Comments (3) Best Local Boy Made Good - 2007

San Francisco 49ers running back Frank Gore

During a game in Detroit against the Lions this past season, on his way to a 1695-yard rushing season and his first Pro Bowl appearance, Frank Gore showed us why he is probably the best running back to come out of the University of Miami. Around the 50-yard line, the former Coral Gables Senior High star lowered his helmet and scampered through six Lions defenders during a breathtaking 61-yard touchdown run. What made Gore's scamper even sweeter is that the 49ers were facing third and sixteen. And it's only his second season. The last time we saw such unbridled explosiveness from Gore was during his 2000 senior year at Coral Gables (in which he rushed for 2353 yards and scored 34 touchdowns). Gore made it to college despite a childhood learning disability that required him to take special classes throughout his elementary, middle, and high school education. He helped raise two younger siblings and care for his mother Liz, who has a kidney ailment that requires dialysis (she remains on a transplant list). But his breakout as a Hurricane was cut short when Gore tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in March 2002. Things didn't get better the following season when he blew out the same ligament, but in his right knee. You felt bad for the kid. But he was drafted in the third round by the 49ers in 2005. Last year Gore finally blossomed into the star running back we always knew he would be. Yet Gore hasn't forgotten the people who helped him reach the big time. He invited his former coach, the Hurricanes' Don Soldinger, along to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. "He's the best I've been around," Soldinger says of Gore. "He has a good feel for what is right and what is wrong. Frank is one special cat."