We Hardly Knew Ye: Jahvid Best makes tracks for the next level

Sendoffs to great players leaving campus early. It's too soon to tell whether Jahvid Best's three-year stay at California will be remembered mainly for his spectacular play, or for its spectacularly disturbing ending, when Best crashed head-first into the end zone from at least six feet off the turf after a goal-line leap against Oregon State in November. The junior speedster confirmed on Saturday that that play (which kept him out of the Bears' last three regular season games and their bowl loss to Utah with a concussion and lingering back pain) was in fact his last as an amateur, and it may take becoming a household name in the NFL to erase it as the defining moment of his career -- if only because, as one of the top three or four running backs in the upcoming draft, his failure to become a household name could be traced directly to that frightening moment. As for what came before, there's something slightly unfulfilled about Best's potential, thanks to a combi...