The numbers for Carter Hajek are staggering. Mindblowing, even.
7,902. That’s Hajek’s career rushing total, a mark that ranks No. 2 all-time in state history, trailing only the legendary DeAngelo Evans of Wichita Collegiate.
132. That’s Hajek’s total career touchdowns, a mark that ranks No. 1 all-time in state history, one more than Evans scored in his career.
But there’s a number that’s seemingly mundane when compared to those historic ones that means even more to Hajek.
3.
That’s the number of state championships Nemaha Central captured during his four-year career, the third of those coming this season as Hajek led the Thunder to a 35-6 victory over Southeast of Saline in the Class 2A championship game. Hajek also led the Thunder to the 2023 state title after being a reserve on Nemaha’s 2022 championship team.
The standout on that 2022 team was none other than Cooper Hajek, Carter’s older brother, who earned All-State Top 11 honors following that championship season. Carter followed in those footstep with Top 11 honors this season, but getting title No. 3 gave Hajek something he desired even more.
“Me and Cooper have always been super competitive,” Carter said. “He got a state championship his freshman year and then another one his senior year. He had two and then I had two. But this is my third so I’m over the hump and have bragging rights over him.”
With three state titles in his career, Carter Hajek had the team success to go with his historical individual statistics.
Like Carter, Cooper Hajek was merely a reserve his freshman season when Nemaha Central captured the Class 2A state title in 2019. But after stepping into a starting the following season, Cooper set the bar for future Nemaha Central backs his senior season when he rushed for 2,094 yards and 42 touchdowns in leading Nemaha Central to the state championship in 2022.
On the sideline as a freshman that year who saw action in all 13 games and wound up rushing for 451 yards and 5 touchdowns himself, Carter took in his brother’s season and knew he wanted to pattern himself after him.
“Watching Cooper play my freshman year, he was just a relentless runner and wouldn’t go down,” Carter said. “I wanted to bring that to my game and have that same kind of mojo out on the field.”
Though not quite as big as Cooper (6-foot-1, 235 pounds) and playing quarterback instead of running back, the 5-11, 215-pound Carter quickly became a clone of his older brother. While he lined up at quarterback – and threw for 3,014 yards and 37 touchdowns in his career – Hajek was every bit of a workhorse runner as Cooper was. And the argument could be made, every bit as physical as well.
“If he was 180 pounds, he wouldn’t be able to take the shots he does out there,” Nemaha Central coach Michael Glatczak said. “But at 210, 215, it makes him run harder and as the game goes on, he gets tougher and tougher. I’m sure people are going to be, ‘Well, coach gave him the ball 40, 45 times per game.’ But look at his yards per carry, but look at his yards per game and its at 7 for his career and that’s pretty incredible and a testament to him and his offensive line.”
Despite being the focal point of opposing defenses, Carter Hajek (right) was rarely held down for an entire game during his career.
Over the last three seasons, Hajek logged 1,052 carries, an average of 27 per game. It wasn’t unusual for him to reach upwards of 40-plus carries in bigger games. Nor was it unusual for Hajek to be simply plugging along, getting three yards here, five yards there and then all of a sudden, break a long touchdown run.
It happened in this year’s title game as Southeast of Saline did a great job of bottling Hajek up early. On his first 12 carries of the game, Hajek managed just 47 yards.
But on his 13th carry, Hajek broke loose for a 68-yard touchdown run that put the Thunder up 21-6 at halftime.
“I have trust in my line,” said Hajek, who finished the game with 211 yards on 32 carries. “I’ll be patient knowing eventually we’ll bust one and that’s what happened today.”
In 39 career starts, Hajek topped 100 yards rushing 33 times and went over 200 15 times with a career-high of 409 yards last year against Royal Valley. And he was at his best in the biggest games. In 15 career playoff games, Hajek ran for 3,081 yards, an average of 205.4 per game. Throw out the three playoff openers from each of those seasons, all blowouts where he played little over half a game, and that average jumps to 233.7 per game.
For opposing coaches, in facing Hajek there was almost a sense of helplessness.
“Carter is obviously a special player," said Sabetha coach Kaleb Moeller, whose Bluejay team faced Hajek six times over the past three seasons ahd "held" him under 200 yards four times. "Going in to a game you knew that he was going to get his yards and touches. The game plan was to make him earn everything he got by rallying to the football and being assignment sound. You knew in critical situations he was going to have the ball and you have to go stop him. The most frustrating thing as a coach is when your players do everything right and he would make something out of nothing for a big play or a score. I have seen some guys over the years that you you can see their intensity change as the game progresses and Carter is able to do that. He’s playing his best and hardest in critical moments in the fourth quarter."
Even before he took on a leading role for the Thunder, Glatczak knew he had something special in Hajek. Heck, even before Hajek was even part of his high school program, Glatczak knew.
“I would have loved to have had him up here when was an eighth-grader,” he said. “We knew he was a special kid, a generational type kid. His work ethic is off the charts and each year he just works so hard in the offseason and that translates.
“Physicality is one thing, but it’s also his knowledge of the game. He’ll come over to the sideline and tell us things we can’t see on the field. It’s nice that he knows what pays to call and it make me feel comfortable. The only negative part is he wants to score every single play and I tell him, ‘Carter that can’t happen. Get your yards and then you’ll break a long one.’ Just a tough-minded kid. Just a competitor.”
After falling short in the 2024 Class 2A state championship game, Carter Hajek was determined to the the title back this fall.
Not that he needed a reminder about that last point, but Glatczak got one after Nemaha Central saw its two-year reign in Class 2A end with a 36-28 loss to Southeast of Saline in the 2024 state championship game.
“I think the loss hurt him a lot last year,” Glatczak said. “I’ve never seen the kid tear up before and last year in the locker room, the kid was in tears. It really meant something for him to get back here and do what he did.”
Indeed it did.
“I made the comment to the seniors before we took the field today that we’ve been blessed to have 52 games, but for the last 52 weeks, all we could think about was one team,” Hajek said. “That’s who we wanted, who we got and today we handled business.”
Hajek began handling business for the Thunder once he stepped into the starting quarterback role at the start of the 2023 season. He cleared the bar his brother set, rushing for 2,431 yards and 43 touchdowns in leading the Thunder to its second straight 13-0 championship season.
Last year as a junior, he nearly duplicated those numbers, rushing for 2,382 yards and 40 touchdowns, while also throwing for 1,143 yards and 13 TDs, career bests in those categories.
This year, Hajek was at his best, rushing for 2,638 yards and 41 touchdowns. The yardage total landed him in No. 15 all-time on the state’s single-season list – a total topped by two other backs this season as Gardner Edgerton’s Syre Padilla ran for 2,882 yards and Salina Central’s Cooper Reves rushed for 2,817 yards.
He’s the only back in state history with three 2,000-yard rushing seasons. And the only back with three seasons of 40 or more rushing touchdowns.
He finished with 129 rushing TDs in his career and also had two defensive touchdowns and a return TD to get to his record-setting TD total. His 7,902 rushing yards were well shy of Evans’ career total of 8,472 yards, but pushed him past Kapaun Mt. Carmel's Omari Elias for No. 2 on the all-time list.
“It’s really surreal,” Hajek said. “But it goes back to the team. I wouldn’t be able to do this if I was out there and was 1 on 11. It’s the linemen, the wide receivers blocking, everyone being disciplined every single play. It’s really a team thing because everyone contributed to it.
“I’m sure some day it will really set in on me. You just take it game by game and the numbers just stack up. The only stat I really cared about was the win column. But I’ll take the stats, too.”