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Marcus Lattimore: Reluctant Superstar
One of the most highly-recruited players in the country, family keeps Byrnes’ Lattimore grounded
Byrnes High School running back Marcus Lattimore is one of the top college football prospects in the nation
Gerry Melendez/gmelendez@thestate.com
Written by AKILAH IMANI NELSON
ainelson@thestate.com
Posted on 07.12.09
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By the numbers
A look at Byrnes High running back Marcus Lattimore:
1st: Where The Sporting News ranks him among nation’s top prospects
7: Age when he began playing football
2,422: His rushing yards in 2008 season
2,227: Facebook “friends” Lattimore has
8: Schools Lattimore is considering, including USC and Clemson
22: Division I offers he has turned down
4.46 seconds: His best time in the 40-yard dash
DUNCAN — Marcus Lattimore is trying not to laugh.
With his Byrnes High teammates ribbing him as he has his photo taken, the 17-year-old running back tries to focus on the photographer’s instructions.
“Tilt your head down.”
“Look this way.”
The flash whirrs. Lattimore blinks into the light as the flash discharges and the shutter snaps.
“Man, you better take that hat off,” a teammate says. “You got that South Carolina hat on. Do you know what people are going to think when they see that?”
Lattimore keeps his eyes on the camera, doesn’t crack a smile or remove the hat.
The rising senior is the state’s top college prospect and the No. 1 recruit in the nation, according to The Sporting News. Scout.com lists him as No. 2 nationally and Rivals.com lists him as No. 4.
He has more than 30 scholarship offers and has narrowed the field to eight: Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Florida State, Maryland, North Carolina, Penn State and South Carolina. He plans to whittle the list to five by summer’s end.
In the meantime, Lattimore would like to wear whatever hat or T-shirt he likes without having to worry about the subtext.
There is just one impediment.
“You’re a superstar, man,” a teammate reminds him when the photo shoot is over.
Lattimore silently shakes his head — not so much in disagreement as in disbelief.
BRUISING BEGINNING
From the outset, neither Lattimore nor his parents imagined it would come to this — especially considering the way Lattimore’s life started.
Yolanda Smith’s youngest son was an accident-prone child who made several trips to the emergency room and accumulated nearly $100,000 in medical bills before he reached kindergarten, she said.
When Lattimore was 2, he fell off a slide and fractured his femur. For five months, the toddler was encased in a body cast from his chest down. His mother asked the doctors how to help him learn to walk and run normally again when the cast came off. They suggested sports.
So Smith enrolled her baby in T-ball when he turned 4. At 7, he took up football.
“I had no idea what he was doing out there. I just knew he was going to get a picture taken in his uniform, and that’s all mama wanted,” Smith said.
But when she met her future husband, Vernon Smith, at work almost five years ago, Yolanda could not help but brag.
“She told me her son was a real good football player, and I thought, you know, she’s a proud mama. Every mama’s going to say her son is good,” Vernon said.
As he and Yolanda developed a friendship, Vernon accompanied her to one of Lattimore’s middle school football games.
“I (saw) him play that first time and I was like, oh, my god. He was just playing with the other guys out there; he ran whichever way he wanted, and he didn’t stop running until he got a touchdown,” Vernon said.
He tried not to let the boy know how impressed he was.
“I told him he wasn’t any good,” Vernon said.
Not to worry — Lattimore ran no risk of getting a big head.
SURPRISED BY SUCCESS
Lattimore is a bit incredulous as to how he got from there to here.
“I never, never thought it would be like this,” he said after a weightlifting session during which he squatted 435 pounds. “It just happened.”
“I grew up playing with all of these guys, and I never was the star player,” he said.
College recruiting analysts disagree. He is listed as a five-star player by Rivals.com and Scout.com.
Lattimore has had the luxury of learning from former Byrnes players how to handle being a nationally acclaimed recruit.
His freshman season, Lattimore watched Willy Korn go through the recruiting storm as one of the top prep quarterbacks in the nation. Korn wound up picking Clemson.
“He was a really good example for me; he was so humble, and he really didn’t care about all of that (attention),” Lattimore said.
He admired Korn’s poise but did not realize he should have been taking notes: “I didn’t know that one day it was going to be me.”
REMAINING HUMBLE
Lattimore’s potential might have been unclear early in his career, but the signs were always there.
“If you play for Byrnes and you contribute, you’re pretty much going to get your name out there,” Lattimore said.
And Lattimore contributed from the beginning.
Before the first game of his freshman season, he was excited about the possibility of playing in one of the Rebels’ first nationally televised games.
Yolanda told her son to wave his arms for the ESPN camera when it passed by the bench.
Instead, Lattimore burst onto the national stage with a 10-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter of a victory against Glades (Fla.) Central.
“That lets you know this is what God wants for him,” Yolanda said. “There were four running backs ahead of him for that game, but they just went down one by one.”
