SportsJanuary 21, 2016
Southeast Missourian Football Player of the Year: Al Young
It's funny how thin the line between greatness and everything else below it is. It is a sheer cliff -- stand at the top and look down, and everyone else is far below, but a slight breeze and everyone is on level ground. The breeze has not budged Al Young, but the initial climb almost never happened...
It's funny how thin the line between greatness and everything else below it is. It is a sheer cliff -- stand at the top and look down, and everyone else is far below, but a slight breeze and everyone is on level ground. The breeze has not budged Al Young, but the initial climb almost never happened.
That makes what Young has done all the more astounding. The standout senior nearly gave up on his Cape Central football career before it even started -- before he led the Tigers to an unprecedented run of team success and set 12 school records and was named the 2014 All-Southeast Missourian Football Player of the Year and the 2014 Semoball Awards Offensive Football Player of the Year and Male Athlete of the Year and a three-time All-State First Team selection and the 2015 Carr Trophy recipient.
Before he was, now, named the 2015 Southeast Missourian Football Player of the Year.
We nearly never came to know what Young could do. Which makes it all the more impressive that this is where we stand now.
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Not a day goes by someone doesn't ask him. "Al, where are you going to go play college football?" You want to know, too, which is why this is where this particular story begins. So as not to leave you hanging.
Young appreciates everything that has happened to him, but it's hard not to get a little tired of the question to which he has no answer yet. At least, not one he's ready to commit his life to.
"It's stressful. It's really stressful. People are coming up to you every day, 'What school you going to go to?' You just try not to think about it," Young said. "Me and [Central coach Nathan] Norman always talk about it and he says, 'Just don't think about it. Wait.' So it's stressful because people don't understand you've got to take it day by day. You can't just pick a school because you had one visit. You've just got to wait it out.
"You don't know what to expect. The recruiting coaches, they'll tell you something because that's their job to tell you something. ... But you want to hear the right stuff. Make sure you feel comfortable, make sure you feel at home. It's stressful, but you've just got to go with your heart."
Many people want to know where Young's heart is taking him, but nobody knows yet. He's narrowed his college options to Southeast Missouri State, Murray State, Missouri and Nebraska. The first two have officially offered the versatile player, while the latter two have spent some serious time recruiting him and, Young believes, are poised to make offers. He has made visits to all the schools.
"I feel comfortable," Young said. "I visited those schools. I feel like some of them have my heart, so I feel comfortable with those schools."
Young would like to play offense. It's where he's garnered the most notoriety, though his impact on defense at Central has been large and his records extend to that side of the ball as well. Southeast and Murray State have both told him they want him to play receiver. Nebraska has told him it sees him as a slot receiver. Mizzou, on the other hand, fancies him as a safety and punt returner. He says he'll do whatever it takes, but doesn't hide the fact he has a preference.
Southeast was the first school to come after Young, and he's not only had an opportunity to see the program from its own backyard, but also has forged a relationship with a number of Redhawk players. He said he's looked to running back DeMichael Jackson for advice through the process, and he communicates with graduating star receiver and NFL prospect Paul McRoberts nearly every day.
The Cornhuskers, Young said, have impressed him during the recruiting process. The promise of offensive touches and his visit to campus have left an impression. Nebraska is also the destination of one of his recruiting buddies -- one perk of the process for the Central player.
"The recruiting part has been a fun ride -- just knowing a lot of people want you," Young said. "Just going on the trips. The trip to Nebraska was probably my favorite trip ever. That's probably the most fun I've had at a college. ... [And] just meeting the recruits. The CBC running back -- I just met him and we had a bond -- Tre Bryant, he's a pretty cool dude. We talk a lot, we text. He's a motivator to me. He wants me to go to Nebraska, but I told him I don't know yet."
That's what he tells everyone who asks, and they all do.
Young has continued to take the advice of those in his circle, and he's in no rush to figure out what his next step is.
"We've just given him basic advice," Norman said. "'Hey, keep your options open. Go on your visits and meet the coaches and the kids.'
