Shane Vereen

Shane Patrick-Henry Vereen (born March 2, 1989) is an American football running back for the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted 56th overall in the 2011 NFL Draft. He played college football for the University of California, Berkeley.

Early years
Vereen was born in Valencia, California, where he attended Valencia High School. A three year varsity football player, Vereen also played basketball and was a top sprinter in his region, running the 100-meter dash in 10.61 seconds and the 200-meter race in 21.46 seconds. He graduated with a 4.0 grade point average.

His father, Henry Vereen, was a ninth round pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1979 NFL Draft, and played wide receiver in the Canadian Football League for the BC Lions in the early 1980s. Vereen is a first cousin once removed of stage actor and dancer Ben Vereen.

College career
After being recruited to play for California, Vereen redshirted for the 2007 season.

In 2008, he served as the primary backup to Jahvid Best as part of Cal's two running back system, playing in all of the team's 13 games. In the season opener against Michigan State, he rushed for 101 yards and a touchdown. The game marked the first time that two Cal running backs had completed over 100 yards rushing since the 2006 Holiday Bowl, with Best tallying 111 yards in the victory. For the season, he rushed for 715 yards and 4 touchdowns, along with 27 catches for 221 yards and a touchdown.

After Jahvid Best suffered a severe concussion versus Oregon State, Vereen took over the job of primary running back for the final four games of the 2009 season. In the 2009 Big Game, Vereen rushed a career-high 42 times for 193 yards and three touchdowns, helping Cal upset Stanford 34-28. For the season, Vereen rushed for 952 yards and 12 touchdowns, along with 25 receptions for 244 yards and two touchdowns. He also competed on the track team during the 2009 season in the 100 metres.

In the 2010 season opener against UC Davis on September 4, Vereen had 67 rushing yards for two touchdowns, with a third receiving in a 52–3 blowout victory. He followed this up with 60 rushing yards and one score as well as a receiving touchdown the following week against Colorado. On September 17 he had a career-high 198 rushing yards and three touchdowns as Cal fell to Nevada in Reno, and 102 rushing yards while being kept out of the end zone in a narrow loss to Arizona on September 25. On October 9, Vereen had a 151 yard rushing performance with two touchdowns against UCLA. He finished the season with 1,167 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns to go with 22 catches for 209 yards and three touchdowns.

After graduating in December 2010 in just three and a half years with a degree in Media Studies, Vereen decided to forgo his senior season and declared for the NFL Draft.



New England Patriots
Vereen was selected by the New England Patriots in the 2nd round of the 2011 NFL Draft with the 56th overall pick. He was signed to a four year contract by the Patriots on August 1, 2011. On November 21, Vereen scored his first career NFL touchdown on a four yard run in a 34-3 win over the Kansas City Chiefs. On Thanksgiving November 22, 2012, Vereen caught an 83 yard touchdown reception in a 49-19 rout of the New York Jets. The catch is currently the longest of his career.

In the Patriots' first game of the 2012 NFL Playoffs, against the Houston Texans, Vereen had a career day: he had five receptions for 83 yards, scoring touchdowns on two of them. He also added a third touchdown on one of his 7 rushes for 41 yards. Vereen became only the second player in Patriots potseason history to score both a rushing touchdown and a receiving touchdown in the same postseason game (Deion Branch is the other). In addition, he became only the third player in NFL history to score two receiving touchdowns and one rushing touchdown in a postseason game (Roger Craig and Ricky Watters are the others).