Still, the humble kid was surprised when Clemson was the first program to offer him a scholarship — after his sophomore season.
The offer was not binding, Vernon pointed out, but it was a big deal. Media started calling on the star player who was not comfortable talking about himself or his talent.
“He never really understood how good he is; he doesn’t buy into the hype about himself,” Vernon said. “That’s why he still works the way he does, and he’s always talking about other guys, what they do well, how he can improve.”
PARENTAL GUIDANCE
Lattimore rushed for 2,319 yards and 30 touchdowns during the Rebels’ 2008 state championship season.
As the season progressed, the letters and phone calls — from coaches, from reporters, from scouting Web sites — reached a crescendo.
“I try to make it fun, but sometimes they just get ridiculous with it, calling all hours at night,” Lattimore said.
Vernon explained to Lattimore that all the attention was part of his blessing. He told his stepson his talent gives him a platform to help others. Still, Lattimore sometimes strained under the demands of his fame.
“I’m a kid,” he told his mother. “I didn’t ask for all of this.”
So the woman who closes her eyes and prays every time Lattimore takes a handoff decided to block for him.
Yolanda put her organizational skills to work to manage the business end of the recruiting process in an effort to be sure her son could enjoy the rest of his high school career under as little pressure as possible.
She researches prospective schools on the Internet, cataloging printouts about their facilities and coaches’ backgrounds and academic opportunities in color-coded folders tucked neatly into a two-drawer file cabinet beside the Smiths’ dining room table. At least once a week she sorts through the orange and blue and garnet greeting cards that arrive daily with messages from coaches who are not allowed to call during the summer “dead” period for recruiting.
Yolanda and Vernon accompany Lattimore on every college visit; they have agreed to take him to vist any school within a nine-hour drive, and they take the lead in meetings with coaches.
“When I go to a school, I just have fun. I meet the players and the coaches and just enjoy myself. They are the main ones asking most of the questions, and I like that,” Lattimore said. “I don’t have to worry about anything.”
“He has the fun part of it; we do all the dirty work,” Vernon said jokingly.
Dean Davis, 25, has helped Lattimore and his parents navigate the process through his involvement in Developing Integrity Character and Education, a program he began at the church he and the Smiths and Lattimore attend.
Davis, a former Gaffney High player, wound up at North Greenville University after running into problems with the NCAA Clearinghouse. His travails inspired him to begin the DICE program to prevent other talented young men from missing opportunities because of similar problems.
That is not much of a concern for Lattimore, who maintains a 3.7 GPA and serves as a role model for area youth.
“He’s not your average kid,” Davis said. “He does a lot of things in the community, he’s very intelligent, and he doesn’t really like to be in the spotlight. And that has not changed through all of this.”
“We talk to him all the time. We know what he needs, he knows what he’s looking for, and I believe he will find it,” Davis said.
Yolanda knows she made the right decision in her approach and that Lattimore takes nothing for granted. He did not even ask for a new pair of sneakers when the soles began peeling off his Air Jordans “because he knew how much we were spending on all the visits,” he told his mother.
Yolanda makes it a point to note her son is merely doing what is expected of him — his best — but she wants to make sure he enjoys the fruits of his efforts.
“That’s why we indulge him,” Yolanda said. “It’s like taking my child to Toys ’R Us and letting him play with every toy before he decides which one he wants to keep.”
BRIGHT FUTURE
Much of Lattimore’s summer has been consumed by preparation for his final season with the Rebels.
“Now is the time to improve,” he said as he shuffled to his car after a workout, one of the last to leave the weight room. “I’m working really hard this summer. With workouts and passing camps and stuff, I mean, football is life now, and that’s OK because I love it.”
He is warming to his role as a public figure. In between football obligations, Lattimore attends children’s birthday parties, visits elementary schools and watches Little League games.
“It’s fun; they want my autograph and stuff,” he says, smiling shyly. “It is very flattering.”
In September, the dead period for recruiting ends at about the time Lattimore hopes to be guiding his team down the stretch of an undefeated, national championship season.
“I won’t say it’s going to be pressure, because I’m just going to go out there and play my game,” he said, adding that choosing among the remaining schools will be the toughest part of the process.
“It was tough when I cut my list down, and it’s really hard saying no to all these programs, all these famous coaches,” Lattimore said.
A few decisions have been made.
Though he is eligible for early graduation, whichever school Lattimore chooses will have to wait until the summer of 2010 to enroll him. He plans to enjoy the senior-year experience, signing day, prom and all. And wherever Lattimore lands, Yolanda plans to move there at least for his freshman year (Lattimore and Vernon are betting she will not make good on that promise).
Lattimore cannot be sure what lies ahead, but the coaches he meets with all tell him he is bound for the NFL.
“So now I’m just trying to find the right people to help me get to where everybody says I can go,” he says.
The spotlight will follow.
Lattimore will not blink.
Reach Nelson at (803) 771-8419.
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