Frank Gore’s Legacy: A Football Savant Who Just Keeps Going

Frank Gore has a way of making you question football assumptions. He has a way of shrugging while shattering barriers. He has a way of turning the question of legacy around and making you think about the ending first instead of the beginning.

Because he’s doing something so exceedingly rare for a running back. At 33 years old, the Indianapolis Colts backfield anchor keeps leaping age hurdles and pushing long past the usual expiry date for careers at his position.

He’s doing it quietly, because away from the field, away from the gym and away from the boxing ring (yes, the boxing ring), that’s the first impression you get of Gore.

He’s quiet.

Which is partly why speaking with him feels like a quest to unlock a mystery that begins with large questions.

How is it possible he’s on pace for his ninth 1,000-plus-yard rushing season at an age when most running backs have long eased into their post-career rocking chairs? How has he reached that plateau repeatedly while taking 250-plus carries in seven of his 11 NFL seasons? And most remarkably, how has he not crumbled yet and instead logged five straight 16-game years?

There’s another automatic question you ask Gore in the search to find out exactly what’s made his inner motor run so hot for so long. It’s a question that spills out with his age looming large as you look at two lists.

The first one is the list of all-time rushing leaders. Gore currently sits ninth on that list, and he’ll easily leap Tony Dorsett for eighth in 2016. He has one more year in 2017 left on his Colts contract, and if the kid from Coconut Grove, Florida, keeps breaking the laws of football, breaking the top five is within reach.

The second list is the one to really focus on with Gore, as it zooms in on a specific period of time. It highlights the post-30 age period when running backs are either firmly in their decline phase or just gone entirely.

Gore’s production after the age of 30 isn’t just rare. No, it’s borderline historic and something we’ve only seen several times before.

Barring injury, he should easily move up two spots on that list by the end of 2016, again putting the top five within reach there.

So you look at those two lists and then essentially ask Gore this question: What gives?

Those in his past—from his high school coach at Coral Gables, to his offensive coordinator with the Miami Hurricanes and an offensive lineman who blocked in front of him in San Francisco—all echoed the same tune. They said Gore’s work ethic reached freak status long, long ago. He’s always been that way.

“When I was in San Francisco, we had something called the breakfast club, and it was the guys who would come in and lift at 6 a.m.,” said Alex Boone, a former 49ers guard who played with Gore for five seasons. “Probably about six or seven of us would come in every day, and Frank was just finishing his lift when we got in there at 6 a.m.”

That’s the only version of Gore anyone has ever known. What made him that way?

“A love of the game and the things I went through in life,” Gore said.

The first part of that answer is obvious. The second part is where Gore’s story begins.

                

Frank Gore Is a Determined Fighter

Gore’s mother passed away in 2007 after a long battle with kidney disease.

It was her strength while also raising a family as a single mother that ignited the fire deep within Gore. She was the rock at the center of a crowded and small home.

“I saw my mom fight when she was on dialysis and had 11 or 12 kids in a one-bedroom apartment,” he said. Of those kids, four were her own. But she also had the generosity and kindness to open her doors to other kids who needed a place to stay.

His mother was on dialysis throughout most of Gore’s time at Coral Gables High School. He had to mature quickly to help his mom through those tough times. And he did.

“I had to be mature as a kid with my mom as a single parent and struggling to take care of her kids, and my dad wasn’t in my life. I had to grow up fast,” he said

Football then became a passion, a distraction and a way forward.

Gore developed a love for football at a young age, and that continues today. But there was an obstacle standing in the way of pursuing his gridiron dreams.

He had to adapt in the classroom at school because of a learning disability. Gore wasn’t failing academically, but he was on track for a special diploma that wouldn’t have qualified him for his dream of playing college football.

“He wasn’t ready for the academic challenges at first,” said Joe Montoya, Gore’s high school football coach at Coral Gables. “Once I spoke to him and convinced him of what I can do to help him get into college, he just said, ‘OK, Coach.'”

“So from there, with my coaching staff, the administration and the athletic director, we came up with a plan to get him out of the special diploma and into the regular diploma.”

For two years, Gore then dug into his textbooks the same way he now devours playbooks. He logged extra tutoring time after school and even sacrificed some football practice time. Gore also did special one-on-one work for his SAT prep.

And he did it all while smashing Dade County records, rushing for an incredible 2,953 yards in 2000, his senior year.

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Montoya now speaks glowingly about Gore, just as everyone does. But his reflections are a little different.

He thinks back to a time when the school would help Gore in every respect, including arranging rides to the hospital to see his mom. And he can recall a young man with a dream who Montoya now says was one of the most mature 16-year-olds he’s ever met.

That maturity is clear to see in the video above. It shows a kid who has a goal and was aspiring to great football heights. That’s ordinary for many high school stars.

But it also shows a teenager who was well aware of both the hurdle standing in front of him and the work he had to put in to overcome it. That’s extraordinary.

“I told him I knew how to get him there as long as he did his part,” Montoya said of Gore’s classroom work. “He immediately said that wasn’t a problem. He was ready.”

The seeds for the Gore you see today—the running back who’s quiet yet powerful, and feared but greatly respected—were planted in those days. His determination grew further when he tore both of his ACLs while playing for the Miami Hurricanes—injuries that would have crushed many young men both mentally and physically.

But Gore kept going. He pushed himself to recover and rise again.

We can point to the multiple …

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