FOXBURG, Pa. (EYT/D9) — During the last two seasons for the Union/A-C Valley football team, Mikey Card was playing a very different role with a very different body type.
Card was a running back all through youth football near his Nickleville home in the A-C Valley school district, but when he got to high school and began playing for the Falcon Knights, he was needed on the offensive line.
(Photo by Shelly Atzeni)
So Card bulked up. During his freshman and sophomore campaigns, he played at around 230 pounds.
Through it all, Card was a running back at heart.
“It was killing me being on the line,” Card said. “But I had to do what I had to do. My mentality was I was gonna do the job.”
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Card did indeed do the job and he did it well at guard for Union/A-C Valley. He embraced his new role as an anchor up front, paving the way for the likes of Eli Penny, Tanner Merwin and Kylar Culbertson.
With those standouts lost to graduation and a strong group returning on the offensive line, the junior got the opportunity he had been waiting for this season.
A chance to play running back again.
To do that, though, Card had to once more radically change his body. He ran four miles a day to shed the extra weight. He hit the weight room hard to chisel those pounds off and turn them into muscle.
When the transformation was complete, Card was back down to a svelte 170 pounds.
He dropped 60 pounds — and 30 digits. He traded in his uniform No. 50 for a more-familiar No. 20. That was the number he wore all through youth football as a running back.
“I figured I started with that number,” Card said, “I might as well end with it.”
Card was eager to get running again.
“It was the best feeling in the world knowing I was going to go back to running back,” Card said. “I just worked as hard as I could to lose as much weight and build up as much muscle as possible. It really paid off.”
It sure has.
Card leads the Falcon Knights with 776 yards rushing on just 88 carries. He’s also scored five touchdowns.
He brings a blend of power, speed and quickness to the position.
But mostly power.
“That’s my mentality,” Card said. “Whenever I get the ball, I’m looking for someone to hit. I just take Marshawn Lynch’s words when he said if you keep running through somebody’s face, they aren’t gonna want to keep coming at ya. So, that’s my first instinct — run over the person in front of me.”
Card admitted he was a little nervous at first making the transition back to running back. It had been two years, after all, since he last carried the football.
But once he got into the flow of the offense at fullback and tailback, it all came back to him.
“Going back to my roots,” he said, “it just kind of fell right back into place.”
One area that also concerned Card was how the weight loss was going to affect his defensive play on the line.
With the extra girth, Card could move piles up front and gobbled up blockers.
Card found he had no reason to worry. What he lost in heft he more than made up for with quickness.
Card leads the team with 11 tackles for a loss and also has four quarterback sacks.
“The only way it’s affected me is I don’t have as much power or mass,” Card said. “I’ve adapted and I’ve definitely made up for it with my quickness.”
Union/A-C Valley coach Brad Dittman wasn’t concerned at all about Card’s position change, which was an unusual one in high school sports. Usually when a player moves into a role on the offensive line, he rarely sheds so much weight to go back to a skill position.
But that’s what Card has done. It has worked out well — mostly because of Card’s relentlessness, Dittman said.
“It’s fantastic to have a kid like Mikey,” Dittman said. “I mean, he brings it to the table every single time. It doesn’t matter if it’s walkthroughs or in the weight room, game time, whether he’s playing fullback, tailback, defensive tackle and even linebacker when we have to throw him in there in an emergency, he brings it. It doesn’t matter what we do with that kid, you get everything he has.”
Redbank Valley, Keystone, and Union/A-C Valley sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Heeter Lumber.
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