Standing 6-feet tall and weighing about 180 pounds, Winthrop Boulware’s nickname doesn’t seem to fit.

They call him Tank.

“It’s a nickname my dad gave me,” Boulware said. “When I was a kid I just ran and jumped and bowled everybody over.”

Now Tank Boulware bowls them over with his speed. The Tulsa, Okla., Kelley High product will be a wide receiver and defensive back for the West team in the inaugural Native American All-Star football game at 7:30 tonight at Haskell Stadium.

Boulware’s legs fit into four uniforms while he attended the Tulsa parochial school. He was an all-city wide receiver in football, played point guard in basketball, was the third-leading scorer in soccer and played center field in baseball as well.

Tulsa University offered him a football scholarship, he said, but Boulware declined because he wants to play both football and basketball in college. Thus, he’ll go the junior college route and enroll at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M in a couple of months.

Boulware was in the Sunflower State last summer to attend a Kansas State camp. While in Manhattan, he said he was clocked in 4.43 for the 40-yard dash and that K-State coaches were interested in him. For awhile, anyway.

“They dropped me and signed a junior college player instead,” Boulware said, “so now I’ll go to a junior college and see if I get a chance to play Division One.”

Boulware certainly wouldn’t hurt his chances by showcasing his wares tonight. He’s excited, he said, because Coy Harjo, another Tulsan, will be the West quarterback.

“Coy can zip it in there,” Boulware said, “and I want to get it and go.”

Harjo played for Tulsa Rogers in Oklahoma’s largest prep division. Boulware’s school was in a lower division so the two schools didn’t play each other, at least not when it counted.

“We faced him in a preseason scrimmage last year,” Harjo said. “He tore our corners up. He has some good talent.”

The 6-2, 218-pound Harjo possesses some talent, too. He’ll be going to Bacone College, an NAIA school, in August. Both Boulware and Harjo jumped at a chance to get in on the ground floor of the first Native American All-Star game.

“I wanted to be among the first to be in this kind of game,” Harjo said. “I feel it will be good for us to be able to say we were the first, that we began it.”

Echoed Boulware: “When coach Nation asked me if I wanted to play, I said that would give me a chance for another game and also to represent my tribe (Cherokee).”

Boulware’s high school coach, Greg Nation, is an assistant coach on the West team.

“The thing about Tank is that he’s a fine young man,” Nation said. “Academically, he found where he was deficient. We’re very academic-oriented at our school. Ninety-eight percent of our graduates go to college. That’s a phenomenal number.”

Harjo suffered a slight knee injury in practice on Thursday night, but is expected to play. With Harjo slowed, the West may have to resort to passing with Boulware a primary target.

“We’ll get the ball to him,” West coach Carl Madison said. “We’d like to run the option, but we don’t have any backs and Harjo has the bad knee and he’s our only quarterback.”

Advantage, Madison believes, belongs to the East team, coached by Herman Boone.

“I think we have to be a two-touchdown underdog,” Madison said. “Their team speed is a lot better than ours.”