Everyone knows who Bedell is now
Floyd running back Stacey Bedell runs for yardage in the third quarter of the Class I Long Island Championship at Hofstra's Shuart Stadium. (Nov. 26, 2010) Credit: James Escher
When he first showed up for tryouts as a 10-year-old in the Bellport PAL football program, Stacey Bedell was a nobody. "Everyone else had been there the year before. I was the new kid," he recalled. "I didn't know anyone and I didn't know anything."
Everyone knows Stacey Bedell now. Floyd's returning Newsday All-Long Island running back/defensive back is somebody . . . somebody special. The senior recently was named No. 1 among MSG Varsity's Top 31 Long Island athletes to watch for 2011-12.
And it all started that first year of PAL ball, when his older cousin, Eddie Gowins -- the Bellport High School star who excelled at Stony Brook University before transferring this year to California (Pa.) State -- taught him how to make optimum use of his quick feet and blazing speed.
"Eddie set up cones on a field and he taught me the drills to work on my cutting technique,'' Bedell said. "The first time I tried running the cones, I struggled. So Eddie went over it again, slowly. Then I got better. By the first game, I made some jukes that made people miss.''
He's been making people miss ever since and has compiled a veritable juke box of his greatest hits -- um, misses. "He can break it at any moment,'' Floyd coach Paul Longo said. "He's one of those guys that when he gets the ball in his hands, if he gets any kind of an opening, he's gone. And if he gets one inch behind the defense, it's over. There's no way to catch him.''
That was evident last season when Bedell ran for 1,658 yards and 18 touchdowns, averaging 8.0 yards per carry. He also made 105 tackles. And he was most impressive in the biggest games.
In a riveting 41-34 victory over Sachem North in the Suffolk Division I championship game, he ran for 242 yards and four touchdowns and made a game-saving tackle on Jesse Scanna near the 5-yard line as time ran out.
In a 62-35 loss to Freeport in the Long Island Class I championship game, Bedell scored four touchdowns, including a 91-yard return on the opening kickoff. He ran for 136 yards and two scores and accumulated 292 yards of total offense. Bedell became the only player in LIC history to return a kickoff for a touchdown and score on offense, defense and special teams.
Many grass and turf fields on Long Island are littered with defenders who have tried -- and failed -- to bring down Bedell. Those players might as well be orange cones, just out there for the 5-9, 175-pounder with sub-4.5 speed to elude.
"When I run, my mind goes blank,'' said Bedell, who verbally committed to Villanova in July but told Newsday he is re-evaluating that decision and considering other offers. "I don't hear anything once the ball is snapped. I just react and let my instincts and my speed take over.''
Bedell is quiet and shy off the field but tough and competitive on it. He said he is playing "with a chip on my shoulder'' this season. He'd like to reverse last year's loss to Freeport in the LIC and he wants to prove several colleges wrong for not offering him scholarships because "they said I was too small.''
He's a big man on campus, though, at Floyd. "He's a tremendous role model for the younger players,'' Longo said, "because he's such a tremendous student with tremendous character. And he just happens to be one of the best players on the Island. He's electrifying.''
