Before ESPN featured Alabama in "Training Days" last month, MTV featured Hoover High School in "Two-A-Days." Before the Crimson Tide won a national championship in January, the Buccaneers won six state championships in the past 10 years.
Before Josh Chapman, Kerry Murphy and Will Lowery played for Alabama, they starred for Hoover. Before Jeremy Pruitt and Kevin Sherrer joined Alabama coach Nick Saban's staff, they coached at Hoover.
The high school football powerhouse will be in the spotlight at 2:30 p.m. Saturday when top-ranked Alabama (2-0) visits Duke (1-1) because even the Blue Devils feature a starter who starred for Hoover.
Senior center Bryan Morgan could join three former teammates on the field at the same time, and appropriately, cameras will be rolling. The game will be televised by ABC.
Nobody seems to be looking forward to the game more than Rush Propst, now the head coach at Colquitt County High School in Moultrie, Ga. From 1999 through 2007, he led Hoover to five state championships. He coached Morgan, Chapman, Murphy, Lowery and Michael DeJohn, a senior linebacker at Alabama. Pruitt and Sherrer served on Propst's staff.
"I'll turn on my tube, and I'm not going to lie to you," Propst said. "I'll get a tear in my eye, just because of Bryan Morgan playing and Jeremy and Kevin coaching and those kids playing for Alabama.
I don't see how you get a better feeling."
Propst says it's no wonder that Alabama attracts Hoover players, whether they are elite recruits or walk-ons such as Lowery. That's because they want to keep winning.
Morgan attributes Hoover's success to "the people that come through that school, and the people at that school that are still there. I'm not just talking about the coaches. I'm not just talking about the teachers. I'm talking about everybody.
"Hoover is not just fantastic in football. It's also one of the few great public schools academically."
Morgan has especially strong feelings for Propst.
"He was a very intense coach on the field," Morgan said. "He was very intelligent, very knowledgeable about the game. He knew how to get the effort out of each player. He really gave us that mind-set that losing is not an option.
"Off the field, he was a great person to talk to. We could have a conversation about anything. I really appreciate all he's done for all of us."
The feeling is more than mutual.
"I love each and every one of them because of what they did for me," Propst said. "I have a deep relationship with all of my players after they leave."
As for the four who will share a field Saturday, Propst said: "Each one of them has a storyline."
Bryan Morgan
The 6-foot-3, 260-pound captain was a tackle at Hoover.
"Nobody ever beat him on pass drills," Chapman recalled.
In the first game he started, as a high school sophomore, he gave up one sack.
"If I remember correctly, that was the only sack he gave up," Propst said.
"There's no question he was one of the best offensive linemen I've ever coached.. ... He was such a meticulous guy who wanted every little-bitty thing done right. He was just a little undersized for the SEC to take a chance on him."
Chapman remembers Morgan's love of music.
"He likes to compose music," Chapman said. "In high school, Bryan listened to Mozart, different stuff like that."
Not the stuff that gets Chapman's motor running.
"One time I asked him what he was listening to, and he let me hear it," Chapman said. "I was like, 'I can't get ready listening to this.' I see how he got ready. It helped him."
Morgan remembers that conversation.
"If you could've seen his face, it was really funny," Morgan said. "I'm sure if I talked to him now and told him I'm majoring in music, he would not be surprised at all."
Josh Chapman
The 6-1, 310-pound nose guard is known for his strength and his run-stopping ability.
"He's always been real serious about his play," Propst said. "He always wanted to be good in the weight room. He always had a hard time with conditioning.
"He was always a run-stopper, not a great pass rusher at all."
Pass-happy Duke is not Chapman's favorite kind of opponent.
"I'm the type of guy who likes people to run at me," he said.
It looked during the preseason as if Murphy was going to back Chapman up at nose guard, but Murphy played many snaps Saturday against Penn State as a defensive end.
"Me and Kerry, we haven't played on the field together in a long time," Chapman said. "It felt good knowing my boy was on the side of me. It took a lot of stress off me."
Chapman and Murphy both signed with Alabama in 2007, but Murphy did not qualify academically until 2009.
Kerry Murphy
The 6-4, 319-pound defensive lineman is known for his athleticism.
