Spartanburg’s Tavien Feaster finding his way to stardom

Driving her son to the airport for his first plane trip alone, Tavien Feaster’s mother felt a familiar tug at her heart.

Feaster would fly to Oregon for Nike’s football showcase The Opening, and Latasha McCree Mcelrath fretted much as she did when they walked hand-in-hand to the bus stop for the first day of kindergarten.

“I know he’ll be 18 at the end of the year, but I still see 4-year old Tavien,” she said, recalling that morning 13 years earlier. “I asked him, ‘If you get lost, do you know my name?’ He said, ‘Yes. Mama.’ I had about 10 minutes to teach him my name.”

The lesson stuck, and Feaster found his way home.

“He’s doing it all,” said his father, Terrance Feaster. “I’m very proud of him.”

As he prepares to start practice for his senior football season at Spartanburg High later this week, Feaster has achieved a status reserved for elite athletes, courted by fawning coaches and invited to engagements coast to coast. In football, he is one of the nation’s top 30 prospects. And in track, he’s a promising sprinter with the potential to develop world class speed.

Since committing to the Clemson football team in February, he repeated as state champion in the 100- and 200-meter sprints, tying the state record in the 100; accepted an invitation to participate next January in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl; ran 10.45 to finish second in the Dream 100 at the Adidas Grand Prix in New York City; received an invitation to the National High School Track and Field meet in Greensboro, N.C., and attended The Opening in Beaverton, Ore.

“It seems like I’ve had no days off since coming to high school,” he said. “People say, ‘You do a lot. Aren’t you going to get tired?’ I think I’m used to it by now. I keep going.

“I try to make it fun. I’m an enthusiastic person, and I like making people laugh.”

That’s a relatively new side to his personality. Over the past year, he has extricated himself from a painful, almost confounding, shyness to become a confident, mature young man.

“I’ve seen Tavien grow up a whole lot, become more independent,” his mother said. “He was always very shy and didn’t say much. Teachers were concerned, ever since second grade.”

“He grew up fast,” his father said. “He knows the wrong move could be costly. I tell him every day to keep doing what you’re doing because God has a plan for you.”

Gregarious and chatty, shyness seems foreign to either parent – which probably explains why during a Shrine Bowl banquet six years ago Mcelrath walked up to Dabo Swinney and Steve Spurrier and announced, “I’ve got a son in the seventh grade who’s going to play for one of y’all some day.”

Spurrier was polite, suggesting that it was every young boy’s dream to play college football. “Bring him on,” Swinney roared with a generous smile. She reminded him of the exchange earlier this year when Feaster committed to Clemson. “He probably doesn’t remember it, really, but I always tell him, ‘He’s coming!’”

That he is – and quickly.

Over two seasons, Feaster averaged 8.5 yards per carry for 2,582 yards and 30 touchdowns. ESPN ranked him the No. 31 prospect. Bleacher Report recently reshuffled after The Opening and slotted him at No. 18 overall. ESPN, Rivals and Scout slot him as the No. 2 running back for 2016.

The size and speed are reminiscent of C.J. Spiller, the most dynamic back in a Clemson uniform, a first-round draft pick and a member of the New Orleans Saints. Both ran the high school 100 meters in 10.42 seconds, Spiller as a senior in Florida. Feaster also set the S.C. High School record with a 21.11 in the 200, the same time Sammy Watkins ran as a senior in Florida.

Track coach Glover Smiley believes Feaster can break every state sprint record on the books, “if you keep working hard, keep your nose clean and keep your head on straight.” Smiley said U.S. record holder Tyson Gay encouraged Feaster, telling him their high school times were similar.

His parents, though they’ve not been together for a number of years, worked as “pals” in helping their son through the recruiting maze. Both believe Clemson “should be a great fit for him,” but until he signs a National Letter of Intent next February, the only bond is Feaster’s word.

His father would like him to visit another school or two. On Saturday, he visited Tennessee. Asked in a text if that might change anything, Feaster said he didn’t know, but “it might not, but then again, it might.” Clemson believes in the literal definition of commitment, and during an interview shortly before the Oregon trip, Feaster didn’t waffle. In fact, he talked about his interest in running track at Clemson as Spiller had done.

Like so many mothers, Mcelrath would rather he not play another down of football. Less than a year ago, after Feaster separated a shoulder in a game against Union High, she tried to convince him again to walk away. Feaster played half the game with the injury.

“When he got up he was moving his arm in a circle. I told my friends, ‘Tavien’s hurt.’”

She went to the locker room at halftime, but coaches insisted there was no need for concern. “I told them, ‘I know him … I know Tavien’s hurt,’” she said. “When we took him to the doctor the next day, when they told me about his shoulder, I told him I wanted him to stop football altogether.”

Her concern is linked to a back injury that forced her out of work for two years.

“I’m in so much pain, and I didn’t want that for him, being dependent on medicine or having surgery,” she said. “The rest of the season, I worried he would hurt himself again.”

But Feaster’s parents know they live with the same fears all parents face.

“We’re in a protective mode,” his father said. “Every time he steps on the field, we know he could be hurt. And everybody has such high expectations for him, so we have to let him know sometime things happen. You’ve just got to do the best you can do.”

Not playing never has been an option for a kid who began in the backyard with an older brother and his friends playing tackle without helmets or pads. The boys would show up at the house early every morning for Feaster and his brother, and they would play until the street lights were lit. Many of them were several years older, so Feaster learned his speed was his keenest survival skill.

“It was rough but you had to take it,” Feaster said. “You don’t want to be tackled by the big kids, because they’ll hurt you.

“It taught me how to be physical, endure stuff. You’d cry,” he said, “A lot of scars but never any broken bones. It was a lot of fun.”

When his brother began playing for a Pop Warner team, Feaster’s mother enrolled him in karate. One Saturday, she took him to watch his brother play. “I thought it was dangerous,” she said. “But he was mesmerized. He told me, ‘that’s what I want to do.’”

The next season, 8-year old Tavien Feaster played organized football for the first time. And despite his mother’s fears, until the shoulder separation last year, his other injury of note was to his lower teeth – from a baseball to the mouth the summer after fourth grade.

Now, he’s a on the threshold of their wildest dreams.

“When the guys from the All-American game came to visit, I realized he’s just not Tavien from Spartanburg. He’s nationally known,” she said. “These people traveled just to see you? That was amazing to me.”

Feaster follows a grand tradition of tremendous players from Spartanburg County, and two of them – both former running backs – became role models, men he aspires to emulate. Stephen Davis, whose football and track records he threatens at Spartanburg High, was introduced through his father and coach Smiley and encouraged him. Marcus Lattimore, the former Byrnes High and South Carolina standout, has been inspirational.

“Those guys never did anything negative. Those are the guys I want to be like, have all positive influences on people,” he said. Of Lattimore particularly he added, “He’s a humble guy. His character took him places football couldn’t take him. I have a lot to learn.”

Despite her concerns about the game, Mcelrath realized he heeded her coaxing, and she embraced his potential with determination and his destiny with grace.

“As they’re growing up, you tell your kids they can do anything and they can be anything,” she said. “They used to laugh at me saying it all the time.”

Even finding the way home.

“I would tell him that every day before he went to school,” she said, “and I think now he believes me.”

This story was originally published July 25, 2015 at 10:23 PM with the headline "Spartanburg’s Tavien Feaster finding his way to stardom."