Ask Jon Ritchie why he does what he does. Go on, ask him.

"I run my head into people," Ritchie deadpans. "That's basically my job description."

It doesn't seem like running one's head into people takes a whole lot of talent. But perhaps Ritchie understates his station in life somewhat — he is, after all, the starting fullback for the NFL's Oakland Raiders.

Now that takes a little talent. The kind of talent displayed on the high school football field, where Ritchie rushed for 4,062 yards and 68 touchdowns in his career at Cumberland Valley.

The kind of talent displayed on the high school track, where he competed in the shotput — and the 100-meter dash.

The kind of talent that landed Ritchie the 1993 Sentinel Athlete of the Year Award, the 1993 John Travers Award and a spot on the 1993 Pennsylvania Big 33 team.

All before his 19th birthday.

"I would say high school for me really just seemed like one of those movies that you kind of have to suspend your disbelief for," a 25-year-old Ritchie says today. "It seems way too improbable to be realistic."

His high school football career ended at the pinnacle, with a 200-yard, two-touchdown performance in the Eagles' 28-12 victory over Upper St. Clair in the PIAA Class AAAA championship game Dec. 20, 1992. It was CV's first and only state football title, and Ritchie was the star.

Jim Render, the head coach of the Upper St. Clair team Ritchie rumbled through that night, was impressed.

"He's the best football player we've ever had play against us," Render said after that game. "I can't remember a player dominating a game against us the way he did."

Ritchie almost didn't find his calling. His father, Jon K. Ritchie, says Jon D. Ritchie really wasn't into sports until the Ritchies moved to Hampden Township from the West Shore school district when Jon was in kindergarten. And the move wasn't a ploy to get Jon into CV's football program — his Mom, Georganne, teaches in the Cumberland Valley system.

"He was more of a scholar at a young age," Mr. Ritchie says. "He was reading at three. We had a neighbor who would try to keep secrets by spelling out words, but that didn't work too well around Jon."

As fate would have it, the Ritchies' new next-door neighbor was John Kinback, who took one look at the huge thighs the younger Ritchie had since he was two and immediately set about turning him into a football player. Ritchie fell in love with the game and spent many an hour while he was growing up tossing the pigskin around in the street with Kinback's son, Sam — who would become the quarterback on CV's state championship team.

Still, Ritchie's future was not set in stone. He grew up as a soccer player ("I got a lot of yellow and red cards," he says), and then there was music — Ritchie took saxophone lessons for years, and plays both piano and guitar by ear.

Ritchie has been in several informal music groups and even cut some demos, but has never been in a formal band.

Plus, Mom and Dad were not too thrilled about Ritchie's choice of pastimes.

"I chose football because that was the sport that ... was most enjoyable to me," Ritchie says. "But it was kind of a star-crossed attraction, in that my parents wouldn't let me play until the second year of midget football, in sixth grade. I guess the wait just contributed to my love of organized football."

By the time he reached eighth grade, Ritchie was too big to play midgets, so he played on CV's ninth-grade team for two years before skipping up to the varsity as a sophomore. That was the beginning of an incredible career that led all the way to the top and earned Ritchie superstar-type recruiting attention.

"Jon was just amazing," CV head coach Tim Rimpfel says. "He brought so much excitement. I've never seen any player in high school develop a cult following like he did. It was amazing the people who idolized and loved Jon Ritchie."

"It does seem like a different period to my life, that's for sure," Ritchie says. "That was the period of my life where I got to carry the football, so I remember it fondly."

True, Ritchie doesn't get to tote the ball much these days (though he again has a small cult following in Oakland). He once told Rimpfel, jokingly, that he has forgotten how to run.

Ritchie also went through a tough stretch in college; he chose the University of Michigan, which had won the Rose Bowl two months earlier over Stanford, his first choice. He struggled in Michigan's system, carrying only twice his sophomore season. He had to split time after transferring to Stanford as well, in part due to injuries, but Ritchie was impressive in the NFL combines and Oakland selected him in the third round of the NFL Draft.

He's mostly a blocker for the Raiders, as well as a valuable pass-catcher out of the backfield; his only NFL touchdown so far came on a 20-yard reception on Monday Night Football during the 1999 season.

It may be a far cry from the heady days of 27 carries in a state championship game, but hey, it's a living. And whenever the day comes that Ritchie isn't able to play the game he loves for a living, there are plenty of other options — this is one guy who has a lot more going for him than a willingness to run his head into people.

"I got an opportunity to get a degree from a school that will pay dividends in the long run. People will automatically assume I'm smart," Ritchie says. "When I do think about the whole real-job situation, it frightens me, because I don't think I even own a pair of dress socks.

"Hopefully, I can become a rock star."