'He was bigger than life': Lars Tate captivated Indianapolis with 2 magic football seasons

Lars Tate was an Indianapolis icon. For two glorious falls in 1982 and 1983, thousands flocked to North Central High School — fans, scouts, media, you name it — to see the stuff of legend. What they read in the paper seemed too good to be true. They had to see it with their own eyes.

He did things no one had seen before, and things few have seen since. He brought national exposure to Indianapolis, became a star at Georgia and went on to play in the NFL. He died Tuesday at the age of 56 from cancer.

“He’s gone, but he'll never be forgotten, especially in this state,” said Chris Skidmore, a North Central defensive back who was a teammate of Tate’s at North Central and knew him since childhood. “He is the best athlete I have ever seen. He did things that I'd never seen anybody else do. I had a different perspective on it. I had to actually tackle him in practice. It was like tackling a rolling locomotive.”

Tate was a multisport athlete growing up. He played Little League baseball, pitching a no-hitter in seventh grade and hitting two home runs in another game — on back-to-back swings. Skidmore saw Tate “dunk a basketball backwards” in eighth grade.

But football had his heart, and it’s where he made magic happen.

The first time Skidmore saw Tate carry a football in eighth grade, he took it 90 yards for a touchdown. In the same game, he broke “at least eight tackles.”

Tate had to wait his turn to take the varsity field. At the time, only sophomores, juniors and seniors attended North Central High School. He was behind All-American Ray Wallace, who had a standout career at Purdue and played in the NFL for several seasons. But once Tate’s opportunity came, he took full advantage.

Tate made his first start for the Panthers against Carmel — the reigning state champions and the winners of 28 straight games — in front of a sold-out crowd on Aug. 28, 1982. No pressure, kid.

He carried the ball 23 times for 112 yards and a touchdown as North Central beat Carmel 22-14. The train had left the station, and it wasn’t slowing down.

The next week, he rushed for 147 yards and two scores. The week after, he found the end zone four times. In Week 4, he had 173 yards on 13 carries, scoring twice from more than 50 yards out and a third time from inside the red zone for good measure.

The next week, he scored from 58 yards on the game’s opening play. He had 110 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries in the first two quarters. He didn’t play in the second half. He didn’t need to. North Central beat Broad Ripple 35-0.

And so it went. The next week, he surpassed the 200-yard mark. Three weeks later, in a win over Tech, Tate had 129 yards and two touchdowns on six carries — in the first quarter. He sat for the final three.

There are so many stories, each one which seems more ludicrous than the next.

“We were up at Marion,” Skidmore said. “It was absolutely a torrential downpour — I mean, raining sideways. The field was mud. There was no traction. People were falling. He took a pitch from the 8-yard line. He got hit, slipped, put his arm down to balance himself, got hit again, and ended up going 80 yards for a touchdown.”

By the time the season was over, after Carmel exacted revenge on the Panthers in their playoff opener, Tate has scored 22 touchdowns while rushing for more than 1,300 yards.

He captivated an entire city.

Jake Query, cohost of Kevin and Query on 93.5 FM and 107.5 The Fan, was a fifth grader in Washington Township during Tate’s senior season.

“When you're older, you look back and say, ‘Maybe there was hyperbole about these athletes because I was a kid. Maybe I'm romanticizing in my mind how good they were.’ When I was in fifth grade, he was a mythical figure on the field,” Query said. “He was totally unstoppable. He was a celebrity on the northside of Indianapolis.”

This was before the days of social media and scouting services. For the average fan, the eye test was the only way to gauge a player’s greatness. With Tate, that was more than enough.

After every game, there would be a throng surrounding the sensation.

“Everywhere we went, there were gonna be television cameras and reporters on the sidelines,” Skidmore said. “You would see people surrounding his locker. I didn’t know where they were from, but I certainly knew who they were and what they were doing.”

Despite his larger than life stature, those who rubbed shoulders with Tate rave about his humility. Skidmore saw him sign autographs for kids outside the locker room — “Back in 1984-1985, that never happened,” he said — and treat his classmates with kindness. If the fame ever went to his head, Tate did a masterful job hiding it.

“The guy was one of the coolest down to earth human beings I ever met,” Skidmore said. “He was never arrogant when he approached people or when people approached him. He always had a smile on his face. The dude was a happy dude. If you had that talent, who wouldn't be happy, right?”

He was limited to just 95 yards in the first game of his senior season, but still found the end zone three times. Even when North Central lost, which was rare, Tate still did damage. Warren Central upset the Panthers in October. In a losing effort, he rushed for 228 yards and threw a touchdown pass for good measure.

“I had never seen anybody built like that," said Steve Whitehead, a freshman at North Central when Tate was a senior. "It was just amazing. There were shirts that said, ‘Knock them out for Lars.’ With Lars, you really didn't even need to block for him. He’d get to where he needed to go on his own.”

Bob Bartolomeo, the legendary former University of Indianapolis football coach, was an assistant coach for Butler at the time. He came to recruit other players, but couldn’t help marveling at Tate.

“We were there watching other guys more intently than watching Lars Tate, but as a football fan, you really enjoyed his performances,” he said. “He was a big back who could run like a deer.”

In the team’s playoff opener against Anderson, Tate took the second play from scrimmage 93 yards for a score. He finished with 175 yards and two scores, breaking a four-game playoff losing streak for the Panthers.

And he did it while battling an injury that would play a large role in ending his high school career.

The next week, with North Central facing Washington, Tate carried the ball just twice. A back spasm caused him too much pain to see any more time on the field. Washington trounced the Panthers 30-3.

“It’s just too painful. He could not play,” late North Central coach George Pappas told IndyStar. “It’s been bothering him on and off for two or three weeks and, especially, all this week. We didn’t make the decision until right at the beginning of the game. News like that tends to have a profound impact on the other kids. We could’ve given him shots. But we didn’t want to give him shots. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. He’s just too good a kid with too much of a future.”

It was a cruel end to what had been a magical two-year run. His high school totals are staggering: More than 2,700 yards and 38 touchdowns, averaging nearly a first down per carry. It earned him All American accolades. He narrowed his list of colleges to Indiana, Michigan and Georgia. He chose the Bulldogs, where he was considered the heir apparent to Herschel Walker, one of the greatest college running backs of all time.

An Indiana kid bound for the SEC seemed like a fantasy. Tate had a habit of making the impossible a reality.

Tate’s numbers at Georgia were just as impressive: 3,017 yards (sixth-most in school history) and 36 touchdowns in four seasons. During his junior season in 1986, he led the SEC in touchdowns with 17.

He was a second-round pick by Tampa Bay in the 1988 NFL Draft. He led the team in rushing in each of his first two seasons, but was cut prior to the 1990 season. He played three games during the 1990 season with the Chicago Bears, but a pinched nerve ended his playing career.

On the national stage, Tate is best known for his accomplishments at Georgia. But in Indianapolis, he’ll always be known for taking the city by storm and doing the unimaginable. In an era filled with Indiana high school football stars — Rod Woodson came before, Jeff George came after — Tate was in a league of his own.

“He was a celebrity to those of us who were younger. He was a superstar to those that covered him,” Query said. “There have been great players that have come through Indiana high school football. But the first great national star running back to come out of Indianapolis was Lars Tate.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Lars Tate, North Central and Georgia standout, dead at 56 from cancer