Big-Time Talent At Fca Danforth Takes Huge Strides On Small-Schools Stage

Say it slowly for effect: Benjamin Rowe Danforth. It has a presidential ring to it, no?

When it comes to eight-man football and track, the Falls Christian Academy junior is at the head of the table among A-4 athletes statewide.

Ben Danforth is rewriting the record books at the private Post Falls school. By the time he graduates, he is likely to establish marks that could stand for many years.

As it is, he already owns most of them.

More important than records, though, Danforth is trying to demonstrate that little doesn’t always mean less.

“I think I have to prove something because I’m looked at as being from an A-4 school,” the sprinter and tailback said.

“There’s a perception that A-4 athletes aren’t as good as athletes from bigger schools. It bothers me a little bit.

“I have no regrets going to Falls, but I’ll always probably wonder how I would have done at a bigger school.”

Danforth draws satisfaction from knowing that he more than held his own against local big-school athletes he has played with and against in football, track and club soccer before high school.

“This is an athlete in about three years, when you do the `where are they now’ story, you’ll have to look in the Pac-10 or the Big 12 for Ben,” FCA track coach Ivan Benson said. “He can be at that level. He just hasn’t been discovered yet.”

To that end, Danforth is putting his best - and speedy - feet forward.

A starter in football since the first game of his freshman year, Danforth has rushed for 3,300 yards - already the school’s career record. He more than doubled his combined freshman/sophomore yards last fall when he gained 1,730 and scored a record 25 touchdowns. His single-game highs of 320 yards and six TDs also are records.

And the 5-foot-10, 170-pound Danforth figures to add to or obliterate the records come September.

“I don’t know if I’ve coached a more physically gifted athlete since I left Los Angeles (in 1992),” said FCA football coach Rick Alexander, who has coached eight-man 11 years, four at FCA. “He’s got the whole package. He’s got the strength and the speed. Normally, you get one or the other. Seldom do you get both.”

In football, Danforth’s most obvious athletic gifts are his acceleration to the hole and cut-back ability. Those also serve him well in track when he surges out of the blocks, and on the corners in the longer sprints.

Danforth, who finished third in the 100 meters and second in the 200 at state last year, holds school records in both races (11.26/22.9); he runs the first leg of a 400 relay that placed second his freshman year and was leading before a botched handoff last spring on the final baton exchange (“Looking at the splits, we were on pace to break the state record.”); and he’s ventured into the field this spring to do the long jump.

“I think I can win state titles in the 100 and 200,” said Danforth, who also predicts a high finish in the relay with teammates Charlie Dowers, Scott Jackson and Russ Baker.

Although his form is raw in the long jump, Danforth expects to improve markedly by season’s end. FCA grad Cheyenne Marchbanks, who won state titles in the long and triple jumps in 1994, is coaching him.

“I think I’m just starting to see what I can actually do - just scratching the surface,” Danforth said. “With God’s help, I can do anything.”

Danforth earned a starting job in his first year on the varsity basketball team last winter. But his talents aren’t limited to athletics.

He plays the bass guitar, is an honors-level student, builds computers and loves to babysit his 3-year-old sister, Emily.

Babysit?

“I love it,” he said. “She adores me and I adore her. She’s one of my biggest fans. She wears a little cheerleader’s outfit to my games.”

While brother is streaking all over the field, sister is waving her pom-poms.

Benson calls Danforth a thinker.

“He thinks things through and reaches logical conclusions,” Benson said. “In science classes, he can look at a problem and if he doesn’t come up with the answer right away he gets the process going in the right direction. He carries that kind of thinking over to athletics. He can visualize the right way of doing something.”

Alexander discovered that same quality early in the season last fall. With Danforth ailing and on the sideline with a fever and 104-degree temperature, the coach had him call the plays.

The Eagles, 0-2 at the time, beat Kootenai 48-36. Danforth called 75 to 80 percent of the plays the rest of the season as FCA qualified for the state playoffs for a second straight year.

“He’s proven adept at it,” Alexander said. “He sees things on the field that sometimes I don’t see.”

“It’s sort of like chess,” Danforth explained. “You’re always thinking two plays ahead trying to set something up.”

Danforth wants to play major college football. Alexander believes his star will have an opportunity.

“He’s determined. He knows talent alone isn’t going to do it,” Alexander said. “If you’re good, people will hear about you - it doesn’t matter if it’s eight-man football or A-4. People will hear about him before his high school career is over.”