Boise State’s Hightower made it out of his hometown. Now he honors those who didn’t.
Former Boise State wide receiver John Hightower didn’t grow up in the roughest neighborhood in Prince George’s County in Maryland, which borders Washington D.C., but his former football coach at Riverdale Baptist High said only a lucky few make it out unscathed.
“It’s not a place for the weak,” Caesar Nettles said Monday by phone. “If you come up in this area, you’re going to be exposed to a lot of things.”
Hightower and his lifelong friend, Marcelle Preston, turned to sports to find an avenue out of the neighborhood. Hightower’s length and speed made him a natural on the football field and track. By his senior year of high school, Preston was one of the top 400-meter runners in the country. In 2014, he owned the nation’s fastest indoor time in the 500 (1:03.93).
Academic issues sidetracked Preston’s college career, though, and he never got the chance to finish. On April 21, 2019, Preston was shot and killed in Kettering, Maryland.
Hightower is one of four former Boise State players who will compete this week at the NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. He’s joined by pass rusher Curtis Weaver and offensive linemen Ezra Cleveland and John Molchon.
When he crouches in a sprinter’s stance Thursday before running the 40-yard dash, Hightower will do so knowing he’s not only racing for his future, but to preserve the memory of a friend he knew since elementary school and is memorialized with a tattoo on his left arm, which reads “Long Live Slim.”
“I’m grateful for every second I’ve had at Boise State,” Hightower said in December in the wake of the Broncos’ loss to Washington in the Las Vegas Bowl. “There are a lot of people who would give anything to be in this position, and I wouldn’t take anything back.”
He took the long road to Division I football and spent a couple years at Hinds Community College in Mississippi. But after earning a scholarship to Boise State and emerging the past two seasons as one of the top deep threats in the Mountain West, it’s safe to say Hightower beat the odds.
“There’s an immense amount of talent in this area, but very rarely does it get a chance to be seen, whether it be because of academics or the streets or whatever,” Nettles said. “Hightower’s family worked very hard to make sure that wasn’t him, and he did the work and obviously listened because I expect to be seeing him play on Sundays.”
Hightower led the Broncos last fall with 943 receiving yards and eight receiving touchdowns, and he averaged 18.49 yards per catch, which ranked No. 4 in the Mountain West. Most draft analysts see him as a late-round pick or entering the NFL as an undrafted free agent, but Hightower is known as one of the fastest players in the conference — maybe the country — and an impressive time in the 40-yard dash has been known to do wonders for draft stock.
“He excels at everything he does,” said Nettles, adding he wouldn’t be surprised if Hightower posts a 40 time of sub-4.4 seconds. “I can’t wait to see what he runs.”
Hightower didn’t just excel at football in high school. Nettles said he first noticed him on the basketball court, and that Hightower had Division I track offers coming out of high school and junior college.
“I saw how fluid he was, how quick he was and how much of a leaper he was, and I knew I had to get him on the field,” said Nettles, who stepped down at Riverdale Baptist in 2018 to focus on raising his first child.
During his final two football seasons at Riverdale, Hightower was the elder statesman on a team that included three Division I-bound defensive backs: Zech McPhearson (Penn State/Texas Tech), Tariq Castro-Fields (Penn State) and Sir Patrick Scott (Marshall). He was a year or two older than the talented trio, and in practice Nettles said watching him run routes against any of them was like watching a grown man take on a child.
“To be perfectly honest, Hightower was unguardable in high school,” Nettles said.
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 4:00 AM.
