News Sentinel Sports Awards: 'Nothing wrong with having that dream'
They excelled across the spectrum of sports. Runners, wrestlers, midfielders, wide receivers, swimmers, shortstops, golfers, outside hitters, small forwards, shot putters.
They have their own specific sports-related heroes – a Tottenham Hotspur soccer star, an NCAA wrestling champion, an Olympic steeplechase medalist. But they all wanted to hear what a pro football star had to say Wednesday night at the Tennessee Theatre.
The inaugural News Sentinel Sports Awards brought Eric Berry back to the city where he became an All-American at Tennessee and launched himself to NFL stardom. He had a rapt audience.
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"No matter what sport it is,'' said Sammy Evans, wrestler of the year winner from Alcoa High School, "guys that get through adversity, and he’s been through a lot of that and always came out with shining colors, if you’re competing at a high level, you can take away something from guys like that.
"I’m interested in what he has to say. I watch a lot of interviews, so I like to hear people’s mindsets on how they got to where they got to.''
To get where he is today, Berry has overcome a season-ending knee surgery and triumphed over Hodgkin's lymphoma to return to All-Pro level playing safety for the Kansas City Chiefs.
"I think everybody needs to listen to him because he’s already been there,'' said Kalulou Bamba, a soccer player from Central High School. "As a young kid, we need to learn from people like that.''
The reality is that few in the audience – and these were the best of the local best – will ascend to the elite level of success that Berry attained though a combination of skill, sacrifice and mental fortitude.
Many of the athletes present Wednesday night will at least get a college education out of the deal. That's a win because the percentage of high school athletes who go on to play in college is small.
According to NCAA data, 6.8 percent of high school football players will play in college and only 2.6 percent of those in Division I. Only 3.4 percent of high school basketball players will play in college, 1.0 percent in Division I. For girls, it's 3.9 percent overall and 1.2 percent at the DI level.
The odds of joining Berry in the NFL or LeBron James in the NBA are staggering. One in 603 high school football players will ever suit up in an NFL game, according to Scholarshipstats.com. For the NBA, it's one in 1,860, and for major league baseball, one in 764.
"I just tell my kids you shoot for your highest goal and you always have a backup plan,'' Harriman boys basketball coach and coach of the year winner Shay Shannon said. "I dreamed of playing in the NBA, but my backup plan was to be a basketball coach, so here I am.''
"There’s nothing wrong,'' Alcoa football coach Gary Rankin said, "with having that dream and a lot of 'em do, more than probably need to.''
One Alcoa kid realized his dream. Randall Cobb, receiver for the Green Bay Packers, is Alcoa's personal version of Eric Berry.
"We reference Randall all the time,'' Rankin said, "because he’s very similar to Eric.
"When you’ve got somebody in your community that they can see and visualize, I don’t want to say it makes a more realistic goal, but it gives them something to look at.''
Whether these local athletes get to where Berry or Cobb got or not, and few will, they'll never forget the journey.
Reach Mike Strange at mike.strange@knoxnews.com and on Twitter @Strangemike44.