Ider’s Hunter Townsend was selected as part of the paper’s Dynamite Dozen football players.Dynamite DozenNo. 7 Hunter TownsonIderOffensive tackleCommitted to UTCWhy do you wear 70?”I had worn 71 all through little league, but in seventh grade a coach told me he had specially ordered a No. 70 jersey for me in my size, thinking that was my number. I didn’t want to tell him it was the wrong number, so I just stuck with it.”
Ability was never a question for Hunter Townson. His biggest concern was whether football recruiters would be able to find him at tiny Ider (Ala.) High School. But at 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds, the two-way all-state lineman has the size and skills to force college coaches to break out their atlases and come calling.
With offers or interest from Middle Tennessee State, Arkansas State, Marshall, Jacksonville State, South Alabama, Furman and Alabama-Birmingham, it was the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the first school to recruit him, that earned a commitment from Townson.
“Early playing time was important to me,” said Townson, who was recently granted by the DeKalb County school board the right to become that county’s first student to graduate early, allowing him to enroll at UTC for the spring semester and begin competing for a starting job at right tackle.
“I know I can earn a spot and help them early,” he added. “I knew the city pretty well because my parents work in Chattanooga, and with it being close to home, all of that helped me feel real comfortable with my decision. The biggest shock for me was that those colleges found me. Ider is such a small place and school, I really wondered if I would get noticed at all. Most people don’t even know where it is or how to get there, but the college coaches found me.”