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Toney Baker was a great running back. He's a very good running back still. And one day, he might be great again.

You never know about these things. They say the greatest leap in athletics is from the colleges to the pros. But that's not true. Not anymore. The jump from high school to college is a far greater chasm to bound over. Most of our prep stars are never heard from again.

Baker announced Tuesday morning that he would give up a final year of eligibility at N.C. State and make the leap toward the NFL. The former Ragsdale phenom will be one of the most intriguing names on draft boards come April, not because the pros doubt he can play at the next level but because they know he can. They just haven't seen it in a while.

He was that good as a high school runner. He might've been the best we've ever seen.

Baker released a statement, said he'd talked it over with the right people, and made the jump we all knew he would one day make. Where he lands is anyone's guess.

"It was a tough decision because I have loved my time at N.C. State and have really enjoyed playing for Coach (Tom) O'Brien," he said in the release. "But after weighing all my options, I think this is the right move for me at this time in my life."

It's absolutely the right move.

Few college players went through as much as Baker did in five years in Raleigh. He missed most of two seasons with a knee injury before he came back for his senior year. Along the way, he survived coaching changes and coordinator changes and surgery and challenges from players recruited over him and challenges from those who doubted him.

And still he came back, again and again, chasing the same dream he had at Ragsdale when he was such a remarkable runner it became hard to describe his runs. Baker would slide sideways into holes and reappear in the secondary. He would bury his head into a pile of bodies, and the pile would start to move forward.

I only saw one other high-school running back like that — Emmitt Smith. I saw Smith carry the ball 60 times for 266 yards in a playoff game in Pensacola, Fla., and people compared him to Texas legend Ken Hall, the "Sugar Land Express," generally regarded as the greatest high school running back ever.

Baker was better than Smith.

"We had a recruiter come here his senior year," Ragsdale coach Tommy Norwood said Tuesday. "That was who he compared Toney to."

You don't hear things like that very often, not from recruiters or scouts, all of whom said then and say now he has the tools to be an NFL runner. Even after all he's been through, Baker is still the swivel-hipped power runner we saw in Jamestown running toward national rushing records and entertaining national recruiters every week.

And he's still a good kid. That's the one factor NFL teams will pick up on in the coming months.

"He's a diamond," Norwood said. "The biggest thing people are going to see, aside from his ability, is how good a person he is."

Anyone who's ever known him wants Baker to make it. This past year, he received the ACC's Brian Piccolo Award as the league's most courageous player. State wanted him to come back for a sixth year the NCAA awarded him as a medical hardship, and Baker considered it. But he went to the experts, his family and his coaches, and they told him it was time.

The life of an NFL running back is all of about 4½ years. Baker will be 24 years old when the next NFL season starts. Another year in Raleigh would be a detriment to his value. Experts see him as a mid- to late-round pick, and it really has little to do with his numbers. Baker ran for 2,045 yards in college, fighting injuries and never having the breakout season.

He's projected to be a big back at the next level, a short-yardage guy who weighs about 225 now and could carry another 15 pounds and play fullback. I sat beside a scout during Baker's freshman season at State who told me Baker was ready for the NFL then in terms of size and ability.

He had vision, Norwood said. He could see things on the field no one else could see. You'd watch him break into the secondary, make one little move and be gone. You'd see collisions that never happened because he zigged when the defender zagged. You'd see collisions where only one player fell. It was never Baker.

All these years later, those attributes haven't changed. The wear on his body slowed him over the course of five college seasons, and the emotional toll made him older than his years. But all running backs age quickly. They say the biggest obstacle is having to learn how to be a man in the NFL. Some players never figure it out.

But some players are men before they ever leave high school. Toney Baker was one of those guys. And he might have been the best we ever saw.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com