There is no lamenting what might have been had former Ohio State linebacker Darron Lee finished what he started at McCallie School.
"If we had gotten a hold of him, he might have been something," Roc Evans recently said with a laugh.
Evans was Lee's sixth-grade math teacher at McCallie, where Lee started middle school in the fall of 2006 before moving to Ohio in March 2007. Lee is now a chiseled 6-foot-1, 232-pound talent who is expected to learn his professional fate during Thursday night's first round of the NFL draft.
ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay has projected Lee going 10th overall to the New York Giants.
"I love Darron Lee's coverage ability and the range that he brings," McShay said this month on a teleconference. "He's a true sideline-to-sideline linebacker, and in this league, with the pass game as dominant as it is, you've got to have players like this. It's all about confirming what you see on tape, and his official 4.43 (40-yard dash) and 35-inch vertical jump are hard to beat.
"There are a lot of teams in the middle of the first round who can use a linebacker very similar to what he provides."
Fellow ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper has Lee pegged as the 13th overall pick headed to the Miami Dolphins, which is the preference of McCallie sixth-grade history teacher and middle school athletic director Tom Herring.
Though it has been a decade since Lee played his only football season for the Blue Tornado, he left quite an impression.
"My first memory of Darron was a firm handshake and how he looked me in the eye," Evans said. "He was a tall sixth-grader, and he was very well-spoken, polite and courteous. He shook my hand firmly, and I was like, 'There is something different about this kid.' Most sixth-graders don't do that."
Evans, a former McCallie and Carson-Newman defensive lineman, described Lee as a better-than-average football player but said he didn't dominate. Evans added that Lee was a very good student, but what impressed him most was how the sixth-grader treated others.
"He went on a community service event downtown with his grade, and he was in a group that had a teacher who had brought his elderly mother," Evans said. "Before they crossed a busy street, Darron takes this grandmother by the arm and escorts her across the street in front of his classmates. To me, that kind of preaches to his character and integrity, because you wonder how kids will act when their own parents aren't watching.
"Darron helped that lady across the street, because he knew it was the right thing to do. There was so much more to Darron than being a good football player."
Lee's time at McCallie ended when his mother, Candice, left her role as a news anchor on WDEF TV-12 for a job at the NBC affiliate in Columbus. Candice is a weekend anchor at WCMH TV-4 and a reporter during the week.
She worked at WDEF for nine years.
"When we learned he was leaving, and that happens every year with a couple of our boys, there was a collective disappointment that we were losing him," Herring said. "He was a potential anchor for that class through McCallie, but it's exciting that we had the opportunity to cross paths with him and to see how he's grown."
Lee was among the more unheralded signees in Ohio State's 2013 recruiting class, which contained quarterback J.T. Barrett, running back Ezekiel Elliott, defensive end Joey Bosa and safety Vonn Bell. Lee and Bell, who played at Ridgeland High School, roomed together during their time with the Buckeyes.
While Bell played as a freshman and had an acrobatic interception in an Orange Bowl loss to Clemson, Lee redshirted. But he quickly made up for lost time. In his two years on the field for OSU, Lee racked up 147 tackles, 27.5 tackles for loss and 12 sacks.
Lee had one of his biggest games in the Sugar Bowl stunning of Alabama after the 2014 season, when his seven tackles, three tackles for loss and two sacks helped catapult the Buckeyes to the inaugural championship game of the four-team playoff, where they whipped Oregon. The Buckeyes missed out on the playoff this past season but defeated Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl, with Lee collecting two sacks and a forced fumble in his college finale.
Evans and Herring admit they have been eagerly awaiting the draft to find out where Lee gets selected, further proof that Lee's quick stay on Missionary Ridge packed a punch.
"I don't think any of us have the right to claim him," Evans said, "but we were happy to know him."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.