S
yracuse was never in Sean Tucker’s sights. He didn’t anticipate becoming an All-American running back and a member of the track team for SU. At 11, he wasn’t even in the backfield. He positioned himself on the other side of the field.
Tucker played for the Columbia Ravens in the Mid-Maryland League. About an hour and 45 minutes before the team’s scheduled practices, Tucker practiced with the head coach and his son, who was one of the top receivers in the league. The two trained three times a week, not too far from the team’s home field.
Then, Tucker’s coach asked if the running back would turn around and play defensive back “to give his son competition.” Tucker learned the position’s techniques, which he implemented with the rest of the defense during regular practice. He nabbed his first interception in his debut with the Ravens.
“Everybody was excited about it, because he really stood out,” Steve Tucker said. “I give that credit to this guy, because (we) learned a lot about being a DB.”
Thus began the dual threat, iron man era of Tucker’s high school career at Calvert Hall College High School (Maryland). Playing defensive back has helped Tucker, who holds the Syracuse record for most rushing yards in a single season, find his way onto NFL mock draft boards. Be it a private high school league or an indoor league for 11 year olds, Tucker honed his skills against players who now compete at Power Five programs.
Steve gave up on charting the path for his son after a conversation with Kevin Void at the Parisi Speed School in Pikesville, Maryland. A year prior, Steve saw the school’s 30-yard track, where high school kids learned the different mechanics of running, and immediately bought Tucker a year of training. Void recalled the then-seventh grader as quick—“like a rubber band.”
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Void found Steve and asked where Tucker was playing football in the spring. Steve was preparing to coach with a new team in The Grassroots League, an eighth grade spring football prep league. Despite Parisi Speed being geared toward high school kids, Tucker acted “old enough,” so he wasn’t new to that type of facility. Void wanted Tucker on his team, the Hamilton Tigers, and told Steve to take Tucker to a weight lifting session.
“I just seen his athletic ability and how explosive he was, how quick he was getting in and out of those starts,” Void said.
Tucker tried out for the team alongside other eventual Division I athletes like Penn State’s Curtis Jacobs, Clemson’s Bryan Bresee and LSU’s Greg Penn III. He made the team, but as a slot receiver and defensive back. In the second to last game of the playoffs, Hamilton’s starting running back, Nigel Carr, went down with an injury. Tucker had seen sporadic chances at running back, but Void opted to move him into the starting role.
Tucker was bigger than most kids in eighth grade and had already developed a vision for finding the open holes. While playing defense, he trained his eyes to recognize when holes opened up for the opposing running back, keying in on what the offensive lineman did to actually open the gap.
“If we can get Sean to the second level untouched, nobody’s tackling him, not even going to touch him,” Void said.
In a scout game, Tucker ran right on an inside zone and scored a touchdown. The only thing Void remembers from that game is that Tucker’s first three carries ended with a touchdown.
Sean Tucker rushed for 1,204 yards and 14 touchdowns in his senior year and ranked as the No. 14 recruit from Maryland according to ESPN. Courtesy of Frank Palomo
Frank Palomo, the former Director of Football Operations for Calvert Hall, remembers attending a Tigers’ conditioning practice. Palomo likes to see how kids operate during conditioning practices. Palomo said Tucker was like a “rocket ship” since he felt it was his job to finish first on each sprint.
“That was like an immediate attractor because anybody who has that kind of work ethic and does that type of stuff, even if they are subpar or poor, they’re going to become good, great, greatest,” Palomo said.
Palomo remembered a game against Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (Maryland) during Tucker’s eighth grade year, a team that had future South Carolina Gamecock MarShawn Lloyd at running back.
Lloyd scored 30 points alone in the first half, forcing Tucker to move to linebacker to lockdown Lloyd. Lloyd hardly gained a first down throughout the entire second half.
Steve said he wanted Tucker to attend St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, a national football powerhouse. The year prior, they’d gone 10-2 and 6-0 in the Class MIAA A division, the same one Calvert Hall played in.
But Steve didn’t like the idea of Tucker going to a “startup team”, since a crop of coaches had recently taken over at St. Frances. While Calvert Hall was a private school, it didn’t have the type of established program Steve wanted. Palomo knew Calvert Hall had the 100th iteration of the Turkey Bowl coming up. He’d been pitching it to all potential recruits. If Tucker committed, he’d play in the centennial game his senior year.
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“That was very attractive, because it’s the only game on that day that is televised, and it’s played at a collegiate stadium,” Steve said. “Everybody knows about that. That’s like one of the big games throughout Maryland.”
For the last century, Calvert Hall has played Loyola in a Thanksgiving Day game televised across Maryland.
“That was my selling point of why you should come to Calvert Hall, that you’re gonna play in a game that you can never play again, ever again, in your whole entire life,” Palomo said. “Other people aren’t going to be able to play again in their life.”
Sean Ketchen heard about Tucker through whispers of a “spectacular athlete” on the JV team. They were in the same gym class, taught by head football coach Donald Davis. The class ran the FitnessGram Pacer Test, and Tucker bolted past everyone.
Tucker played both defensive back and running back in his JV year until Donald approached Calvert Hall’s defensive backs coach, DaQuan Davis, one day at practice. Donald said he needed Tucker “full time” at running back. Amir Jenkins, the Cardinals’ former starting quarterback, said Tucker took pressure off the offense. Tucker rushed for 1,204 yards and 14 touchdowns in his senior year, ranking as ESPN’s No. 14 recruit from Maryland.
“We didn’t have to rely on passing every single play. We can be balanced and let him touch the ball. He could take the ball for 80 yards and score,” Jenkins said.
Tucker still goes to Owings Mills High School to work out 30 minutes away from home with his former head coach who had him work as a defensive back. Daniel Harper Sr., Tucker’s former JV coach, varsity running backs coach and track coach, most recently worked on Tucker’s flying 20 and 40-yard times. Harper Sr. is the one who convinced Tucker to do track, a “necessary evil” that helped Tucker become a more agile football player.
“The past was not as intended. It ended up being this way,” Steve said. “When I see stuff like that happen, I leave it alone. It has always served us well.”
Photo courtesy of SU Athletics
Published on September 1, 2022 at 1:15 am
Contact Anthony: aalandt@syr.edu | @anthonyalandt
