Sometimes it seems like everyone wants to be Arthur Cox.

Dixon football coach Dave Smith has seen it in practice. Another running back will take a handoff, trying to make a couple of cutbacks or juke moves, just like he’s seen Cox do.

The difference is, the Dixon junior running back can do that at full speed. Other backs can’t, and wind up getting tackled from behind.

In years to come, a lot of Dixon running backs will be chasing Arthur Cox. This season he rushed for 2,063 yards, breaking the school record set by Rob Willey in 2000. That gives him 2,834 yards for his career, also breaking Dixon’s career mark previously held by Eric Collier.

In Week 9 of the regular season against North Boone, Cox rushed for 335 yards, breaking Willey’s single-game school rushing record. That record stood for 8 days before Cox broke his own mark with 353 yards in a win over Chicago South Shore in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs.

“I wasn’t really looking for stats,” he said. “I’m trying to get our team farther in the playoffs and trying to make it to state. I didn’t think of stats until the end of the year.

“It wasn’t in my head during the season,” Cox added, “because I know I just have to be there for my teammates and my team.”

His big season was a big part of the Dukes reaching the playoffs for the third year in a row and getting into the second round.

“Every time he touched the ball, he had a tremendous desire to be successful,” Smith said. “He’s got everything. He can outrun you, he can run over you, he can make you miss. He has great vision for where the hole’s at, and once he gets in the hole, he sees linebackers, he sees safeties. He’s got great hands. He’s the whole package.”

Other running backs may try to see if they can pull off the same thing in practice. Cox is often imitated, but never duplicated.

“Some of it’s just put into how I live and how I was born, but some of it’s just straight hard work,” Cox said. “If you don’t want to work as hard as me, you’re never going to be able to do the stuff I do. I stay in the weight room longer than everybody else. I do more drills than everybody else. It’s just more effort.”

That work starts in the offseason with 2 weeks of lifting.

“I try to work hard there because I know once the football season starts, the only time I get to lift is during gym,” he said. “We get out of practice at 6, and by then the weight room is closed. It starts in the summer, getting good chemistry with my teammates, getting stronger, getting better, knowing the plays.”

During the season, there is homework to do, in the form of watching scouting film. Smith will send out tape on the Dukes’ next opponent every Sunday, and Cox gets to work, trying to find a spot in the opposing defense he can attack.

“Before the game starts, I watch film so I see the linebackers’ and safeties’ tendencies,” Cox said. “Even the linemen, in case someone misses a block, I know how to make this person miss. Once I get the handoff, it’s just straight find the hole and just run. If someone’s in my way, just get them out of my way or go the opposite way.”

Defenses throw a lot of 5-2 against the Dukes, forcing Cox to deal with seven men in the box on a lot of plays. He has learned to bounce the ball outside, using his speed to get around the corners.

That speed helped Dixon in track this spring, as Cox teamed up with Nyrel Sullivan, Josh Dallas and Kyle LeBlanc to take seventh in the 400 relay at the Class 2A state meet with a time of 43.79.

Cox has turned in a 4.49 in the 40, a time that he would still like to bring down.

“Most kids my size who I look at in college, most of them run a 4.42 or 4.43,” Cox said.

In addition to the speed, there is the ability to stop and change directions. In the Week 8 win over Rock Falls, Dixon faced a fourth-and-two with just over a minute left, trying to seal a six-point win.

The Dukes just needed a first down, and handed the ball to Cox. He initially went to the left, finding a large group of Rockets intent on stopping him short of the first down, then cut back to the right and found enough of an opening to get beyond the first-down marker.

“He puts his body in positions, I don’t know how he does it,” Smith said. “His legs are going one way and his upper torso is going another way, and I don’t know how he comes back in one piece, but he does.”

Once he got the first down on that play, he slid. Dixon didn’t need a touchdown there, just a first down and a chance to run out the clock. Cox knew that. He got what he needed to put Dixon in the best position to win.

He’s seen enough football and been around the game long enough to know what that was.

He grew up watching football on TV, but his brothers got him on the field when he was 6. He played at a couple different places in Georgia in middle school, first at a larger school in Cobb County, just north of Atlanta, then eighth grade at a smaller school before moving back up to Illinois to live with his dad.

As a freshman in 2014, he saw firsthand the talented senior class and questioned how he would ever be able to play up to their level. Meanwhile, Smith saw someone who could do just about anything, and had Cox play running back, quarterback and defense for the freshman/sophomore team.

The next year, Cox and Sullivan were called up to play varsity, but Cox said the two kept trying to go to the sophomore practices. They spent enough time working with the varsity team to lead the Dukes in rushing. Cox gained 772 yards rushing, Sullivan gained 762, and both rushed for 11 touchdowns.

“When he was a sophomore, [Cox] read the zone the best,” Smith said. “Some kids try to run people over, and he can if he wants to, but he’d rather make you miss and get another 20 [yards].”

With Sullivan transferring to Sterling, Cox entered the 2016 season as the go-to player for the Dukes.

Cox did not have a huge day Week 1, rushing for 70 yards in a Dukes win over Mendota as quarterback Noah Wilcox passed for 320 yards, but in the second half of Dixon’s Week 2 game at Oregon, Cox took over. He rushed 12 times in that half for 75 yards as Dixon was able to burn clock and grind out a win.

Then came a 260-yard game against Rockford Christian, 103 rushing yards and a kick return for a touchdown in a loss to Rockford Lutheran, 211 rushing yards against Woodstock, and 255 yards against Rock Falls.

“My line, they’re the reason I get the holes I get,” Cox said. “I just make people miss in the secondary, that’s all I do.”

Still a junior, Cox has not been inundated with recruiting letters from colleges just yet. He has been invited to NIU games. He said when the time comes, he’ll pick the best college for him, but he knows he still has time to think about that.

In the meantime, he still has another season of high school football left.

“I look for more of the same, if not better,” Smith said. “Every year, Arthur’s improved. ... I don’t see him coming off the field too much next year.”

The 5-7, 160-pound back is hoping to take after a 5-7, 190-pound back: Darren Sproles of the Philadelphia Eagles.

“I try to mimic him, but I want to be my own player,” Cox said. “I look up to him to see what he does, on that big of a stage and as small as he is.”

As Cox is trying to be more like Sproles, the next wave of Dixon backs will still try to be more like Cox, as that career rushing mark gets further and further in the distance.

And many of them will try those cut-back moves Cox has pulled off time and time again.

And many of them won’t have the speed of Arthur Cox and will wind up getting tackled.

Arthur Cox

Dixon junior RB

2016: 283 rushes, 2,063 yards (school record), 24 TDs; 40 receptions, 410 yards, 6 TDs

Career: 380 rushes, 2,834 yards (school record), 35 TDs; 60 receptions, 643 yards, 8 TDs

FYI: Also has Dixon school record for rushing yards in a game, 353 in Class 4A first-round playoff game at Chicago South Shore – 2 weeks after first breaking the record with 335 yards in Week 9 win over Noth Boone. ... Led the area in rushes by 85 carries, rushing yards by 819, and rushing TDs by 5.