As a seventh-grader in Little Rock, Michael Dyer was the star of his football team and got playing time on the junior high squad as well.
“We would have to slide a pair of pants over his seventh-grade pants, because the junior high wore navy pants and he wore white,” said Justin Kramer, who coached Dyer in junior high and at Little Rock Christian High School. “We would get one size bigger pants, and he would put them over his other pants so he could be on the sideline. He was like a kid in a candy store.”
When Dyer’s mother came to one of his junior high games for the first time, Kramer found out and sent Dyer in among the older players in the final minutes of the first half. He told him to score a touchdown.
“I was just talking, you know?” Kramer said. “Well, we’re on like the 13-yard line going in, and he takes the ball, stiff-arms a linebacker, spins off him and gets hit by the other linebacker. He falls on top of the linebacker, landing on his back, and then rolls over on to his feet and just trucks this free safety and runs into the end zone.
“I was like, ‘You have got to be kidding me.’ I was the best coach ever.”