"He didn't change [because of the recruiting attention], and that was a fear of mine. Would he get the big head from his junior to senior year? And he didn't. I think it motivated him more. He's done a good job with it."
Young says his No. 1 priority in finding a place to play college football is that it feels like home. That's the environment, he believes, that will allow him to just keep doing what he's been doing -- playing football.
He may not yet know what that place will be, but he does know who he will tell first when he does figure it out.
"Probably shoot Norman a text first," Young said. "That will probably be the first person."
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Norman was to Jackson athletics what Young is to Central athletics. It is the most fitting of ironies that Norman helped foster Young into his current standing at his own alma mater's biggest rival. They were different types of players and different types of athletes, but the similarities in stature in the annals of their respective school's athletic histories is undeniable.
Norman was revered for his accomplishments on the wrestling mat and football field, on the latter of which he led the Indians to their only two appearances in a state championship. Young has impressed on the basketball court and the gridiron, the latter field the place where he helped take the Tigers to three straight state semifinals for the first time and the program's lone state championship appearance.
If it wasn't for Norman, there's no telling what, exactly, Young would have made of himself.
It was always clear that Young had talent that went above and beyond the natural human being. Best friend and teammate Kway'Chon Chisom remembers back to their days as young kids, when Young still dominated the competition.
"When we were real little, I don't want to say you can tell someone's going to be a D-I player when you're real little, but it was different," Chisom said. "When we was real little he used to play quarterback and I'd play running back, and he'd just do stuff you couldn't do. He'd always do stuff other people couldn't. Even in the backyard playing basketball, he'd do dunks other people couldn't do. You always knew he was going to be special when we got to high school. And junior high, you kind of really knew."
Young, then playing running back, was a junior high star. As Central offensive coordinator Tim McGuire puts it, "In middle school, going to watch him play a little, it was all 'Al right' and 'Al left.' Those were all the plays."
Norman's staff at the high school saw him coming down the pipe, and it knew the raw material it had to work with was going to be at a different level from most.
Suddenly, though, a new obstacle cropped up -- Young decided he didn't really want to play football.
"My freshman year I didn't really want to play football because I got hit really hard my first day out as a varsity and I was like, 'Yeah, football's not for me,'" Young said.
Before colleges ever had any thought of Al Young, he was being recruited by Norman and the Central staff.
"The truth is, when Al first got here as a freshman, we had to talk him into playing football," Norman said. "He had the idea he was going to take his freshman year off. We talked him into playing, and I'm sure glad we did.
"I don't know that we did anything special other than show interest in him and let him know we thought this was going to help him in the future. Just try to give him some guidance.
"I think he made the right choice, not just for us but for him."
Young's decision to buy in to the team, the coaches and the game of football was a turning point not just in the sense that it opened the door for everything that followed, but also set the young player on a path to take his game and life to another level. Amongst peers that often settle for the status quo, that personal growth has been part and parcel of his journey.
"He's really just turned around his life with wanting to get into college, which I think is great," McGuire said. "I think a lot of the kids that come as freshman, they don't really have that kind of vision or that kind of want. They just go through the motions of high school and Cape Girardeau's going to be their life. But he had that switch kicked on his sophomore year -- 'I can do this, I can get out of here.'"
Norman's first memories of his future standout are of an athlete laden with potential, but with plenty of room for refinement. Young gives Norman and McGuire tremendous credit for the work and investment they made in him, and it paid off in spades.
By the time he became a starter as a sophomore, Young was ready to explode.
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"One [moment] that sticks out in my head was one against Miller Career Academy [in the state quarterfinals]," McGuire said. "I think we were up one touchdown, and going into half we got the ball back with something like 15 seconds left. ... One of the coaches said, 'Take a knee and we'll go in ahead.' I said, 'No way, I'm taking a shot.'
"It was a go route for Al. The quarterback threw the ball as far as he could and Al never turned around. He just looked up to the sky and watched the ball fall into his arms at a full sprint."
