LA Chargers select Omarion Hampton in first round of NFL Draft

Scott Riley knows one thing: Nobody will outwork the former Cleveland Rams (North Carolina) high school All-American

The numbers Omarion Hampton put up at Cleveland High School in North Carolina are staggering: 5,370 rushing yards, 88 touchdowns, 10.4 yards per carry. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Scott Riley’s favorite Omarion Hampton story takes place not on the football field, but on the track.

Hampton was a sophomore at Cleveland High School in Clayton, North Carolina. Riley, the school’s football coach, was leading a “max out” session in the weight room during the last period of the day … shortly before Hampton’s track meet was to begin.

A typical athlete might (understandably) opt to take it easy in such a scenario.

Hampton was not — is not — a typical athlete and that is why he is headed to the NFL as the first round pick of the Los Angeles Chargers (No. 22 overall).

Wanting to set a school record — again, he was still only a 10th-grader — Hampton succeeded by squatting 565 pounds, and the bar he used bent.

“So, we never let him go up from that record squat,” Riley said.

Then came the track meet and Hampton’s specialty, the 100-meter dash. He came out so powerfully that this time, it was the starting blocks that bent. They broke, in fact, and Hampton crashed to the ground and rolled twice.

“Most kids would chalk it up to bad luck and walk off,” Riley said.

Yeah … most kids.

“Omarion got up and sprinted to finish the race, and he caught all but one of the other racers and finished second,” Riley said, still amazed all these years later.

“He works harder than anyone I have coached and never gives up.”

Riley has coached a while — including all 15 years since Cleveland opened its doors, the past 11 as the Rams’ head coach — so when he says Hampton is No. 1 on any list, it means something.

And Hampton has the accolades to back up the coach’s claim. The running back was a three-time conference player of the year, a three-time all-state selection, an All-American his senior year. That final season, he won pretty much all the awards a prep football player in North Carolina can receive — NCPreps player of the year, Gatorade player of the year, Mr. Football by The Charlotte Observer.

The honors kept coming for Hampton in college at North Carolina. He was a two-time first-team all-ACC selection, a two-time second-team Associated Press All-American and a two-time finalist for the Doak Walker Award, given to the nation’s top running back.

Hampton was expected to be a first-round pick and a likely rookie starter in some team’s backfield.

How good can he be at the game’s highest level?

“I think Omarion will have a Hall of Fame career,” Riley said. “I have total belief in his talent and work ethic.”

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