Palm Beach County’s Super Seven
Baltimore Ravens
WR Anquan Boldin (Pahokee High): Playing in second Super Bowl; leads NFL in both receiving yards (276) and TD receptions (three) this post-season.
DT Pernell McPhee (Pahokee): Missed four games because of injuries but had a sack and forced fumble in playoff victory against Denver.
WR Deonte Thompson (Glades Central): Undrafted rookie was long shot to make roster but appeared in six regular-season games as a backup.
RB Damien Berry (Glades Central): Placed on injured reserve in August because of neck and shoulder issues.
S Emanuel Cook (Palm Beach Gardens High): Went on injured reserve in August because of broken right leg.
San Francisco 49ers
DT Ray McDonald Jr. (Glades Central): Starter had 38 tackles and 2.5 sacks in regular season and added nine tackles in two playoff wins.
G Joe Looney (Lake Worth High): Fourth-round pick has not appeared in a game as a rookie.
A mother comes home one day and finds her son wearing a green garbage bag. As success stories go, that’s where this one picks up steam, although much of that steam initially was coming from inside Mom.
No son of hers was going to play football, she had decided. No, sir. A more sympathetic ear came from the father, a football coach and former Florida Gators receiver who resorted to the garbage bag so his son could quickly sweat away a couple of pounds and be eligible to play Little League football.
“Baby, let him play,” Dad told Mom.
LaBrina McDonald and husband Ray Sr. laugh at that memory today, knowing that somehow, some way, that escapade launched a career leading to Sunday night, when Ray Jr. starts at defensive tackle for the San Francisco 49ers against the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl.
That makes three proud McDonalds inside New Orleans’ Superdome, joined in spirit by perhaps 24,000 of their closest friends. That’s the population of Belle Glade and Pahokee, towns that have combined to produce five members of the two teams vying for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Toss in two more players from high schools on the eastern part of the area and it adds up to a Super Seven for Palm Beach County. Texas, California and Georgia can take a bow — they’re the only states producing more Super talent than this county.
Years ago, players such as Jessie Hester and Fred Taylor were proving NFL talent did grow in the Glades. Soon, Anquan Boldin and Santonio Holmes showed Super Bowl talent blossomed in the muck. Another Super Bowl alum, Pahokee’s Rickey Jackson, raised the bar in 2010 when he was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
But five? In one year? The sheer volume explains why heads might be held a little higher around town today, chests out a little more. Why, this success stuff has become so routine, who knows how soon before it seems blasé?
“I guess I would be more surprised if they didn’t get there,” says William Grear, a Belle Glade city commissioner and former classmate of Ray Sr.’s at Glades Central.
“The best is yet to come,” Glades Central coach Roosevelt Blackmon says.
Sunday’s best equates to receiver Boldin and defensive tackle Pernell McPhee of Pahokee and receiver Deonte Thompson and Damien Berry of Glades Central for the Ravens (and safety Emanuel Cook of Palm Beach Gardens High). The 49ers have McDonald (along with guard Joe Looney from Lake Worth).
“Faith, farming and football,” Pahokee coach Blaze Thompson says. “That’s the Glades.”
Community competitive, close-knit
It’s no news flash that football talent abounds there. Each November, the Pahokee-Glades Central rivalry boils over at the Muck Bowl, which Ray Sr. describes as “blood, sweat and tears.”
Lesser known is what happens by next morning, after the TV trucks have rolled out of town. It has everything to do with what fans in Pahokee and Belle Glade will feel tonight. It’s a brotherhood lasting about 364 days, they say.
“You can’t talk trash about my family,” Blaze Thompson says of the two communities. “I can, because we’re all one family outside of the Muck Bowl, you know what I mean? I do hope that Glades Central does well other than the Muck Bowl and I do hope that Glades Central players do well unless they’re performing against one of my players. For us — and I hope that Glades Central and Belle Glade people feel the same way — it’s that we’re just proud of the muck. There’s 24, 25 thousand people in this little area and we might not be the most-represented area (in the Super Bowl), but per capita, we have to be.”
Damien’s father, Kenny, is pastor at Grace Fellowship in Belle Glade and a two-time national champion as a defensive back at the University of Miami who sees tonight as a can’t-lose proposition.
“The great thing is someone from the Glades area will have a Super Bowl championship, so we’ll have bragging rights,” Kenny Berry says. “Just think. How many small, rural areas can begin to say we’ll have the opportunity to have that many guys playing at one time? Either way, it’s going to be great. We’re going to applaud each other because we know what it takes to get there.”
