Also remember Bart has a thing against Sammy......

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don't remember wright being particularly hard on sammy...

Jul 25, 2012, 10:26 AM

i don't read much of the greenville paper though. just one of the nice pieces i remembered from gnews/bwright.

Watkins arrives as member of football’s upper class

Published: September 8th, 2011 at 11:18 a.m.

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•clemson football
•sammy watkins
•week two

WRITTEN BY

Bart Wright.
rbwright@greenvillenews.com
Previously: 336 stories

CLEMSON – Aristocratic or upper class families have historically planned coming out parties for their children well in advance with an impressive list of important names in attendance.

It happens differently in sports, and sometimes it never happens at all. Talent is the calling card and the stage can be anywhere. Though unscripted, athletes who have that special something inside that distinguishes them from all the others characteristically find a way to make their debut presentations to the larger world in full view of important folks.

For Clemson freshman wide receiver Sammy Watkins, it happened Dec. 2, 2010 at his school, South Ft. Myers High, when it played for the regional championship against Bradenton Southeast High School. College recruiters had considered Watkins one of the better players in the game, with six college coaches and representatives from four major universities – Florida, Michigan, Miami and Clemson – on hand to take a look in hopes of eventually landing his signature on a letter of intent.

“That was it,” Watkins said this week when asked to name the best game of his career. “It was for the region and there were some people there like Coach (Jeff) Scott so it was big.”

Scott, the Clemson receivers coach, had become the point man for the school in the effort to land Watkins. That process started three and a half years earlier when Scott’s father Brad, a well-known assistant and recruiter in the area at Florida State from 1983-93, first heard Sammy Watkins name when he was doing the routine business of contacting high school coaches.

“That was one of my (recruiting) areas,” Brad Scott said, “and I was just making the rounds in the spring before Sammy’s sophomore year. I had been to (South Ft. Myers), and (former coach) Joe Hampton told me, ‘Sorry, we really don’t have any of those top recruits you’re looking for in our senior class, but we have a kid who will be a sophomore that you should keep your eye on.’”

Scott had been in on the winning side of many recruiting battles over the years, including one with lead recruiter Bob Harbison in which Florida State landed another player from Ft. Myers – North High School – named Deion Sanders. As a recruiter, Brad Scott was known for his diligence, his straightforward manner and his honesty. His reputation was solid and because of that, he got a lot of valuable insight from the high school coaches he knew.

“He was the first one who made contact with Sammy,” said James “Mike” McMiller, the stepfather who raised Watkins. “I’m a diehard Florida State fan, I mean all the way, so I knew about Brad from his time there, I knew he was part of the recruiting of Deion, everybody who followed Florida State knew about Brad. I think the first contact was something about a (football) camp or something we got in the mail.”

Personal contact was prohibited at that point, but Scott stayed at the top of the list for Watkins, touching base as soon as NCAA rules allowed phone calls and personal meetings. In time, he found out Watkins wasn’t just an exceptional talent, he also had the innate desire to get better.

“He was walking when he was eight months old,” McMiller said. “When he was four years old he could throw a football 25 yards, and he always had the knack to understand what needs to be done. I was privileged to raise him, it was an honor; I potty-trained him and I gotta’ tell you, he only messed up one time – just once – after that, it was all good and that’s the kind of kid he always was.”

McMiller recalled what an outstanding player Watkins was in Pop Warner youth football, a running quarterback who could simply outpace his pursuers on the field. He became a highly recruited receiver -- among the fastest players in a state known for producing an abundance of players with great speed -- and kick returner in high school on a team with elusive quarterback Dallas Crawford (a Miami signee as a defensive back) that reached the regional final last December.

South Ft. Myers scored on a 40-yard pass play to Watkins on his team’s first possession, but with 3:19 left, it was 21-14 Southeast Bradenton when Watkins collected a pass out of punt formation on fourth and 14 at his own 31 and took it the distance to score a 69-yard touchdown and tie the game.

South Ft. Myers forced a punt and, with Watkins back to return, Southeast Bradenton kicked the ball out of bounds to prevent a punt return, but somebody jumped offside and they had to punt it again.

The same strategy was applied on the next punt, but those footballs take unpredictable bounces sometimes.

“It was going out of bounds,” McMiller said, “but it hit about a yard, maybe two yards from the sideline and it bounced back, right into Sammy’s hands. I said, ‘Oh my God, he got a chance to return this thing.’”

Watkins grabbed it with both hands, crossed the field twice, out ran the last pursuer and scored on a 58-yard punt return with 1:08 left to win the game.

At the end, the luminaries afforded Watkins an appropriate level of respect. Former Florida State receiver Peter Warrick, who was assisting on the Southeast Bradenton sidelines, approached Watkins and congratulated him on his effort, so did Edgerrin James, the former Miami all-American who had hoped to put in a good word for the Hurricanes.

“There was a coming out party there, you could say that,” McMiller observed. “His mother (Nicole) and I were so proud, I can’t tell you how proud we were, but we’ve always been proud of him. I’m a truck driver trying to pay the bills, she’s an accountant and we’ve tried to raise our kids (there are two older boys), as best as we can.

“It wasn’t a great neighborhood,” McMiller said, “but if you want the best for your kids and you let them know you love them, good things tend to happen.”

In his first college game last week, Watkins scored a touchdown the first time he touched the ball. His ability level is up there with former Clemson standout C.J. Spiller and, even after one game, it’s fair to say Sammy Watkins may be the receiver equivalent at the school for what Spiller brought to the running back position.

He came from a neighborhood that wasn’t gated with private security screening visitors, but his talent and drive to succeed have already lifted him into a kind of football aristocracy.

And he’s just getting started.

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Re: Also remember Bart has a thing against Sammy......

Re: Also remember Bart has a thing against Sammy......

don't remember wright being particularly hard on sammy...

Re: don't remember wright being particularly hard on sammy...

Dabo should have ignored Wright when he continually

I hope he sits him out for the

Re: I hope he sits him out for the

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