By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
After a decent season as a junior, Port Isabel’s Omar Silva outdid himself as a senior this season.
Last year, Silva lined up under center and rushed for 1,063 yards and nine touchdowns, and threw for nearly 200 yards and five touchdowns.
After a switch to the primary running back this season, Silva thrived with 1,838 yards and 22 touchdowns in eight games after missing two early in the regular season due to injury.
The senior back helped carry the Tarpons to a share of the District 16-4A Division II title and topped 2,000-yard mark during the playoff game with 211 yards and a touchdown against Sweeny.
Silva finished the season with 2,049 yards on 200 carries (10.2 yards per carry) and 23 touchdowns.
For his offensive outburst this season, Silva has been named The Brownsville Herald’s 2016 All-Metro Offensive Player of the Year.
“It’s an exciting feeling,” he said. “It was a lot of hard work as a team that started with two-a-days.”
He hit the century mark in every game this season and topped 200 yards on three occasions. He had more than 300 yards against Orange Grove in a pivotal district game and had a season-high of 441 yards against La Feria, ironically in his return from an ankle injury that wasn’t quite 100 percent at the time.
“Omar is a competitor, he hates to lose,” Port Isabel coach Monty Stumbaugh said. “That’s probably why we get along so good. He was never about stats, it was about the team. Every once in a while you’re blessed to have a kid like that. His attitude was about team and what was best for the team.”
The injury early in the season helped Silva appreciate his time on the field even more.
“I was devastated because I could barely run on it,” he said.
A couple weeks later, Silva returned to the lineup against La Feria.
“I was anxious to get out there and run,” he said. “I wasn’t fully healthy, but I was ready to go.”
Silva was ready to go and produced his career-high of the season for yardage, earning the Built Ford Tough Texas High School Football Player of the Week for Class 4A after that game.
After that, Silva put the team on his back and led it to a share of a district title and another postseason trip. But he doesn’t take the credit.
“This year we came together much better, more like a family,” he said. “I just knew I had to lead, and they would follow. They would work as hard as I did.”
Silva hopes his example will stick with the underclassmen.
“I felt I gave them an example of how hard they need to work for next year,” he said. “You always want to be better the year before. It will come, you just have to work for it.”
Stumbaugh agreed.
“I hope the younger kids see how he got there,” he said. “His work ethic, his competitiveness, he wanted to be good. But he knows every award is a team award, because without everybody out there we couldn’t do it.”
The long-time Port Isabel coach certainly will miss his three-year starter, especially after generating more than 4,000 yards of offense during the past two seasons.
“He’s a special kid,” Stumbaugh said. “We’ve had some good running backs come through here, and he’s up there with the best of them. We we’re blessed to have him.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @andrewmcrum.