Manny Navarro's Spring Tour, Part 7
Thomas Balkcom spent most of his first season as coach at Miami Jackson High hoping he would run into the middle of a Southwest Airlines commercial.
Southwest High's LaMarcus Joyner is only a sophomore, but one scout from one of the state's BCS schools says he's the best prospect in all of Miami-Dade County. For more on Joyner, Southwest, Palmetto, Reagan and Varela High check out this edition of my spring tour.
When Steve Davis won the state championship at Blanche Ely in 2002, his cellphone never seemed to stopped ringing. He's having the same problem with Plantation High this season. For more on the Colonels, American Heritage and South Broward check out this edition of my spring tour.
New Miami Central football coach Telly Lockett has an affinity for Miami-Dade high school football history. Ask him about the greatest running back in Central's history -- Elvis Peacock -- and Lockett will come back at you with stories about Peacock, the guys Lockett played against in the early 1990s while at Northwestern High, others he never played against, and players before his time.
Few high school coaches ever get a chance to win a state championship or coach an NFL player. Nigel Dunn has done both. But what he has done more than any other coach of late -- possibly in the entire country -- is the latter.
Monsignor Pace has traditionally been a hot spot in South Florida for college recruiters in search of speed in the secondary. The University of Miami got plenty of production from Maurice Sikes earlier this decade. But in the past five years alone, Pace has upped its output, churning out six speedsters from its defensive backfield that have found their way onto College Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) rosters.
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
One of the duties I enjoyed most when I was the high school writer in Miami-Dade from 2000-2006 was making my way around the county to visit coaches and players during spring practice. It gave me an opportunity to meet the future college and pro stars of tomorrow and get an idea of whom to key-in on throughout the recruiting process later in the fall.
