SPORTS

ALL-STAR: Townes looks to make impact

Brandon Shields
bjshields@jacksonsun.com

Chance Townes is a big-time player in this week’s West Tennessee All-Star Football Game.

At 6-feet-5-inches and 322 pounds, he’s literally a big-time player.

But even though he has towered over most of the players he’s lined up against for the past four years while playing at West Carroll, he’s flown under the radar for most college coaches and scouts.

“There aren’t a lot of college coaches coming through the area around Trezevant and Atwood,” Townes said.

That’s one reason why Townes was more than willing to be a part of the all-star experience this week.

“This week so far has been a big eye-opener and an awesome experience,” Townes said. “I’m trying to work hard and do my best to do as well as I can in practice and in the game on Friday.”

Townes has his plans laid out after high school is done.

“I want to be a cop, so I plan to go to the police academy and get my training and hopefully eventually get training to become an FBI agent,” Townes said. “But that’s after high school. Right now I need to work hard and make sure I can get to that point.”

Townes made an impact in the first practice of the week on Tuesday when he literally impacted a linebacker he lined up against.

“I don’t know who it was other than he was wearing purple, and I didn’t mean to hit him as hard as I did,” Townes said. “They said, ‘Go 100 percent until you make contact,’ and I tried to slow down but not in time.”

Townes hopes to make an impact on his college choices by expanding. He has no offers yet with some communication with local teams UT Martin and Bethel University.

“I made a couple visits to Bethel and have communicated with Martin,” Townes said. “I got some stuff in the mail from Cumberland, but other than that I haven’t really talked with anybody about a college opportunity.”

Because of his law enforcement aspirations, not being able to play college football isn’t a situation that will be detrimental to him, but it would give him another option on the path he wants to travel.

“If I were to get a college scholarship, I’d pursue a degree in criminal justice and then maybe try to get an FBI job from there,” Townes said. “But my mom taught be to have a Plan B, so I’ve got a plan in mind if football isn’t an option.”

Along with his size, Townes benches 320 pounds and squats 400. He’s got a 3.0 grade-point average and an ACT score of 17 that he aims to improve on in the spring once he’s done with football.

“It’s all in the plan, and the plan is to give myself options,” Townes said. “My plan this week is to work hard and do what I can to make myself known to anybody that may be watching.”

Townes and the rest of the all-stars will play at Liberty at 7 p.m. on Friday.

Brandon Shields, 425-9751

Chance Townes