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By MARTY MILLER

Hernando Today correspondent

Published: September 4, 2008

At Central High School, the football team has a history of having running backs that have gained a ton of yards and excelled in finding the end zone.

In the past few years, Tim Gaynor, DuJuan Harris and Duane Marks have all had outstanding careers. Now in 2008, Austin Forte will be trying to join that elite list of outstanding Bear backs.

In 2007, Central had a 6-4 record with Marks gaining 704 yards and scoring 10 touchdowns. Those numbers were helped by senior-dominated offensive talent that surrounded him last year. Now Forte has to step into that role of the leading ball carrier for the Bears.

The 6-foot, 188-pound senior last year mostly played outside linebacker on defense while having only nine carries last year. Now Forte is moving to the offensive side of the ball and he knows that good things are expected of him.

"It's hard just focusing on offense," said the Bear senior. "Last year I played both ways and had a good year on defense. Now, it's sort of tough to just stand on the sidelines and watch the defense."

Last year Forte had 41 tackles as a linebacker.

But this year his team needs for him to be just as good at running back as he served at linebacker.

"It puts quite a bit of pressure on me," explained Forte. "I've played running back before and people say I have of pressure on my shoulders. But you learn from the best and I'm going out there and I'll do the best I can."

Forte says he has gotten letters of interest from schools like Florida International and Liberty University and is looking forward to playing football in college.

That means this year - behind an offensive line that for the most part returns intact from last year - is important.

"I try not to listen to things," Forte added. "I mean, it's cool to see your name in the paper, but I just try look at the bad stuff I do and try to correct it.

"Last year I mostly played defense, so this year the transition to running back has been kind of hard, but now I'm getting into it."

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