Football journey for Charlotte 49ers’ Benny LeMay began with Cam Newton and Tim Tebow

Growing up the youngest son in a house full of rambunctious siblings, Benny LeMay had to learn early on how to take care of himself.

Whether it was playing football or video games — or even when racing to get to the dinner table first — LeMay had to stand up to older brothers Christian and Uriah.

“It was definitely competitive,” said Benny LeMay, the Charlotte 49ers’ senior running back who has become perhaps Conference USA’s most dangerous and versatile offensive player.

“Going outside to play football. Who would get done eating first. They definitely tried to pick on me a little bit. But I had that chip on my shoulder to where I didn’t let it happen. After a while, they stopped picking on me. I kind of killed that.”

All that competition came with a purpose, guided by love and loyalty.

“They really didn’t compete against each other, they competed together,” said dad Stacy LeMay. “They were close knit. Christian and Uriah guided him, cared for him, instructed him.”

Benny took it from there.

After the three brothers had finished playing football, Christian and Uriah would come in to grab a snack or watch cartoons. Benny, however, would often remain outside.

“He’d be out there, throwing the ball up in the air to himself, running sprints, doing things to try and get better,” Stacy said. “That’s when you could see that this was going to be an example of how the younger brother would go to another level.”

All three LeMay brothers would go on to play college football. Christian, who originally signed with Georgia, played quarterback at Jacksonville State. Uriah, who also started out at Georgia, finished his career as a receiver at Charlotte. A fourth LeMay sibling, sister Jasmine, ran track in high school.

But Benny, as dad says, stood apart.

The second-leading rusher in Conference USA, LeMay has run for 667 yards and five touchdowns. His 124.4 all-purpose yards per game leads the league. LeMay, who enters Saturday’s game against North Texas with 2,802 career rushing yards, will likely leave Charlotte as the program’s second-leading all-time rusher behind Kalif Phillips (4,020 yards from 2013-16).

“He’s gotten better every day, every hour, every minute we’ve been here,” says 49ers senior backup running back Aaron McAllister, LeMay’s closest friend on the team. “He’s always been the guy to go to, always ahead of the game. It’s amazing how he’s progressed through the years.”

Leak, Tebow and Cam

LeMay’s story actually doesn’t begin in Matthews, where, like his brothers, he would become a star on state championship teams at Butler High. The LeMay family first lived in Gainesville, Fla., where Stacy, a former running back at Florida A&M and an ordained minister, was team chaplain for the Florida Gators under former coach Urban Meyer.

Dad’s job had its perks. Gators players would come to the LeMays and hang out. That meant Benny, still in elementary school, got to spend time with quarterbacks Chris Leak and Tim Tebow. Later, the LeMay sons met a young Gators player named Cam Newton.

“They were all really genuine guys,” Benny says. “Cam was being Cam, funny and crazy all the time. Tebow and Chris were more laid-back kind of guys, down to earth. They were real cool dudes, though.”

Stacy moved the family to Matthews in 2005 to start his own ministry. As the high school careers of Christian and Uriah were taking off at Butler (where Jasmine was also a star track athlete), Benny played on a youth national championship team with the Mint Hill Chargers in middle school and played in two Under Armour Youth All-America games.

At Butler, LeMay rushed for 4,059 career yards and scored 74 touchdowns. Because of his smallish size — a stocky 5-foot-9, 215 pounds — LeMay received Football Bowl Subdivision offers only from Charlotte and Ball State, as well as several Football Championship Subdivision programs.

He went with the hometown 49ers.

“(LeMay) running through holes and seeing things, and running through tackles doesn’t have a lot to do with height,” former 49ers coach Brad Lambert told the Observer in 2016.

Things have changed at Charlotte. Lambert was fired last season. Will Healy, his replacement, knew when he arrived that he had a talented running back in LeMay. Just how talented, however, took time for Healy to realize.

“When I took the job, I watched film of him,” Healy said. “He was playing behind a really good offensive line, but I wondered if he could break away from people. Then we got out here for our first practice, and I thought, ‘This guy is better than I thought he was.’

“It was the speed and also I didn’t know how good his hands are. He’s got great hands.”

Healy has used LeMay as a receiver coming out of the backfield more than in his first three seasons. He has 17 catches for 204 yards and three touchdowns this season. He caught 22 passes the entire 2018 season.

“That’s showed my versatility,” LeMay said.

An NFL future?

As Charlotte has played from behind during a four-game losing streak in recent weeks, LeMay’s rushing production has waned. He had a season-low total of 45 yards rushing against Western Kentucky last week, two weeks after a 46-yard game against Florida Atlantic.

LeMay has just six carries for 17 yards in the fourth quarter of Charlotte’s games this season.

“I think it has a lot to do with trailing,” Healy said. “We have trailed a lot late in games, too much in the fourth quarter; the other ones were when we were leading so we pulled him. I think it has been a lot of different things but we would love to be in a barn burner and have to hand the ball off to him and feel good about our chances if we do that. I can promise you it’s not schematic or a game plan thing; just how the games have gone.”

Between the FAU and WKU games, however, was a 234-yard total offense day (144 rushing, 90 receiving) in a 48-23 loss against Florida International.

LeMay makes plays without the benefit of blazing speed. But he has enough of a burst to separate from defenses in the open field. One of his special traits, however, is the ability to patiently pick holes made by his offensive line, then hit them and go.

“His short-area quickness is really good,” says 49ers running backs coach Sean Dawkins. “His quickness is good and he changes direction really well. But when you have that good vision, that patience, it allows the blocks in front of you to set up and it’s easier to see. He does really well with that.”

After LeMay picked up 81 yards on 18 carries against then top-ranked Clemson in September, Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said: “(LeMay) is what you want in a zone runner. He’s patient, he’s thick and he’s banging it downhill. He made it a big-boy pad game.”

The 49ers have had players taken in the NFL draft in two of the past three seasons (defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi in 2017 and offensive lineman Nate Davis in 2019). So scouts are familiar with Charlotte’s program and have made their way to watch LeMay, as well as the team’s two other senior pro prospects, defensive end Alex Highsmith and offensive tackle Cam Clark.

“Benny will have a shot for sure (with the NFL),” Healy says. “The question will be, will one team fall in love with enough with him to draft him or will be be a free-agent type of deal? But he will play in the NFL. Every scout that comes through here says he’ll play in the NFL.”

Says LeMay: “That would be something. That’s my dream.”

North Texas at Charlotte

When: Saturday, 3:30 p.m.

Where: Richardson Stadium.

Watch: ESPN+

Listen: 730-AM.

This story was originally published October 25, 2019 at 1:27 PM.