Len Hauss was an all-SEC center at Georgia who went on to play 14 years at the position in the NFL with the Washington Redskins, snapping to the likes of Sonny Jurgensen and Billy Kilmer. He started in one Super Bowl.
Before that, Hauss was a 200-pound fullback for Wayne County High, perhaps the state-record holder for rushing yards in a season, although state records before the 1970s aren't maintained. According to Gene Asher, a former Atlanta Journal prep editor, Hauss rushed for more than 1,500 yards and scored 15 touchdowns for Wayne County's 1959 Class AA championship team.
The Yellow Jackets beat Rossville 35-7 in the title game, and Hauss rushed for 145 yards on 22 carries and scored three touchdowns, one on a pass reception. Hauss also played linebacker and recovered two fumbles. A 6-foot, 200-pound back was unusual in those days. Only two players on the Wayne County team weighed more.
"If you grew up in Jesup as I did, you were expected to play football," Hauss told Asher in a 2012 article for Georgia Trend magazine. "I was playing on a sandlot team when I was 6-years-old. Every boy in the neighborhood had a football."
Hauss, retired from his post-NFL career in banking, is now 75 and a lung-cancer survivor. He is living again in his hometown of Jesup.
Here are GHSF Daily's choices for the best players in the history of the current Region 2-AAAAA schools.
*New Hampstead: Calvin Turner Jr. (2016)
*South Effingham: Josh Mercer (2013)
*Statesboro: Cassius Osborn (1983)
*Ware County: Fred Gibson (2000)
*Wayne County: Len Hauss (1959)
Best player in school history series
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