When Jackson Riddle was 4, he went up against a supposed ninja.

The Highland High School senior running back still has that type of courage today. He’s overcome arguably the toughest year of his life to put up 1,558 all-purpose yards and 16 touchdowns this season. It’s allowed the storied program to contend for yet another state title.

Jackson and the 11-time state champion Rams (8-1) open up their postseason at 5:30 p.m. Friday in a Class 5A quarterfinal matchup against Owyhee (8-2) inside Holt Arena.

“I don’t know anybody that’s battled it back like he has,” father Sammy Riddle said. “Stared adversity in the face and stayed on top and did it with such humility, grace, charm and with so much character. When I look at the man, this kid deserves everything. He inspires a lot of people.”

Jackson Riddle’s cousin had him believing there were ninjas in the neighborhood. But rather than be afraid, he told his dad he was going to go find and fight them.

So Sammy Riddle decided to see if he was serious or not by pretending to be one himself. He dressed the part by donning all black. Riddle arrived early at the nearby park and was already in the midst of performing somersaults and flips when his youngest son approached him.

Jackson’s friend immediately started crying and screamed, “I want to go home!” But the young Jackson Riddle wasn’t deterred, even when the ninja grabbed his mom. He proceeded to beat him up and save the day.

“He didn’t know that he fought me until years later when we told him,” Sammy Riddle said with a laugh. “But it was a very, very interesting thing to see what he did on his own merits in a situation like that at such a young age. It was his bravery, his confidence and surety in himself. That’s always how Jackson was.”

That correlated to football, as well.

Jackson Riddle fell in love with the game well before ever suiting up. This was due to his two older brothers, who are both more than 10 years his elder. Ian and Zachary Riddle were stars for Kennedy Catholic in Seattle, where the family is from. They played college football at Houston Christian and Monterey Peninsula College (California), respectively.

“One time he saw one of them hurt and was like, ‘I gotta get in there. I could put on his gear. Coach could put me in the game,’” Sammy Riddle recalled. “He was just convinced that he could play football with these high schoolers.”

He did hold his own against players who would become stars in their own right during his time with the Five Star Cougars out of Renton, Washington, in the fourth grade.

Jackson Riddle played alongside Malachi Durant, who is the No. 1 wide receiver and the 7th-highest rated recruit in Washington, according to 247sports.com, and an Oregon State commit.

“Run Riddle up the middle,” was the team chant back then.

“I just remember this one coach being like, ‘This is not fair. This kid is unnaturally advanced for his age,’” Sammy Riddle said. “I always chuckle about that because it’s kind of a perfect summary of Jackson. He was just athletically advanced far beyond his years.”

So Jackson Riddle bursting out onto the scene at Highland came as little surprise.

A nagging hamstring injury did limit and keep him on junior varsity for most of his sophomore season, though. But by the end, Riddle firmly had a spot in the varsity starting lineup.

His breakout game on the biggest of stages, a state semifinal match against Eagle. He ran for 109 yards to help the Rams reach their 20th final since 1984.

“He was one of those kids that looked the part,” Highland coach Nicholas Sorrell said. “He was built. He took care of himself. We could see there was a little bit of a quickness to him as well. We could start to see the potential there.”

Only it had to wait.

Riddle broke his collarbone two weeks before the season opener last year. He suffered the injury after tripping up on a corner route and landing shoulder first.

But it wasn’t season-ending.

Doctors told him he could be back in four to six weeks after a metal plate was surgically implanted. Riddle was cleared just in time for the annual Black and Blue Bowl game against Pocatello on Sept. 16, 2022.

However, right before halftime, there was an errant quarterback pitch. Riddle jumped on the loose football and landed on the same shoulder.

“When that happened, I kind of felt it. The same kind of sensation as when I broke it the first time. But I was like, ‘There’s no way I broke it with the plate in,’” Riddle said. “I could still move my arm.”

So he played the rest of the game.

Riddle finished with 108 yards and scored both touchdowns in the 14-7 win — Highland’s 12th straight in the series. He was even interviewed postgame.

“I’ve never felt better,” Riddle told the Idaho State Journal afterwards. “This is all I do. Football is my life. So it felt great to be out here.”

He added, “I kind of thought it was one of those things where they had told me it was gonna hurt. So it’s probably just hurting a little bit because it was so soon after.”

Yet, the pain didn’t go away.

So the very next day, Riddle got an X-ray.

The metal plate was bent in half like a “tipi” and the bone rebroken.

Riddle had to inform Sorrell and others that his season was now officially over by text messages no less.

“That offseason, I had worked so hard. Every day, I went to the gym. I was working with one of my trainers. I felt so good going into my junior year,” Riddle said. “I thought I was gonna have kind of my breakout year, which is what I needed because I wanted to get looked at by colleges. So when I heard that my year was over, it was devastating. I definitely cried about it and everything.”

Football was an outlet Riddle needed, too.

His parents got a divorce and his mother moved back to Seattle.

It got to the point where attending practices in a sling just became too painful. Family counselors and therapists had to see him through a lot of it.

But Riddle still stood on the sidelines during games, cheering his teammates on for the remainder of the season, which ended in a 30-24 quarterfinal loss to Mountain View.

“It took its toll,” Sorrell said. “We had a lot of conversations behind the scenes to keep him motivated and that turned into him being another coach on the field. That’s where he developed that leadership aspect. No one wants to lose a season to injury. But the good thing about it is he was able to develop some of those other characteristics of a real high quality football player. A lot of kids would have just packed it in, but he was there every day and that was huge for him.”

After his broken collarbone healed, Riddle went back to Seattle. He rejoined his Ford Sports Performance team, which participates in 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 national tournaments all across the country during the offseason.

Jason Brown Jr., who is a four-star tailback and the No. 3 ranked overall recruit in Washington with offers from the likes of Alabama, was on the team. He also played with Riddle on the Five Stars Cougars.

But Riddle, who had lost out on those same opportunities, still split reps with Brown Jr.

“He crushed it,” Sammy Riddle said. “He was the talk of the coaches’ room. He worked from the bottom team all the way up to the top and just grinded and competed against these four-star recruits that were coming out of Seattle.”

Jackson Riddle elected to cut his Ford Sports season short and return to Pocatello in March.

The Navy had seen enough. It offered Riddle his first and only scholarship to date on March 30.

“I definitely kind of got a little emotional about it,” Riddle said. “Because it felt like everything I had been working towards was actually paying off. And it wasn’t all for nothing.”

Riddle has more than made up for the lost time this season.

He’s racked up at least 100 all-purpose yards in each of his nine games, including more than 200 in each of the last three, had the game-winning touchdown catch against two-time reigning state champion Rigby and recorded a career high 266 yards in a win over Madison.

Riddle is also the only running back in the 5A classification who is ranked in the top-10 in both rushing (929) and receiving (513) yards.

So now Idaho, Idaho State and Boise State, which had him out for last week’s Wyoming game, are all now interested in the Highland star.

“I’ve been around for a while and I don’t know if we’ve had a kid with that type of quickness and burst out of the backfield like that,” Sorrell said. “We’ve had some good ones, but his speed and quickness are different from the ones that we’ve had in the past.”

Which will all probably come in handy if Riddle ever encounters another ninja.

But it’s his heart that will really help him win out.

“You just gotta keep pushing,” Riddle said. “Even more than motivation, you have to have discipline. You gotta keep your goal in mind and you just gotta keep going. Because if you keep going, you’ll reach your destination.”