Folks back in Boynton Beach, Fla., where he ran for 1,243 yards and 16 touchdowns as a high school senior, knew all about the elusiveness of Diocemy Saint Juste.
But eluding the TV cameras for the whole 2015 season was something else.
“My friends would watch our games on TV last season and ask where I was,” Saint Juste said. “They’d say, ‘How come we don’t see you?’”
Primed for a big season as a junior after entering fall camp as the No. 1 running back, Saint Juste was, instead, forced to sit out 2015 due to recurring hamstring issues in what became a frustrating redshirt year.
This week he, again, entered camp as the Rainbow Warriors’ No. 1 running back, but this time with a step-by-step plan to make it through the whole season.
Keeping him healthy is Job One, which is why these days you are almost as apt to see him at practice stretching as running. He stretches before workouts and afterward with Bubba Reynolds, the strength and conditioning coordinator.
And Saint Juste watches what he eats and focuses on hydration. “Basically, he worked on changing his lifestyle,” said offensive coordinator Brian Smith.
“I’ve leaned-out a little bit, keeping my weight about the same (195 pounds on a 5-foot, 8-inch frame), but losing a lot of body fat so I can get a little stronger and faster,” Saint Juste said. “They’ve developed a program that has me working on individual muscles, the lower body and my core.”
Head coach Nick Rolovich said, “He’s just a tight athlete and he’s come to understand that he’s got to take care of the little things if he wants to avoid some of the injuries he’s had. It might be boring sometimes, but he shows he understands by working at it.”
Saint Juste grasps, for example, that the Rainbow Warriors have plans for him as a key component of a revived, multifaceted running game. After he averaged 4.8 yards per carry over his freshman and sophomore seasons, UH sees the potential for so much more in tandem with Paul Harris and the other backs.
“And, for that, we need him at 100 percent,” Smith said. “He is a very dynamic player and can add a whole other dimension to our offense. Diocemy is very explosive and quick. And Paul has those electric speed bursts. Together they can make it really challenging for a defense.”
Saint Juste’s potential is something that intrigued Rolovich well before he became the UH head coach. In a brief stop as an assistant coach at Temple and later at Nevada, Rolovich tried to recruit Saint Juste on both occasions. “We wanted him, but he’d already been sold on Hawaii and liked what we saw here,” Rolovich recalled.
When Rolovich was hired on at Manoa he liked enough of what he glimpsed in the spring to make Saint Juste No. 1 on the depth chart for fall camp and has looked at ways to make him an impact player this season. “He’s a guy who can make people miss and make big plays for us,” Rolovich said. “But it is all about keeping him healthy.”
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