Actually, they already have applauded. After attending the 49ers’ victory over the Falcons for the NFC championship, McDonald’s parents were awaiting their flight in the Atlanta airport, decked out in 49ers garb yet yelling as the Ravens beat the New England Patriots for the AFC title. Puzzled passengers couldn’t have known that the McDonald family has infinite connections to the Ravens’ locals ranging from cousins to old classmates to lifelong friendships.
“People were looking at us like we’re fools,” LaBrina says.
More serious is why there’s so much Super talent in the Glades.
“Everybody uses the term ‘hungry,’ ” says Hester, now coach at Lake Worth. “A lot of those kids are real hungry because of the area they come out of. They don’t want to go back to that situation. Whatever opportunity they can grab, they don’t let go of.
“A lot of (other) kids have that determination, but at what degree? I think those kids over there have that extra edge, that extra incentive, that extra whatever it is that takes them over the top.”
Intertwined success stories
Consider McPhee’s road. In the past year, he has endured two knee surgeries and the loss of three relatives. His senior year at Pahokee, everyone knew he had the talent. What he didn’t have was the grades. In 2007 he landed at Itawamba Community College in Fulton, Miss., where he curiously fired up teammates before games by imitating Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.
McPhee’s sack total dropped from six in 2011 to 1.5 this season because of injuries, but he showed flashes of his old self in the playoffs against Denver, recording a sack, a forced fumble and a pass deflection that resulted in an interception.
Deonte Thompson? Blackmon remembers the day he knew Thompson was special. Blackmon and another coach were timing Thompson in the 40. Blackmon’s watch read 4.28. Crazy, obviously. When the other coach said, “4.23,” Blackmon thought, whoa. “Give me one moment,” he said.
Undrafted out of Florida, Thompson was a long shot to make a Ravens receiving corps that had Boldin and Torrey Smith. It didn’t hurt that Boldin was the one greeting Thompson at the airport and “gave him the blueprint,” Blackmon says, for surviving the cut.
Imagine the joy the McDonalds felt for Thompson. On April 28, 2007, Ray Jr. was drafted by the 49ers. That also was the day Willie McDonald, Ray Jr.’s grandfather, was gunning for a state title as Glades Central’s track coach. Glades Central ended up nine points shy despite the efforts of Willie’s 200-meter champion: Thompson. This despite the absence of Willie’s assistant coach: Ray Sr. Ties that bind, so intertwined.
Muck will have a champion
Damien Berry wrecked his right knee early in his career at Suncoast, transferred to Glades Central and led the Raiders to the state title in 2006, rushing for 1,080 yards and 19 touchdowns despite playing the entire season with a torn ACL.
“When Dr. (John) Uribe took a look at it, he didn’t actually know how he was walking around, let alone running,” Kenny Berry says. “To see him now, on a team in the Super Bowl … “
The McDonalds can empathize with Berry as well. Before Ray Jr.’s senior year at Florida, he had undergone reconstructive surgery on both knees within a one-month span. Tired of seeing his son deal with knee problems, Ray Sr. wrote coach Urban Meyer: “Would you please make sure you make him wear his braces, but don’t tell him that we said anything.”
LaBrina: “To this day, Ray doesn’t know.”
Ray Sr. credits those braces with saving his son’s career. Before the draft, every NFL team except one shied away even though Ray Jr. once was projected as a first-rounder. The exception was Ray Jr.’s coaching staff at the Senior Bowl, belonging to then-49ers coach Mike Nolan. How appropriate. Didn’t Ray Jr. grow up wearing 49ers caps and jackets his grandfather gave him?
Having gotten over the green garbage bag incident, LaBrina came around. Before Ray Jr.’s senior year of high school, she signed Ray Jr. to a “contract” calling for her to fork over $20 per sack. She figured it’d cost about $100. He had 22. He also let her off the hook.
One way to make it up to him, she figures, is to dangle $20 for every sack tonight. Can $20 mean much to an NFL player?
“Coming from Mom?” Ray Sr. says, laughing.
Of course, Mom and Dad will be screaming for the 49ers tonight. They’ll be sad if San Francisco loses, to a point.
“We know somebody’s going to walk away with a Super Bowl ring,” Ray Sr. says. “That’s the great thing about it. Of course we don’t want to lose, but when it comes down to it, you’re rather lose to your brother.”
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