year, when he protected quarterback Cole Norris, who threw the ball 299 times and completed 188 passes for 2,517 yards and 30 touchdowns.
The Sailors ran Kinder 223 times a year ago, including 34 times in a 33-21 nonleague win at Pico Rivera El Rancho. Running is what Spruill enjoyed the most because he could use his 6-foot-3, 265-pound frame to punish defenders.
The most memorable games for Spruill were ones in which Newport Harbor pounded out wins. The Sailors’ 33-27 overtime victory at Huntington Beach in Sunset League play was a perfect example.
Spruill and Frye were team captains for that game. For the coin toss, they walked out to the middle of the field holding hands. After four quarters, they had to go back out to the same spot again.
“At the end of [regulation], going out there a second time to do it, and looking at these guys that we’ve just been to battle with for the past two or three hours [was unbelievable],” Spruill said. “It was our senior year, we were both captains, and it was just good to stick it to them one other time after losing [to the Oilers in the CIF Southern Section Southwest Division] championship [game at Angel Stadium in 2013]. To beat them … the two next years after that, it just felt good.”
Spruill has gotten to know one Huntington Beach player, Kristian Crabb, during the lead up to the OC All-Star Game. They’re now teammates.
During practice, Crabb, who is also an offensive lineman, has impressed Spruill.
“I’m really looking forward to the high level of competition and getting to play against some guys that I [didn’t play] this year,” Spruill said. “It will be pretty cool to play against [the North] before we all move on to the next level.”
The next level of football for Spruill will be at OCC.
His high school graduation was at that stadium because of renovations at Newport Harbor’s Davidson Field. The final time he represents the Sailors will be there as well. To Spruill, it’s fitting that he will play next fall on the same field.
