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Super 22 Fete Has Tripled Its Honorees
Chris Barnes was a senior at Dunbar in 1999 when the first Baltimore Touchdown Club Super 22 football all-star team was named.
“There wasn’t a banquet back then,” said Barnes, who went to Boston College and is now an assistant coach for his father, Obie Barnes Sr., at Forest Park. “I think we just got our names in the paper.”
Times have certainly changed. The Super 22 all-star team is now the Super 66, 30 rising senior offensive players and 36 defensive standouts who are heading into their final season of high school football. The banquet is also now a major event on the high school football calendar, providing college coaches from around the country access to the area’s premier athletes.
“It’s a great honor,” said Blake Thompson, a rising senior at Cardinal Gibbons High School. “I grew up with most of these guys -- Michael Campanero, Leron Eaddy, Leon Kinnard. I remember being 8 years old and going to a camp at Wilde Lake High School with Coach [Doug] DuVall. I have looked forward to this moment my whole life.”
DuVall is in his 35th year at Wilde Lake and is president of the BTC. Along with vice presidents Dave Dolch of St. Paul’s and Scott Ripley of Cardinal Gibbons, treasurer Mike Clay of St. Mary’s and secretary Hassan Muhammed of Loyola Blakefield, he has built a strong organization that honors area assistant coaches, youth football coaches, officials and school administrators yearly. The group has also helped 200 area players earn college scholarships, including City College’s Bryant Johnson (now with the San Francisco 49ers), Gilman’s Victor Abiamiri (Philadelphia Eagles) and Mount St. Joseph’s Keon Lattimore (Dallas Cowboys).
The BTC also puts out a banquet program that lists important recruiting information for college coaches such as height, weight, 40-yard dash times, weightlifting maximums and grade point averages.
Ambrose Wooden, Abiamiri’s teammate at Gilman and Notre Dame, was the guest speaker at the 11th Super 22 banquet held last week at Michael's Eighth Avenue in Glen Burnie. He was also one of 25 players selected to the BTC’s All-Decade team, although it was the 66 rising seniors who took center stage at this year’s event.
Campanero and Eaddy helped River Hill win last year’s Class 3A state title while Kinnard returns at quarterback and Terance Garvin at running back for Brian Abbott’s Loyola Dons. Antonio Brown Jr. started at offensive tackle for Dunbar’s Class 1A state champs while Tevan Brown was the Poets’ second leading tackler on defense.
Gilman’s Kevin Clark returns at linebacker for Biff Poggi’s Greyhounds while Archbishop Curley’s Eric Franklin and Joe Petrides and Baltimore Polytechnic’s Arnold Farmer and Charles Farmer are all top-notch returnees and outstanding students. So is Thompson, who carries a 3.5 GPA and is one of the area’s most versatile, gifted and well-rounded student-athletes.
Thompson just finished his first season as the starting center fielder for the Cardinal Gibbons baseball team, which finished the season 19-13. Thompson hit .411 with two home runs, 19 runs scored and 20 stolen bases. His performance this year on the diamond has already drawn interest from several colleges and professional scouts, but it is his work on the football field and classroom that first triggered interest from college coaches.
“My father drove it in my head,” Thompson said. “If you don’t have the grades, you can’t play. When they announced at the banquet that I had a 3.5 GPA, it made me feel really good.”
Thompson’s father Darryl is a Howard County police officer and an assistant football coach at Marriotts Ridge High.
“He’s done everything for me,” Blake Thompson said. “He’s taught me so many of life’s lessons, and he’s still teaching me to this day.”
Blake Thompson is obviously listening. At Cardinal Gibbons he is a true team and school leader who savors the responsibility of having younger student-athletes look up to him.
“I love it,” he said. “My friend [and teammate] Andrew Parker always says you have to keep it fun. I want to be the one people talk about in a positive light. Kids say hi to me in the hall, come up and shake my hand. It’s a good feeling, but I know a lot of responsibility comes with it.”
Thompson will entering his third season as the Crusaders’ starting quarterback. Two years ago as a sophomore, he led Gibbons to an 8-3 record and a berth in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference championship game. Now his team is coming off a 4-6 season.
Thompson’s senior year won’t begin until he plays summer baseball for the Maryland Orioles Under-16 amateur team and returns from a July trip to Israel. He is one of two dozen area high school students who are part of Congressman Elijah Cummings’ Youth Program in Israel.
“I have never really been exposed to the Jewish culture,” Blake Thompson said. “My father instilled in me to be open-minded, and I am really looking forward to going. This is a once in a lifetime experience.”
And so was earning a spot on the Super 22 team along with other area standouts such as Tymetrious Richburg and Renard Robinson of Mount St. Joe, which shared the A Conference championship last year; Ricky Rodwell and Ellis Foster of City College; and Darryl Floyd of Forest Park, whose assistant coach Chris Barnes was on that first Super 22 team 11 years ago.
“Seems like just yesterday,” Barnes said. “It’s definitely come a long way.”
Issue 3.20: May 15, 2008
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