Giants' Eric Gray groomed to be running back

Eric Gray manned the quarterback position as a kid growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, but there was a catch. The running back position ran in the family.

His dad, Eric, was a running back at Tennessee State. He coaches the running backs for Lausanne Collegiate School in Memphis. And Gray’s uncle, Maurice Hall, was a running back at Ohio State. He got a look with the Chargers but didn’t stick.

“I played quarterback up until really like eighth and ninth grade,” Gray said. “But them nurturing me my whole life, telling me how to play the game, they taught me from a running back’s perspective how to play quarterback.

“So I was kind of a running quarterback. But when I got to high school, eighth grade, I gravitated toward a little more running back.”

He ran up huge amounts of yardage as a high school running back at Lausanne under his dad’s tutelage and posted nice numbers at Tennessee and Oklahoma. The Giants then made him a fifth-round pick in April.

They have Saquon Barkley to carry much of the load again on his new one-year deal, so Gray could serve as a reserve. But the Giants are giving him an ample chance to win the kickoff and punt return jobs and possibly pump life into those areas.

“We’ll get him reps returning as many kicks as we can,” coach Brian Daboll said before Monday’s training camp practice at their Meadowlands facility. “But . . . [he has] a long way to go like the other young guys.”

Gray is happy to return kicks. “It’s definitely exciting,” he said. “Any opportunity that you get, you’ve got to take advantage of it.”

His first chance in a game came in Friday night’s preseason-opening loss at Detroit. Gray, who gained experience as a returner in college, raced 36 yards with a kickoff.

But a flag flew — holding.

“That was unfortunate,” said Gray, who finished with three kick returns for 62 yards and two punt returns for 8 yards and had a 6-yard run and an 11-yard reception among his seven other touches. “But it was good to be able to get out there and do that, to get a feel for kickoff returning in the NFL.”

The 5-10, 211-pound Gray ran only a 4.63 40 at Oklahoma’s pro day, but after the Giants drafted him, general manager Joe Schoen praised his “elusiveness” inside and “really good hands out of the backfield” and called him “super-productive.”

Check out his Lausanne rushing yardage as a sophomore, junior and senior — 2,251, 3,151 and 2,499. Gray set a state record with 138 career touchdowns.

“[My dad] started when I was young, just grooming me for that position,” Gray said. “I was glad he got the running backs job because there’s nobody better to teach you than your dad because he knows you in and out.”

After two seasons at Tennessee, Gray transferred to Oklahoma. As a senior last season, he rushed for 1,336 yards and caught 33 passes.

Daboll mentioned Gray’s “pass-receiving skills [and] open-field running” for the Sooners.

There’s a story behind those receiving skills.

“When I was in high school around 10th grade, I used to go to a lot of football camps as a receiver because my dad thought it was important to perfect my hands, perfect my receiving ability,” Gray said.

But for all his positives and production, he still lasted until the fifth round.

“No matter what round I went in, there was going to be a chip on my shoulder no matter what,” Gray said. “I just wanted to get to a team and prove that one team right.”