woundedknees wrote:Troy Polamalu grew up and played his HS football at Douglas HS, in Winston, Oregon, about 10-15 miles south of Roseburg (He lettered there 4 years.).
A 2 time all league player in Basketball, he was All-Farwest League as a senior in Football (RB and DB), as well as an All-State selection in Baseball.
Another player who slipped through Oregon's fingers in the bad old days.
Correct on all counts WK.
Trust me, I tried hard to convince Troy to go to the O but he wanted badly to play baseball (Groan-f'ing Title IX) and the O didn't have a baseball team at the time as we all know. He was going to be the starting centerfielder for USC's baseball team when Petey F-bomb showed up and told him "No, your not. You're going to be my defensive captain and team leader and I want you here for all practices, most importantly spring practice."
Another interesting tidbit for you all. Troy is 5'11" tall, I know this because I was around him for 2 of the three years he was at DHS as my son went to school with him. Anyway, Douglas was playing Creswell Troy's senior year and Creswell stole the ball about at the foul line and started down the court on a fast break. A pass to Luke Jackson on the left side (he's a lefty so it was his power side of the court) and he was headed for an uncontested slam dunk, when out of nowhere came Troy and went from the right side of the court, up under the rim to the left side and blocked the slam about 2 feet above the rim. I had never seen anything like it in my life from a kid 5'11' tall, blocking a slam dunk by a 6'6" or was it 6'7" future U of O and NBA player.
I'll tell you another story about Troy. When he was a junior he was the 3A Defensive player of the year and his senior season he had a serious kidney injury in the 1st game of the season. Everyone in the media was touting him as being the offensive play of the year in 3A ball so when he came back the 4th game of the season, a lot of people were sure he was really going to try to make up for lost time by scoring a ton of touchdowns so he could to try to win that award. But for those of us who know Troy, nothing could have been further from the truth. Now what I was getting to. In his first game back after that injury he took a hand off at about DHS's 20 yard line and headed around the right side of the line on a sweep, the defense was in position in numbers so he reversed his field, running clear back across the field. Due to his speed he made the corner but there were a lot of defenders with good pursuit angles closing on him, so he cut back
again to the right side and totally left everyone 20 yards behind. That is except for his fullback who was hustling trying to catch Troy and be a shield for any wouldbe tacklers. Troy looked back and saw him coming and basically stopped, turned around and held the ball out and handed it off to his fullback and he (the fullback) ran it in for a touchdown. One of the greatest acts of selflessness and sportsmanship I have ever witnessed.
Even though he went to USC, he's still my favorite player in the NFL... probably of all time.
And what's even better, he's a great kid.