East senior Jemarulin Suggs strives to stay active and in shape.
He admits he is “in grind mode” constantly when it comes to his studies and playing on the East football and basketball teams.
Suggs’ contributions on the Dragons football team this fall caught the attention of a lot of folks in Akron, and in surrounding communities, as he proved to be elusive as a running back and physical as a cornerback.
Suggs helped guide East to a City Series championship, the first appearance in the Division III playoffs in program history and has been selected as the 2016 Akron Beacon Journal Football Player of the Year by the high school sports staff.
“It feels amazing,” Suggs said. “I just want to thank God first, and I couldn’t do it without coach [Marques] Hayes. I thank all of my linemen because I couldn’t do it without them. I am blessed and I just want to keep it moving. This is only the beginning.”
Suggs, a 5-foot-11, 185-pound University of Akron recruit, shared the Northeast Ohio Inland District Offensive Player of the Year honor in Division III this month with Archbishop Hoban senior running back Todd Sibley.
Suggs, 18, finished with 300 carries, 2,522 rushing yards and 26 touchdowns as East’s top tailback. He also had 32 tackles and 10 receptions for 153 yards. The Dragons finished 8-4 overall and 6-0 in the City Series, with a playoff win over Marlington before a 27-20 loss to New Philadelphia ended their season in the regional semifinals.
“The Suggs kid is truly a dynamic football player,” New Philadelphia coach Matt Dennison said. “He has all the attributes of a great tailback, and the Dennisons love tailbacks. He has great vision and hits vertical seams as well as anyone. I love the way he hits the hole downhill. As an opposing coach, you are never comfortable on any play when he has a chance to touch the ball.
“The East football program is on the rise. I am extremely impressed with what coach Hayes is doing. He has taken a struggling program and made it one of the elite teams in the City Series. It is truly a program that he is building and I see them having continued and growing success. The kids are disciplined, tough kids that play extremely hard.”
Whether the Dragons were in the black uniforms, the white uniforms or the gray uniforms, No. 1 on the East roster constantly was a difficult matchup.
“He’s really good,” Marlington coach Beau Balderson said. “We couldn’t stop him, although his massive offensive line [juniors Tanner Kelly, Ramon Fields, Kendrick Buckley and Armani Farrey and sophomores Deearius Reese and Derell Glover] had a lot to do with it.”
Suggs, who has a 3.2 grade-point average, said he started playing basketball at age 6 and football at age 7. He was born in Akron and raised on the east side, attending Robinson Elementary School and Goodyear Middle School before enrolling at East.
Hayes said he first met Suggs when he was a pee-wee football player in middle school.
“I talked with him a lot and he was somebody where he had the decision on where was he going to go to high school,” Hayes said. “Was he going to go to a parochial school like Hoban or St. Vincent-St. Mary? I had a conversation with him one day, and I said ‘I am a fan of yours and I am a fan of wherever you are going to go. I just want to see you be successful.’
“I remember one night I got a text message out of the blue and it said ‘Coach, I want to come to East and play for you.’ I said ‘Well, who is this?’ And he said ‘This is Jemarulin Suggs.’ I said that is the first domino right there. Ever since then, it has been a great experience. He is a fantastic person to be around, first and foremost. He is everything that you want in a player, but also somebody that you want to hang around. As a young man, he has some good qualities about him just like the rest of the young men that we have on our team. He definitely has the leadership qualities and the hard work ethic.
“I remember at times waking up in the morning, and it’s 5 o’clock in the morning and I got a text message from Jemarulin on my phone with a video of him of soaking wet from sweating and working out. He is saying things like ‘Coach, I just want to be the best.’
Suggs played in 42-of-43 varsity games at East, and totaled 5,433 yards and 54 rushing touchdowns on 630 carries. He finished with 56 total touchdowns.
Suggs chose to go to UA over scholarship offers from Eastern Michigan, Toledo, Ball State, Buffalo, Central Michigan and Youngstown State. Suggs is headed to UA along with two other East senior football players — De’Andre Brimage and Marquess Callaway.
“I think about that every day,” Suggs said. “I just can’t wait to play with some of [my high school] teammates in college. Some people, they don’t get a lot of opportunities to do that, so it feels good that some of my teammates are coming with me.”
Suggs said he is considering pursuing a career in sports medicine, nursing or teaching down the road. Coaching football or basketball is also an intriguing idea.
“Coach Hayes always pushes me and has told me to never lower myself,” Suggs said. “He always pushes me to be better.”
Hayes, a former Zips football player, said he is overjoyed with the turnaround at East.
“I think we have continued to take the steps that a program needs to take to become successful,” Hayes said. “When you have guys like Jemarulin, De’Andre and Marquess and the rest of the team that we have, and they become one unit and they really believe in what you are doing as a program, I think you will start seeing the changes.
“Since I got here, we’ve said ‘Stay the course.’ We have gone from 0-10 to 2-8 to 5-5 to 4-6, and then you end the regular season this year at 7-3 and make it to the playoffs. It has been an incredible year with the win over Marlington, but I am still a little down about the loss that we had to New Philadelphia. At the same time, when I look back on some of the accomplishments that this young man and the rest of the team had, it is simply incredible. It is very much something that we are going to be able to look back on for a long time, and say ‘Hey, man, this team was a special team.’ ”
And Suggs is certainly a special talent.
Michael Beaven can be reached at 330-996-3829 or mbeaven@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the #ABJVarsity high school blog at www.ohio.com/preps. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MBeavenABJ.