Ameer legend

If you could put a finger on it, maybe it was that day in the weedy fields behind the Club Apartments off Valley Avenue. 

Maybe that was the day the legend began.

This little kid — a third-grader, fourth-grader? — getting the ball for the first time in the pickup game of tackle football,  darting, dashing, weaving, slashing his way through a gang of older kids, middle-schoolers and a couple of high-school kids, even, racing past them all into the makeshift end zone.

Maybe that’s the day people noticed Ameer Abdullah was something special. Maybe that was the day the legend began.

“Nobody expected me to do much,” Abdullah recalled. “I always wanted that challenge, to hold my own against older guys and better competition. I think that’s something my older brother Kareem instilled in me.

“And that pretty much holds true today.”

Maybe it’s a product of the faith instilled by his parents. Maybe it was the constant encouragement from his older brother Kareem, who talked the older, bigger kids into letting his baby brother into the pickup game that day despite his youth and size. Maybe it was being the youngest of nine children and having to make a place for himself. 

But this little kid from Homewood, desperate to prove himself to those better-known athletes he encountered on that field and on other, better-manicured fields along the way, is now on the verge of becoming the greatest running back in University of Nebraska history. He is a Doak Walker Award candidate for the nation’s best running back, a Heisman Trophy candidate for the nation’s best football player, and a student-athlete so respected he was chosen to represent all the football players of the Big Ten as speaker at the conference’s kickoff luncheon. 

“I’ve had a lot of preseason honors and been on some award lists, but to be selected by the Big Ten committee to speak on behalf of the student-athlete football players of the Big Ten is a huge honor for me,” Abdullah said. “I think it says something about the way I’ve carried myself that they think highly enough for me to speak.”

His speech was the stuff legends are made of. Well, he stuttered and stumbled from nerves more than he ever does on any given Saturday, but his message and sincerity scored again and again. He impressed the media and players present. Anyone who knew him at Homewood High wouldn’t have been surprised.

As he said a week before his speech, his dream was always to get his college education paid for. And that was the cornerstone of the speech he gave.

“Over one’s life, a college graduate earns up to $1 million more than someone with a high school diploma. That’s like saying you can win the lottery by just going to class and doing your work,” Abdullah said.

Lest you think Abdullah was counting his NFL salary already and just giving lip service to the classwork, he told the players in attendance this: “If you are fortunate enough to play in the NFL, the average career is less than five years. So that means you have a lot of living to do after your playing days are over. Education is more than a degree … it’s a lifelong process.”

‘Very special kid’

From those fields behind the Club Apartments where he lived to the middle school field, people were starting to take notice. The man who would coach him in high school first saw him in middle school.

“You could tell he was a very special kid,” said Dickey Wright. “But you were afraid he was a little too little to play running back.

“But really what happened with Ameer is, he fell in love with the weight room. He became the kind of kid you’d just leave the keys with and say, ‘Turn out the lights when you leave.’”

Packing hard, lean muscle on his body gave him both the speed and power to compete at the next level, and this was a time when Homewood High was battling the biggest of the big boys of Class 6A — Hoover, Spain Park, Mountain Brook, Vestavia. No easy Friday nights.

As his body grew and matured, so did the legend, at least locally.

But Abdullah and his parents didn’t know much about college recruiting. Abdullah was drawing some interest as he headed into his junior year, but even with gaudy numbers, many big-time college programs were more interested in measurable numbers than numbers on the field. 

What’s your height? … What’s your weight? … What’s your 40 time?

And if you haven’t made some schools’ lists by the time you’re a sophomore, you might as well forget it. 

Recruiting game

Abdullah found a mentor in Otis Leverette, a former UAB and NFL defensive end.

Leverette knew that for the budding star to get where he wanted to go athletically, he needed to hit the circuit of summer camps, where he could show his stuff against more highly rated youngsters.

“When I was in 10th grade, Otis came to one of my games, and he saw I was a pretty talented kid,” Abdullah said, “but knew I didn’t have a good grasp on recruiting. My family, we weren’t up to date on stuff like Rivals and Scout.com. All that stuff was foreign to me.

“I don’t think I’d be where I am without Otis Leverette. He took me to camps — I didn’t know who I was going up against, but every camp he took me to I was going up against the best of the best in the country.”

Heading into his senior year, Abdullah said he had offers from just two schools: Alabama State and Tuskegee.

Then came a Nike camp in Tuscaloosa — one also attended by the top-rated RB in the country, James Wilder Jr., the overall No. 2 prospect in the country behind Jadeveon Clowney.

 “I completely embarrassed Wilder the whole camp in every one-on-one drill we did. He was supposed to be the best of the best, but I didn’t really know who I was going up against. I got running back MVP honors.”

That changed things. Letters started streaming in from schools all over the country. 

As a junior, Abdullah topped 1,000 yards rushing and 24 catches for another 200-plus yards. As a senior, he ran for 1,800 yards and 24 touchdowns and added 33 catches for 515 yards. He also scored four times on punt returns.

The offers started coming in hot and heavy, but not everyone thought he could play running back in college.

He’d always had a soft spot for Auburn. 

“I really wanted Auburn to offer me. I went to their camp in the summer. I was only 5-9, 175. They immediately stuck me at defensive back, and I didn’t play that well because I hadn’t played that position much. Auburn didn’t offer me right then, and Alabama would talk to me here and there but they had so many top recruits on their list, Ameer Abdullah was at the bottom of their list. I didn’t have enough accolades or stars by my name.”

Abdullah, refusing to settle for anything less than a shot at running back, concentrated on the schools that would give him one. Nebraska won out, and now Abdullah sits within striking distance of records set by Heisman Trophy winners Mike Rozier and Johnny Rodgers.

 “I don’t have any personal goals, really. At Nebraska, if the team is successful, then we’ve been successful running the ball. I don’t see any reason we can’t win the Big Ten and be one of the four teams in the playoffs. Those are my goals.”

High school memories

 “As I look back on my days in high school, I always say if I could go back and just have one week of high school football to play again, I’d do it because those were some of the greatest times of my life.”

Memorable games? Plenty of them, Abdullah said. But the one that really sticks in his mind was not a win.

“My senior year versus Spain Park, going up against some buddies of mine in Destin Challenger and Jamel Cook. I was having a great game, I think I’d rushed for about 170 yards and five touchdowns.”

The game went to overtime and Abdullah scored a touchdown to pull the Pats within a point. The decision was made to go for two points to win the game, putting Abdullah at wildcat quarterback.

“We called the Tim Tebow jump pass play. But in the back of my mind, I knew either Destin or Jamel would know the play. And Jamel came out of nowhere and smacked the ball down.

“After that game, I found out Jamel had gone to their coach and said he knew what we were going to run. 

“Now I wish I had run the football.”

Great athletes always seem to remember best the times the ball didn’t bounce the right way. But for Abdullah, when things have gone against him, when he’s faced challenges along the way, he’s met them head on. And learned from them.

Whether Abdullah wins a Heisman Trophy is not the ultimate goal. 

As he said in his speech to his Big Ten audience, “The heart and soul of the essence of the student-athlete is personal education. Personal education is like a fingerprint. 

“It’s unique.”