In his first campaign, the young wideout set multiple school records, the most noteworthy being Central's single-season mark for receiving yardage, which had stood since 1979. Steve Williams had 771 receiving yards for the Tigers that season; Young smashed that number with 41 catches for 1,226 yards and 11 touchdowns. His absurd 29.9 yards per catch also set a Central all-time record by a large margin, and seems unlikely to be broken.
He converted on-lookers into true believers game by game.
"We played Chaminade and he played against the No. 1 [defensive]-back in the state and 20-something in the country and he killed him," Chisom said. "He had, like, 117 yards or something. ... Any time you can just kill the No. 1 D-back in the state, you know it's real."
Young's numbers that game were actually 116 yards and two TDs through the air. This season he came up against the aforementioned defensive back -- four-star Northwestern signee Roderick Campbell -- again and got to the end zone another two times.
"It's a game we got our butt kicked, but Al went up against the No. 1 corner in the state that game -- a smart kid and a very good player," McGuire said. "Al just ... turned him around and would go up and get the ball over top of him. The fade route was the perfect example of Al's ability to get away from press coverage and get to the ball.
"I asked Al after the game if [Campbell] had said anything to him and he said, 'You've gotten a lot better.'"
Young's development has been constant. Besides a seemingly innate ability to explode to the ball -- and away from defenders -- he got better in other areas of the game on both sides of the ball. Norman pushed him to improve, often spending extra sessions in the weight room alongside his player, helping him to put on nearly 20 pounds of weight going into his final campaign. His coach praises his work in practice countless times and said his most lasting memories of Young will likely be of the things he did on the practice field.
As Norman reminisces, the scenes flash across the back of his eyeballs: interceptions against St. Charles West, stealing away an interception from a Jackson receiver, stripping an Indian on the goal line or an offensive explosion this season against Farmington to win a district title -- a game in which he took an interception back 109 yards, had more than 170 total yards of offense and scored a touchdown on a pick, a punt return, a rushing attempt and a reception.
"There's no doubt to me, there's several plays that stick out in my mind, but it's how he practiced his senior year," Norman said. "He came to work every day and he loved the game. He loved football.
"To me, the best thing that happened with Al Young was how he changed his attitude. He's always been a good kid, but the intangible things grew into what you want. He's not arrogant. He's humble and soft-spoken and leads by example. I don't think he missed a day of practice all year, and when your top players are dedicated ... that made our team better.
"All kids, usually, need help knowing what it means to be a good practice player. Figure it out and they become better than they would be. Some don't figure it out, but he did.
"He gained the ability to know what it means to go full speed every drill and show up every day and go to work. I think that's the biggest change he made over his career here. He was hungry to get better."
He never was able to match that incredible sophomore receiving year in the stat column, but has undeniably made a similar, if diversified, impact. He posted 1,446 all-purpose yards and 25 touchdowns as a junior. On defense he had eight interceptions.
This fall, in his final season in a Tiger uniform, Young had 992 rushing yards, 771 receiving yards and 27 touchdowns, averaging 8.4 yards per carry on the ground.
For his career, Young has 2,635 receiving yards and 38 receiving touchdowns. Those are both school records.
Young holds Central records for single-season touchdowns, receiving touchdowns, yards per catch, points scored and interceptions; career marks for receiving TDs, total TDs, receiving yards, yards per catch and points scored; the longest interception return for a touchdown, longest TD catch and most TDs in a single game.
He's in the upper reaches of the state record books in multiple categories as well, among the best in career punt return yards, yards per catch and all-purpose yards. In some cases, he's atop the list.
"[The records] mean a lot to me," Young said. "Knowing I've left my name somewhere back in the books. Every time I step on the field I'm trying to set an example and break some type of record and just play football. Knowing you set a Cape Central record and you're one of the all-time leaders, it means a lot."
Mathematically, Young stands alone in Tiger football history. In the minds of those who saw him, he does so in any context.
