5-star heart

Initially, Antoine McGhee blamed himself.

Maybe if he had worked harder in the offseason or paid more attention to his footwork, the Homewood High School nose tackle would not have been in that situation. In the ninth game of the Patriots’ 2017 season, McGhee broke his ankle, sidelining him for the remainder of the year.

“My foot stood in place, but my leg went somewhere different,” McGhee recalled. “I tried to get back up, but I fell right back down.”

McGhee said his ankle looked like a soccer ball on the sideline, and the reality that he was out came crashing down on him.

“Immediately, when he’s hurt, he’s emotionally shot,” said Freddy Lawrence, Homewood’s defensive coordinator. “A lot of people do that for show, but not him. He’s a team guy.”

Homewood lost for the first time all season the following week, a 13-7 defeat at the hands of Paul Bryant to ruin the Patriots’ bid for a perfect regular season. In the Class 6A playoffs, Homewood needed a thrilling comeback to top Fort Payne in the first round. But the Patriots were overwhelmed by Clay-Chalkville in the second round.

“To go 10-2, that’s pretty good, when a lot of people doubted us,” McGhee said. “I hate that I couldn’t finish it, but I was proud to see my boys go out to the second round.”

McGhee carried the burden on his shoulders after seeing his team lose two of its final three games in his absence, but the self-inflicted pity party soon ended. Once he started the rehabilitation process, he channeled his focus in a different direction.

“I felt like I could bounce back,” he said. “At rehab, I would just sit there quiet, listento music, work on the leg press, be on thebike, working like I’m about to play again. I kept working.”

McGhee was cleared for spring practice and even played in the team’s spring game. But he admitted he was still dealing with the mental hurdles that come with an injury. In that period, he never quite regained full trust in his lower body. 

That changed during the summer.

“It hit me this summer,” McGhee said. “I worked out, lifted heavy and felt like, ‘yeah, I’m back.’”

Homewood plays with a three-man front on defense, and McGhee almost always draws double teams and sometimes triple teams. Lawrence lauded his technique, quickness and relentless energy as his greatest strengths.

“Playing an odd[-man] front, he’s what you want,” Lawrence said. “He’s the hardest kid to block.”

McGhee also stands just 5-foot-8, shorter than many of the offensive lineman he goes against. It allows him the necessary leverage to beat would-be blockers. And when he is able to draw those double and triple teams, he frees up one of his linebackers to run free.

“He can singlehandedly shut down parts of an offense,” Lawrence said.

McGhee’s “measurables” aren’t going to attract attention on the surface. But what he doesn’t have in frame, he makes up for in desire.

“You measure his heart, and put that up against the height and weight of other people, he’s got a five-star heart,” Lawrence said.