When Manalapan football takes the field this season, all eyes are on one player: senior running back Naim Mayfield.
Mayfield has amassed an astounding 1,410 rushing yards and 24 touchdowns on the season through just six games. He joined the varsity team as a sophomore and never looked back. Manalapan head coach Ed Gurrieri knew he had a special player when he saw him play as a freshman.
“When he came in as a freshman, we knew right away,” Gurrieri said. “His older brother was a great running back himself, so we knew he had great genes and work ethic. When we saw him play as a freshman, we knew he was going to be really good.”
Mayfield mentioned he always wanted to be like his brother, which led him to play football.
“I’ve always wanted to be like my brother. He’s one of the reasons I started playing football,” Mayfield said. “It made me to want to push myself to be more like him, if not better. We worked out together, went to the field together, and we always had that competitive trait and we wanted to make each other better.”
While following in his brother’s footsteps led Mayfield to the gridiron, his parents have been supportive of his decision as well.
“They always tell me to follow what’s right and what makes me happy,” Mayfield said. “Football makes me happy, so if I want to continue to play football for as long as I can, they always tell me to go 100 percent 100 percent of the time.”
Mayfield will continue his academic and athletic career at Fordham University, a member of the Patriot League.
“They have a great school, atmosphere and program there and the class with me coming in is going to great,” Mayfield said about his recruiting process. “It’s a really big building stone in the program they are trying to build.”
After carrying the ball 20 times for 160 yards as a sophomore, Mayfield broke out as a junior. He totaled just under 1,800 yards and 23 touchdowns as the Braves went 11-1 in 2016, a season that ended in a 34-13 loss to Piscataway in the NJSIAA Central Group V championship game.
The Braves’ quest for this season is to finish 12-0, a mark no Manalapan team has ever done. It would mean a lot for Mayfield to go out on top as a senior, which would verify all the hard work he has put in the past four years.
“I push myself every week in practice and when we have a chance to lift, make myself better and make myself able to perform at my best in every game,” Mayfield said.
Manalapan’s players look up to Mayfield, who lets his play on the field and hard work off it lead the way.
“He’s a lead by example kind of guy,” Gurrieri said. “He does a great job in the weight room in the offseason and he’s a supremely conditioned young man. He has a great GPA in the classroom and his teachers love him. He’s extremely well-rounded. He excels on the field as well as off the field.”
While Manalapan likes to take a game-by-game approach, their ultimate goal is to win a state championship. Regardless of how this season ends, Mayfield will be able to look back on his time at Manalapan High School and smile..jpg)
“Football at Manalapan and Manalapan in general has taught me a lot of lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, especially with the coaching staff and how they try to treat their players,” Mayfield said. “They want to keep everybody on the right path and do well on and off the field and represent themselves as great sons, athletes and people in the community.”
And when he’s watching Mayfield take the Patriot League by storm, Gurrieri can reflect on the impact Mayfield left on his program.
“I’ve coached a lot of good running backs over the years. He has the best attributes out of all of them,” Gurrieri said. “He’s extremely strong and fast, he has great vision, he can cut on a dime and make you miss, and he can run you over and break tackles. He’s a great combination of power and speed.
“I’ve been blessed with a lot of great players, but Naim is one of those guys that you just love coaching. He competes, plays hard, never gets down or points fingers at anybody else. He always puts everything on his own shoulders and takes the pressure off everybody else. He rallies the team around him and guys want to block for him because they like him.”
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