He is an inelegant runner, blasting and banging and bouncing, lifting his style from the University of Jerome Bettis, where tackler tuition is paid in punishment.

But there is no nationally recognized nickname attached to Stanford tailback Toby Gerhart. Nor is his hype remotely commensurate with his status as the most productive runner in the Pac-10 and conceivably the best in college football.
The whispered suspicion, entirely plausible, is that Gerhart’s skin color somehow undermines his legitimacy, that he is a victim of racial profiling. It’s hard to make a persuasive argument against the theory.
Playing at a West Coast school other than USC surely works against Gerhart. Playing at Stanford — a smallish, private academic heavyweight where Brad Muster and Tommy Vardell gained fame as running backs — does nothing for Gerhart’s baller cred.
It’s questionable, though, whether either of these factors more directly impacts his relatively low profile than the fact that he is white.
If Gerhart were as proficient at quarterback as he is at tailback, I can’t help but believe he’d be high on Heisman lists, waging fierce competition with the likes of Texas’ Colt McCoy and Florida’s Tim Tebow. And if Gerhart were an African-American running back, it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t be seen through the same glorified prism as Alabama’s Mark Ingram or Clemson’s C.J. Spiller.
Not until recent weeks, as Stanford affirmed itself as one of the country’s better teams, has Gerhart managed to eclipse the shadow of Cal’s electrifying Jahvid Best. Any doubt that Best, an early Heisman contender, still would be in the race if he had Gerhart’s numbers?
Yet Gerhart’s authenticity remains open to question — perhaps because it is, as we all must concede, hard to trust the rare sighting. We don’t often see superb running backs in major college football who didn’t inherit a shade of brown skin from their parents.
Gerhart did not, yet he’s undoubtedly superb. He’s treating this stereotype as they all should be treated, with defiance and dismissal. His 1,395 yards (5.3 per carry, third in the nation) and 19 touchdowns have come mostly by using speed and thrust to blow through creases created by Stanford’s mammoth offensive line.
What Gerhart does is wear out defenses, using his 6-foot-1, 237-pound physique, his relentlessness and his endurance. He plays with every ounce, exhibiting the kind of energy the late James Brown used to bring to the stage.
Gerhart has authenticated himself as the real deal. He did it with successive 1,000-yard seasons, by gaining the respect of his opponents, by beating up Oregon and USC the past two Saturdays.
Yet Gerhart can’t outrun recent memory. Thus, he is saddled with the rather desultory recent history of running backs with which he has skin color in common.
In the 47 years since Jim Taylor was the last white running back to lead the NFL in rushing, only two — John Riggins and Craig James — have had 1,000-yard seasons. Given the failures of men like John Cappelletti, the last white tailback drafted in the first round (1974), as well as the brief and unspectacular careers of fullbacks Muster and Vardell, NFL teams have made a habit of using white runners as blocking backs.
Jacob Hester, a 1,000-yard tailback at LSU, is a fullback for the San Diego Chargers. Care to bet where NFL teams project Gerhart?
The smaller, athletic white runner likely will end up returning kicks or playing wideout. That’s the path of New England’s Wes Welker, whose terrific prep career spent mostly at running back led to few scholarship offers — the college coach who recruits a white tailback gets the raised eyebrow of skepticism — and a new position.
More compact than Muster and quicker than Vardell, Gerhart is more a blend of Bettis and, say, Curtis Martin. Not saying his career will match theirs. But he is far better at running back than at receiver or even fullback — certainly at the collegiate level.
Yet most of us in the media, which generate much of the hype, surely wonder about Gerhart’s NFL future, as if he can’t become an impact running back.
It’s conceivable, maybe likely, he won’t be a star in the NFL. For now, though, that’s irrelevant. It doesn’t diminish his achievements at Stanford, where he is a bona fide star. And it shouldn’t color the perception of a guy whose star likely would be brighter if his skin were darker.