Football at Dunwoody

There have been some great football players over the years that came out of my alma mater, Dunwoody High School. Harris Barton, who played for UNC, Chapel Hill and then on to the San Francisco Fortyniners and several Super Bowl rings. Blocking for Joe Montana. He was probably the best. I remember him as a huge eighth grader. Its funny when those big guys end up large and muscular when they go off to college and on to the pros.

Billy Ray was a tall quarterback at Dunwoody. He was offered a scholarship by Bear Bryant at Alabama. I think he had way too many good quarterbacks in front of him there and he ended up playing as a backup at Duke. I remember watching some of his games. He had a hell of an arm and had the size and grace that college and pro scouts like. But I knew his secret. There was a young guy who was a wide receiver for Dunwoody. When Billy Ray tried to bring rain with one of his bombs downfield, this wide receiver was the one who had the eyes and the speed to run them down and make Billy Ray look real good.

After they combined Dunwoody and Peachtree and all of a sudden students in Dekalb County could leave their segregated schools in one part of the county and attend another school, Dunwoody got real good. We had a great defensive lineman, Marcus Stroud, playing my old position of nose man, who got a scholarship to Georgia. Another defensive back got to play at Notre Dame. The whereabouts of Rod Perrymond, the fleet running back who broke all the yardage records and set new ones, is not known to me. He should have played in college, if he didn't. Later, another linebacker, Orantes Grant played at Georgia. He was quite good.

Its funny when I look back on my high school career and think about where we were, playing all of those schools in Dekalb County and trying to establish a good foundation for football at Dunwoody High School. It did become pretty amazing after awhile. But they struggle now like a lot of schools. It would be nice to look over the breadth of all the years and see something like Valdosta or Marist or some of those other schools across the state. That might take some time and a lot of change.