Daily News-Record

After rushing the ball 32 times during James Madison's win over Towson two weeks ago, junior tailback Raymond Hines made one more carry.

He scooped his 2-month-old son into his arms.

"When you have changes in your personal life, it's always going to have an effect on other things you do," Hines said softly. "I guess I've had to reschedule my priorities and get my priorities straight."

Hines has had plenty to adjust to this year.

Marquis Hines was born on Sept. 17, and his father, at the time the fourth-string tailback for JMU, made sure he was there for the birth. A pair of friends from back home picked up Hines and drove him back to Maryland when his girlfriend, Jennifer Lassiter, went into labor.

"I said I wasn't going to have the baby if he wasn't there," Lassiter recalled Thursday evening.

Hines was there, just like Lassiter, Marquis and Hines' parents have been there for most of his football games this fall, and just like they were there to encourage him after a discouraging start to the season.

During practice this summer, Hines wasn't there mentally on the football field. Although he came out of spring football contending for the starting job in JMU's opener against Lock Haven on Sept. 4, Hines had slipped to the bottom of the depth chart at tailback because of a poor showing in August.

"Raymond is a very conscientious youngster who wants to do all the right things because he's been raised so good by his parents," JMU coach Mickey Matthews said as the Dukes (10-2) prepared for their Division I-AA quarterfinal game Saturday at Furman (10-2). "When he had some issues off the field, it was obvious his mind was not on football in August. His body was here, but his mind was somewhere else."

With the birth of his child behind him, Matthews believes, Hines once again focused on the practice field.

Just over a month later, Hines - by default -- had taken over as the Dukes' No. 1 tailback, after highly touted sophomores Alvin Banks (leg) and Maurice Fenner (shoulder) went down with injuries. Hines has been the team's featured back for the last five games, gaining over 100 yards in four of them and breaking 190 twice.

"We owe him a lot," Matthews said. "I don't know what we'd have done without him."

During JMU's 14-13 win over Lehigh last week in the first round of the playoffs, Hines rushed for 191 yards and a touchdown. On the season, the 5-foot-9 Hines has run for 935 yards and seven touchdowns on 181 carries. With 65 yards against Furman, he would become just the fourth Duke ever to rush for 1,000 yards, and the first since Curtis Keaton set a school record with 1,719 yards in 1999.

And every time he rushes over 175, he's out-gaining his weight.

As Hines sat on the turf stretching before practice this week, Matthews yelled across the field to him.

"Raymond! Get back in the locker room and get your body," Matthews said.

But Hines has always been small. His mother, Alva, remembers seeing him wearing a helmet for the first time when he was 8. Hines' head was so small and the helmet so heavy, it fell to one side.

"The helmet was cocked sideways on his head," Alva said. "He was so little, but he wanted to play."

Being undersized, Hines drew no serious looks from I-A teams. His choices came down to JMU, Fordham and Howard.

Holding tiny Marquis, however, Hines looks like a giant, which is what he's been for the Dukes.

"Me, having a child, I just want to do my best," the speedy Hines said. "I want also to show him how not giving up and working hard can actually work out in the long run."

There is still plenty of work ahead for Hines and Lassiter.

The 18-year-old Lassiter said she had a falling out with her parents after becoming pregnant and has lived with Hines' mother and father in Hyattsville, Md., for the past eight months. Since Marquis was born, Lassiter and her family have reconciled. Her mother was even in the room for the birth, holding one hand while Raymond held the other.

While Lassiter raises the kid, Hines is attending classes and playing football - a rarity, apparently, in his suburban D.C. neighborhood. Hines can't name a single friend from Hyattsville who went to a four-year college.

Certainly, none are accomplishing what the 21-year-old is, working toward a business degree at JMU, starting at tailback for the Dukes and being a father to Marquis.

"Being here in college, I know they look up to me 'cause I'm like one of the only people who got to go away to school," Hines said. "I keep them in mind when I'm out there running the ball."

Hines' sister, Ashley, will graduate from Florida A&M next weekend after four years on the dean's list. Raymond has balanced the rigors of football with JMU's challenging business program. He's on pace to graduate in May, after only four years.

"I just tell him to put his education before the football," his father, Willie Hines, said Thursday. "I know football is one of the most time-consuming sports that there is. We make sure he puts his time into his schoolwork."

Willie Hines worked for the Metro transit authority for 32 years - the last 18 as a station manager - before retiring in 1999. The 59-year-old Hines, who started at the Metro when he was 22, right out of the military, still works part-time and also remodels basements. Raymond's mother, Alva, is a 57-year-old administrative assistant in downtown Washington.

Now, Willie, Alva, Jennifer and Marquis will travel to Greenville, S.C., on Saturday for the I-AA quarterfinals - a place the Dukes probably wouldn't be without Raymond.

But even when he slipped to fourth on the depth chart - behind Banks, Fenner and Antoinne Bolton -- with a pregnant girlfriend back home, Hines never considered quitting, though he was plenty discouraged.

"In high school, he was like the big star," Lassiter said. "Then he came to college and he was always on the bench. He would always say, 'Maybe my time to shine is over.'"

With a newborn son and rejuvenated career, maybe it's just beginning.
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Record Number: 109E3BE9234435CE