"He's a better athlete than Josh, but you had to push him in the weight room," Propst recalled. "Get on the field and you're running and chasing the quarterback, you didn't have to crank his motor. It was already cranked. "No question Kerry Murphy has NFL potential. He has all the attributes: big, strong, fast, quick. Probably as quick as any D-lineman I've ever seen."
Murphy spent the 2007 season at Hargrave Military Academy and still did not qualify for Alabama in 2008.
Propst, who left Hoover after the 2007 season after messy revelations about his personal life surfaced, still is bitter about an investigation into grade-changing and preferential treatment that revolved primarily around Murphy and also included Chapman.
"That stuff was just so bogus," Propst said. "I was very disappointed in how it all went down. A lot of that was blown way out of proportion. It had nothing to do with stuff that went on inside the walls of that high school. . . . I did some things in my personal life that were wrong. That's it. There was nothing else there that was out of line."
An independent investigation concluded that two school administrators got too involved in trying to help Murphy. In one instance, Hoover High policy was violated when Murphy was allowed to take a final exam three times. In another instance, one of the administrators changed one of Murphy's grades from F to "no credit."
The investigation also concluded that Chapman received an unauthorized grade that allowed him to be eligible at Alabama as the result of human error by two counselors.
"I thought our program was picked on, and they (Murphy and Chapman) were the target," Propst said. "They really had to work and do what they had to do to be eligible to be NCAA qualified. They struggled in the classroom at times. We had to really work to make them work. It was constant, but they did it.
"There was no cheating anywhere. Let's call it like it is. There were people who wanted us to fail and went out of their way to make us fail, because there was nobody on the field who could do it."
Will Lowery
The 5-10, 188-pound redshirt sophomore is a walk-on free safety who has earned considerable playing time this season. He is the sixth defensive back in Alabama's "dime" package.
Lowery made his first career interception against Penn State, diving for an errant pass at Alabama's 3-yard line late in the first quarter. Not bad for someone who didn't dress for any regular-season games as a freshman. This week's game will be his first regular-season road trip.
"I need to sit back and shake myself sometimes and thank the Lord for the opportunity that he's given me," said Lowery, who turned down a scholarship offer from Elon. "It is hard for me to believe at times because I used to be sitting in the stands screaming my head off. Being here now is a pretty surreal experience." Propst watched the Alabama- Penn State game with a group of Georgia fans who gathered at Lake Blackshear in south Georgia.
"I looked up and Will makes that first pick," Propst said. "For Will Lowery, who didn't get a scholarship, to be playing and get an interception versus Penn State, I jumped out of the dang sofa."
Pruitt was Lowery's position coach in his first three seasons at Hoover and is his position coach now. Lowery was a senior at Hoover in 2007.
"That was that controversial year," Propst said. "He learned to persevere. Will was the guy pulling everybody in, saying, 'Hey, guys, this is our senior year. I know we've got a lot of folks against us and Coach is in trouble. ... ' "I think that helped him be what he is today. What he had to go through during two-a-days or spring practice, was it tough? Yeah, but it wasn't as tough as that year."
Don't let the fact that Lowery wasn't highly recruited fool you, Propst said. "He's a little better athlete than people give him credit for."
His brain gives him an edge.
"That sucker is so smart, he knows all the complexities of Coach Saban's defensive stuff, and you have to be a pretty smart cookie to be able to handle all the things that coach gives you," Propst said.
"And you've got Jeremy coaching you, and that's an added plus. You'd love to have one that's 6-4, 225 and runs a 4.4 -- everybody would -- but I'm going to tell you something. Will Lowery's getting it done because of the kind of character that he has."
Overall
Saban was asked this week what makes the Hoover High School football program special.
"They have a great tradition there," he said. "They have a great program. Anytime you have a great program and you have great tradition, it's because of the individual people that make it what it is.
"Football's really important there. They've had a lot of great players there, playing all over the country, actually. We've got some good players from there. We've got some good people from there in our organization. ...
"They really work hard over there. That enhances the young people's chances of being successful when they get out. ... I have a tremendous amount of respect for quite a few programs in the state, but that's one that I have a little special respect for."
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