Today's guest columnist, Ron Ingram, was a sports reporter and columnist for the Birmingham News for part of four decades, ending in 2007. He now works for the Alabama High School Athletics Association. In almost 40 years of covering high school football, picking one player who stood out among all the rest might seem difficult to imagine.
Not so for anyone who watched David Palmer play high school football. I was fortunate enough to see firsthand the most amazing player I have ever seen – none better before him and none better since.
He was 5-foot-7 and maybe 160 pounds. He ran 4.4 seconds in the 40-yard dash – but with someone chasing him he was always one step faster. He would earn Mr. Football honors in 1990 and would become the University of Alabama's first 1,000-yard receiver in a single season and finish third in the Heisman Trophy balloting in 1993.
In 1995 he led the NFL in yards per punt return. Nicknamed "The Deuce" for his No. 2 jersey, he was a household name in virtually every corner of the state before he was through with high school and college.
He made his first big impression in Birmingham when he was an 11-year-old playing in the annual Shug-Bear Bowl Peewee Football Classic at Legion Field. He scored six touchdowns that afternoon to set a record that still stands.
He played high school football at
Jackson-Olin (Birmingham, Ala.). His coach, Earl Cheatham, used him in the "wildcat" offense long before others had a name for it. He would play quarterback on first down, running back on second down, receiver on third down and kick the extra point or run for 2 following his amazing touchdown. They used the "pole cat" offense several times (guard, tackle and end on left lined up 20 yards from the center, same for right guard and tackle leaving Palmer with the center). It was an unfair fight any time a defense had just three defenders line up to defend him. He not only would beat them but make them look foolish while he did it.
He had almost 3,000 yards total offense as a senior. His runs were the stuff for highlight reels.The greatest run I ever witnessed came one night at Legion Field in Birmingham with Jackson-Olin playing a home game against visiting Greenville.
Palmer lined up at quarterback with the ball on the right hash mark at the Greenville 48-yard line. He dropped back to pass but was covered up by the Tigers' two college-bound defensive ends. He shook loose from one grasp, evaded another and spun out of the mess some 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage.
He ran to his left reaching all the way to the far hash as four other Greenville Tigers drew a bead on him and missed. He then twisted out of another defender's grasp and ran this time toward the right corner of the field with two defenders hot in pursuit and having the perfect angle to get him. Somehow, with eyes in the back of his head, he sensed the two tacklers closing in at about the 7-yard line. He stopped suddenly on a dime, the defenders collided in front of him in dismay and he trotted around them holding the ball in the air as he backed into the end zone for the touchdown.
And believe it or not, he did something this extraordinary virtually every time I saw him play – and I saw him maybe 20 times in his last three seasons at Jackson-Olin. He was no doubt the best pound for pound I have ever seen – and I have seen the best the state of Alabama has had to offer for the last 40 years.
MaxPreps
asked its most experienced writers and freelancers to name the best high
school football player they ever saw. Requirements were at least 20
years on the job and that they had to see the athlete play in person. See another perspective tomorrow.
