As Empire High School's 'Gronk' wraps up football season, there's more work ahead

Empire senior running back/defensive end/kicker Ngonkra Fuangunyi’s high school football career may be over, but he’s got more playing to do.

Nicknamed Gronk, Fuangunyi’s season was cut short by a game, but he still led the region in rushing.

“Oh man, he’s awesome, I mean, he’s the best running back, he’s one of the top running backs in the state, I can tell you that right now,” said Empire head coach George Kelly. “He should be getting some looks, I know he has a couple offers already, but we’re trying to get him to that next level, a high level.

Fuangunyi finished fifth (1,177 yards) in Class 4A in rushing despite only playing nine games this season. He also was first in the 4A Gila in rushing, tied for first in scoring with 66 points, tied for first in touchdowns with 11, third in total yards, and second in kickoff yardage with 1,269.

Still, Fuangunyi, who ran for 441 yards as a junior, felt like he could have done “way better.”

It is Fuangunyi’s third season playing football. The Cameroonian-American, who also runs track, grew up playing soccer.

“I don’t even know,” Fuangunyi said about how he got into American football. “Someone just told me to play football and I just started playing.”

Fuangunyi was born in Tucson, but much of his family is from Cameroon.

“I think it’s very cool that I get to represent Cameroon,” Fuangunyi said.

Still, Fuangunyi played like an experienced vet. Over nine games, Fuangunyi ran for 1,177 yards and 10 touchdowns in 162 carries. He had seven 100-plus yard games and caught 10 passes for 94 yards.

He had 1,319 all-purpose yards as he had 48 yards of kick returns and on defense he had 39 tackles, 31 solo and three sacks.

He said this is the first year he got comfortable with football.

With soccer season and potentially college football coming up, Fuangunyi missed the last game of the season with a strained calf.

“So Ngonkra, he was down, we decided not to play him,” Kelly said. “He could have went but I think his future is worth more than putting him out of there on the field.”

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For Empire’s soccer team last year, he had 16 goals and an assist. He earned first-team All-3A and first-team All-3A Southeast Region for his efforts.

“I would say I’m comfortable with soccer,” Fuangunyi said. “I’m starting to get comfortable football, but I’m a lot more with comfortable soccer, I’ve been playing my whole life.”

His 16 goals were seven ahead of then-junior Daniel Dittiger, who was second on the team in scoring.

Empire boys soccer starts the season Dec. 6 when it hosts Douglas. Last year the Ravens went 10-7 overall and 5-1 in the 3A Southeast, tying for first place.

“We had 13 seniors coming back, so we should be really good this year,” Fuangunyi said.

Still, despite his success on the pitch, he plans on returning to the gridiron for college.

On Saturday, Fuangunyi and Kelly visited UTEP.

“We just got to get some schools to look at them,” Kelly said. “He’s everything you need in a running back, built Ford tough, 5-11, 195, quick, fast, runs 11.1 in 100, I mean it’s easy.”

Kelly said it’s awesome having a dominant back like Fuangunyi, but the Ravens grew too dependent on him.

“But, you know, one thing when we hit a wall was a lot of our team kind of relied on him to carry us and so when the teams stacked the boxes, you know, other teammates have to show up and make plays,” Kelly said. “So that was when we hit a wall, so we had to get over that hump and not just rely on him to carry the team.”

However in the season finale, a 43-20 win over Rincon/University, without Fuangunyi they still thrived.

Empire senior quarterback Brycen Duncan passed for 181 yards, going 13 for 17 and seven Ravens combined to rush for 153 yards on 35 carries.

Empire finished 6-4 for the second straight season, even though its enrollment of 895 is 3A-sized.

“Oh, it’s pretty cool, like this win really showed that it wasn’t like a one-man team and that we got players on the rest of our team,” Fuangunyi said.