EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — To understand where Cam Skattebo is going and how he is getting there, you have to understand where he has been. So it was a good time on Thursday to ask him about a hometown that is 2,800 miles away from the home office of the New York Football Giants.

Rio Linda, Calif., is a census-designated place without a mayor, and a piece of small-town America that the late radio host, Rush Limbaugh, used to mock all the time. Skattebo was not aware of that, and yet he spoke as someone who is used to defending his home turf.

Advertisement

“If you’re not from there and you don’t know about it,” he said, “just don’t talk about it.”

New Yorkers know the 5-foot-11, 215-pound Skattebo as an angry and violent ball carrier who hunts would-be tacklers for the purpose of punishing them before they can punish him. They know him as the “other” half of the Giants’ dynamic first-year duo, the perfect partner for a quarterback, Jaxson Dart, who looks like a 15-year keeper at the most important position in professional sports.

Though Skattebo is not the biggest or the fastest guy in the world, he is a freakish athlete who entered the league with a 39.5-inch vertical leap, three inches better than Russell Westbrook’s vertical when he entered the NBA.

Skattebo scores touchdowns. Skattebo performs backflips. But as much as anything, Skattebo represents the working-class people of Rio Linda, who molded him into this big-market force of nature.

“I grew up with a lot of different cultures and with people who taught me a lot of what not to do and what to do,” the rookie said. “Everybody knows everybody there. When you’re in that little town, you know the homeless people’s names and you know they’re not causing any issues. … You know everything about everybody.

“There’s crime, but there’s not very much. In our little town, we keep each other safe and try not to bother each other. It’s just the way it’s been while I was growing up.”

Skattebo’s mother, Becky, is a longtime professional in the medical field. His father, Leonard III, is a former star athlete at Rio Linda High School who is an operations manager for a pest control service. His big brother, Leonard IV, was an accomplished Rio Linda player himself. They are all fiercely proud of their roots.

“But it’s definitely hard,” Cam said, “to come from there and do what I do.”

Advertisement

You need belief.

You need values.

And yo