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| Road to the pros | |
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By ROBERT MAYS III
The replica helmet on the bottom of the stack is the most familiar and the most recent – black with a gold “M.” It symbolizes Maclin’s arrival in the consciousness of football fans throughout the country and the surest sign of what is to come. The helmet on top is the red of Kirkwood High School, and just like the one that Maclin wore when football became more than fun. That’s when football became a future. Football could make you a legend. The helmet in the middle is the oldest and the only authentic one. White with a red “1” on the side, multicolored streaks of paint record the collisions that were the thrill of a game still in its infancy. Another set of helmets sits in a case across the basement, a collection of miniature replicas from each of the NFL teams. Thirty-two teams and 32 possible destinations, each helmet the potential next symbol of a football journey more than a decade in the making. Of the thousands of college football players who harbor what-if dreams of going pro, Maclin is a given to be one of the 250 who will be picked in next weekend’s NFL Draft. The 6-foot, 200-pound wide receiver is expected to be tapped in the first round and offered a contract worth up to $20 million. For Jeremy Maclin, a young man whose talent, drive and luck carried him from a rough patch of Kirkwood to an elite suburban youth league to Missouri, here is the eve of the 2009 NFL Draft. And for him, the question is no longer if. It’s who. And how much. The Scars Maclin’s arms are covered with scars. Battle wounds, he calls them. Most are the thin, precise remnants of a helmet screw or cleat. Together, they archive a decade of contact. But on the back of his left hand, one distinguishes itself. Half an inch long, thicker than the rest and raised a bit on his skin, it’s the eldest of the group. Maclin was 9 when he earned it, playing football with friends in a vacant lot near his home in the Meacham Park neighborhood of Kirkwood. Not long into the game, he noticed blood trickling down his arm. A piece of glass had dug into his hand, a risk that came with the makeshift field that has since become a shopping center. Much has been said about the other scars left by Maclin’s childhood in Meacham Park. Not ones that can be seen, but ones that could have easily derailed him on the way to here. Even Maclin is quick to point out how often that story has been told, but no account of his journey is complete without it. Maclin grew up with his mother and two older brothers in a tough part of Kirkwood. Cleo Maclin worked long hours to support her three sons and couldn’t always be home for them. Dr. Jeff Parres, a urologist from nearby Chesterfield, volunteered as a coach for the youth football league where Maclin played. He took to driving Maclin home from practices and got a glimpse of his off-the-field life. One night when Parres dropped Maclin off, he watched the boy climb through a window to get into his dark home. As the years went on, Parres started bringing Maclin home to Chesterfield. Meals turned to weekend visits, which turned to longer stays, until Maclin moved in with Parres, his wife, Cindy, and their two children after his sophomore year of high school. Cleo Maclin has said how grateful she is for what the Parreses have done. She and Maclin’s brothers, Andre and Roshon, remain a constant in her son’s life. But the Parreses became family, too – the one that watched Maclin make the transition from a vacant lot to Faurot Field to here. And while they are excited about his ascension to the pros, they can’t help but wonder what it means to grow up so fast. “He’s basically walked out of youth, and right into being a man,” Cindy Parres says. “His childhood is being cut short again.” The Firsts Before Oklahoma or Nebraska there was University City. Maclin was one of many talented youngsters on a Kirkwood Junior Football League team that lost just three games during his five seasons in the program. Most games weren’t a struggle. When they were, University City was usually involved. “We had a bitter, bitter rivalry,” Jeff Parres says. “We essentially played them every year in the state championship.” While Maclin was always a threat to turn a short gain into a game-breaking run, he shared the spotlight with plenty of stars. What set him apart was his ability to do it all. He played every position. He ran. He threw. He blocked. He tackled. Before Jeremy Maclin was a wide receiver, he was just a football player. So when the score was tied with less than a minute remaining against University City in Maclin’s final junior league football game, it was no surprise that he was asked to bring home the win. With the ball on the right hash mark 12 yards from the end zone, Kirkwood set up to attempt the rarest of youth football plays – the field goal. “I don’t think we ever even practiced kicking field goals,” Jeff Parres says with a laugh. After the dizzying sequence of snap-and-hold, Maclin stepped toward the ball and booted it toward the uprights. Game over. Kirkwood wins. Maclin smiles now when asked about the play. Sure, he remembers it. He remembers a lot of the plays from his days in junior football. “Those are good memories, and you don’t want to let them go,” he says. “That’s where you started. That’s where you blossomed.”
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Three helmets, stacked on a set of shelves in a small alcove, are almost lost in the clutter of sports memorabilia that decorate the Chesterfield basement. They don’t stand out as prominently as the All-American certificate or the Sports Illustrated clippings. But each is important in understanding how Jeremy Maclin got here, and where exactly here is.