STAMFORD, Conn. — Khairi Fortt is easy to spot, even in the middle of a hectic day of a summer preseason football practice at Stamford High School’s Boyle Stadium.
While the rest of the Black Knights look like the usual mixture of high school football players, Fortt carries the sculpted physique of some of the nation’s best collegiate players. It’s no wonder, then, that college coaches are drooling over the chances to wrap up one of the top linebackers in the country.
“He’s a physical freak -- there’s no question about it,” Stamford head coach Kevin Jones said. “He’s the kind of kid that, when he takes his shirt off, college coaches look at him and say, ‘He looks like our guys do right now.’ The guys who are starting at the Penn States and Georgias of the world look like Khairi does now.
“That’s why the recruiting process got so big so fast. It’s so easy for them to look at the kid and compare him to who they already have. As soon as another guy graduates, they can plug in Khairi and they don’t have to worry about it. He’ll still have to be a film-study guy, but from a physical standpoint, he can walk in and play anywhere in the country.”
Fortt’s list of suitors reads like a who’s-who of the top teams in the college game. Jones said Fortt had more than 30 offers — including verbals from Boston College, Rutgers and UConn during his sophomore year — but Fortt has since trimmed his list down to six schools.
The finalists are Georgia, Penn State, USC, Michigan, Tennessee and North Carolina, and Fortt said he wants to make his final decision early during the football season. Stamford opens with a game at home against the Ridgefield Tigers on Sept. 17.
“The whole process has been going very well,” Fortt said. “In 10th grade, when I first got three offers from Boston College, Rutgers and UConn, I thought that was going to be it. But the coaches and my parents encouraged me to do more just to get my name out there, and after that, I started to get a lot of offers.
“A lot of people questioned if I was really good or not because I’m from Connecticut,” Fortt continued. “A lot of coaches saw (in a highlight tape) my speed and my attack to the ball and the way I use my hands, so a lot of colleges took notice.”
“The prerequisite to being a great football player is being bigger, faster and stronger than the guy across from you, and he has been that since middle school,” Jones said. “He’s got a great burst of speed and he carries his size. He doesn’t look 230 pounds — he looks like he’s 190 — and then he gets on the scale and everybody says, ‘Wow. This is one lean dude that can run.’ He can flat-out fly. He’ll probably be faster than any receiver we face in the league this year.
“He’s a legit 4.5 on the electric clock (in a 40-yard dash). He could be a wideout in this league easily, and he could easily be the best tailback in the league. He can be the tight end, he can be a guard, he can play D-end and he can play safety. He can move and play any position.”
Since his highlight tape made the rounds, things have snowballed for Fortt.
This summer, he was named the Defensive Most Valuable Player at the Football University Top Gun Camp in Paisley, Fla. Another Stamford resident, and a good friend of Fortt, Silas Redd, was named the Offensive MVP at the same camp.
Redd, a senior tailback and defensive back at King School in Stamford, committed to Penn State in the spring, leading to speculation that Fortt would join his friend with the Nittany Lions. Fortt admitted that playing alongside Redd would be a blast, but his decision will be a personal one.
“It would be fun to play with him, but it’s not going to make my final choice for me,” Fortt said. “I have to go somewhere I fit and where I feel I can spend the best four years of my life.
“The big things are academics and a good coaching staff to work with. I’d like to have a good coaching atmosphere. You can’t always count on one coach being there for a long time, but if the school has a good atmosphere for the coaches, that’s important.”
As far as Jones is concerned, given the quality of the schools interested in him, Fortt can’t make a bad decision.
“His top six schools — I don’t have a problem with any one of them,” Jones said. “When you’re choosing between Georgia, Penn State, USC, Michigan and schools like that, it’s almost like I don’t need to help. He’s got to make that final decision on his own. Every one of them is a great place to go to school, a great atmosphere, great stadiums, great uniforms, great weight rooms and great kids.
"Academically, they have everything you could possibly want. You can pick and choose anything you want to do with your life and at this point; there’s not a bad decision to be made.”
Fortt will graduate from Stamford High in January and will head to his collegiate destination soon after, giving him a head start on the next phase of his life and football career.
“That’s going to give him a great advantage because he can get on the field right away,” Jones said.
Fortt, who led Stamford with 118 tackles during the Knights’ 6-5 campaign last fall, would like to make his senior season a big one for the team, which has played one of the toughest schedules in Connecticut the past few years. Things won’t be easier this year, as Stamford faces Greenwich one week after the opener against Ridgefield, and also has Norwalk, Danbury and Trumbull later in the season.
“Our first game is Ridgefield, and then we have Greenwich, so it’s tough,” Fortt said. “We have a very determined team this year. The guys are serious and we don’t have a lot of complications off the field, so that’s not setting us back. We’re getting a lot done and we’re doing a lot of learning. We’re a little young, but we have some seniors who can help the younger players.”
On an individual level, Fortt knows he’ll be a marked man, given his notoriety.
“Everybody is out for Khairi so I have to prove to them why I’m the No. 2 linebacker in the country,” Fortt said. “I’m just going to try and destroy everything but also play assignment football. I want to be a playmaker and show what I can do.”
Stamford has had its fair share of players move on to play at the collegiate level in recent years — offensive lineman Vladimir Ducasse is a captain at UMass, Brian Ostaszewski is also on the OL at UMass, and Alex Joseph is a linebacker at Temple, to name just a few.
In Fortt, however, Jones feels Stamford football has found the perfect ambassador.
“It’s a plus because of who is being touted,” Jones said. “I’ve had other kids here, like Alex Joseph, who represent Stamford well wherever they go, and Khairi is in that mold. Wherever Khairi goes, people in this town can rest assured that people who meet him and going to come away saying Stamford, Connecticut, must be a pretty good place to be.”
As interview requests have come pouring in for Jones and Fortt, one of the questions often asked of the coach is what makes Fortt such a special kid. Jones is quick to respond that Fortt is just a normal high school kid and a guy who is easy to root for. He just happens to be an exceptional football player.
“When you show up and interview him, you realize he’s a high school kid,” Jones said. “He’s not one of these kids who’s gotten so blown up and out of proportion. After people talk to him, people realize what a nice kid he is and you hope everything works out for him, he does well in college and he gets a chance to go on and play in the NFL. He’s a nice human being and that’s more important than to be able to tackle and run and all that other stuff.”
Dave Stewart, the Sports Editor of the New Canaan (Conn.) Advertiser, is a MaxPreps.com writer and photographer. He may be reached at 203-966-9541 or at sports@ncadvertiser.com.