"The greatest player at Cape Central," said Corey Starks, Central senior linebacker and the team's leading tackler. "I think he is the greatest player at Cape Central.
"A playmaker. He's a big leader. He helps everybody. It's his team. He's definitely a captain and he works hard. There are a lot of things. He's special. He's a special dude."
There is no doubt the Tigers will miss Young next year; it's a void that is impossible to measure. Chisom, Central's quarterback, always refers to things as "easy" when it comes to making plays with his cohort, but he knows there will be a major adjustment ahead.
"I only threw six interceptions, and it wasn't because I was throwing perfect passes. It's just, when you throw it to him, he's going to get it, like, more than half of the time," Chisom said.
"It's going to be different next year. I've got to work on my patience, because I know every receiver can't do what he can do. In the offseason I'm going to have to work on actually being accurate, because with him I can just throw it up and he'll go get it. It was nice, though. It was fun while it lasted."
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There have been numerous stories about Young's exploits; numerous chronicles of his statistics and records. Yet behind his abnormal ability is a surprisingly normal teenager.
"He's a typical kid," Norman said. "He likes his Xbox and he's got a close group of friends.
"He's a humble kid. He's light spoken. He doesn't say a lot and he's not flashy, but he's not a hermit either. I'd say he's just a humble kid ... but he enjoys his friends and school and he's driven to do better."
The thing with a lot of people who are driven to do better and actually achieve that goal is that, for certain personalities, those outside their circle may get the wrong impression.
When Young has some fun in practice, it might appear showy to some, but it's just a young player pushing himself to do something new. That's how he's learned to do the things he does on the football field. He watches tape, takes Norman's advice and pushes the envelope. Sometimes he comes up with something on the spot, pulls it off and realizes, 'Well, I guess I can do that, too.' Sometimes, as he puts it, "stuff just happens."
"In practice we start off with special teams every day and he's a punt returner," Norman said. "We'd get to the point where he could catch the ball behind his back. He'd get bored catching it regular and he'd catch it behind his back and he was more successful doing that than I'd be catching it regular."
Young is confident, but he is also quiet. If he doesn't know you, he's unlikely to engage in small talk or flash too many smiles your way. To those who just have a passing interaction, it's not likely to offer an overly positive impression, and it may leave some with the wrong one.
"A lot of people say he's cocky, but he's not. He's humble to me," Chisom said. "I think a lot of people think that because he's quiet and he don't talk a lot. If you say something to him he's just like, 'Hey, what's up,' if he don't know you. It's just hard to trust a lot of people, so he just stays to himself. We don't have a lot of friends, but we stay real close to each other."
As much as anything, Young prefers to spend his free time at home, playing Madden on the Playstation 4. He says he's not a huge fan of social media, maintaining a Twitter account (@A1turnup) as much as a way to occasionally sound off as to draw a spotlight to himself. But when it comes to Madden, he's up for challengers and eagerly offers up his gamertag -- alyoung1. It's what he and Chisom spend much of their time together doing.
"I play him in Madden every day," Chisom said. "Me, I play with the Patriots and he plays with the Seahawks. He can tell you, I win."
That confident declaration is followed by hearty laughter and an interjection from Young down the hall.
"Nah, it's a tie."
More often than not, Young was a winner on the real-life football field. That's not how his high-school career ended -- with a loss to Webb City for a third consecutive season, the top of the championship mountain within sight each and every time -- but it doesn't change the things he's accomplished or the stature he will forever hold within Central football.
"In my mind, there was a picture of him alone walking off the field [at the end], and that's a very honest picture," Norman said. "It's tough. That's life, and it's bittersweet. The kid has done so much for us and our program and had a lot of success, and hey, one day it's over. It's a life lesson that I hope all the kids in the future realize."
For Young, one chapter is over, but his story is not. It was very nearly cut short, but he has come to understand something about the sport he has, really, always loved.
"When I had a ball in my hands, I was just happy," Young said. "And I found out I could do a lot of stuff with the football."
Pronounced from high up on the cliff, truer words have never been spoken.
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