What Corey Goldglit remembers most vividly was the screaming.

The team stood around its running back, Tyrone Perkins. Some couldn’t watch. Others had tears in their eyes. One of the captains brought the team around in a circle, telling them they were going to pray and it didn’t matter if they were atheist or not.

And Perkins, a Syracuse Class of 2015 commit, just yelled in anguish as he was carted off the field after tearing his ACL.

“He screamed — I’ve never heard him scream like that before,” Goldglit, the Friends Academy quarterback said. “It was just shouting, mortifying pain.”

In an instant, Perkins, a three-star running back from Locust Valley, New York, wouldn’t have a senior season. His future as a member of Syracuse’s 2015 recruiting class remained uncertain after he was injured on Sept. 6, and he didn’t know if the school would still honor a scholarship he’d accepted in April. 

But that night, after he’d gotten home from the hospital and before all of his teammates had come to his house to check on him, he got a call from SU head coach Scott Shafer.

“Honestly, that was the only thing that was going through my mind,” Perkins said. “The first second it happened, I was just focused on the knee. But after that, I was really nervous and scared about what was going to go on with (Syracuse).

“… He told me that he loved me as a person. Finally hearing the words that everything is OK, I still have my scholarship, it shows a lot about him.”

Goldglit pitched the ball to Perkins in a team scrimmage, and the running back ran about 10 yards downfield. After blowing past a couple defenders he was taken down on a poorly executed tackle from the safety, and his right knee hit the safety’s helmet, ending his final high school year a week before Friends Academy’s first game.

He won’t ever play in a game for Friends Academy again, and his No. 5 jersey hangs above the entrance to the team’s locker room.

Friends head coach Ron Baskind said that Perkins, aside from being the team’s best player and leader, made young football players want to play there. He also recruited basketball players to play football as well, but will now be in the background of the program.

“All the pieces seemed to be together, it seemed like the beginning of a great story we were writing,” Baskind said. “And then all of a sudden, your heart just stops for a bit … our primary player is not going to be part of the story.”

With Syracuse still a solidified part of his future, Perkins has accepted the situation. Instead of practicing with his team, he goes to physical therapy. Instead of making big plays, he calls them from the sideline.

Perkins will have surgery to repair the tear on Oct. 7 and his doctors told him he should be able to run in a straight line by June. In the mean time, he’s been riding a bike, walking and shifting weight in his leg. He’s trying to improve his mobility and gets around in a walking boot.

“I feel pain all the time,” he said.

Perkins said he hopes the rehabilitation process will make for a quicker recovery, one that allows him to play during next year’s training camp.

He was the first player to commit to SU’s Class of 2015. His vision of playing for Syracuse was clear and one that he didn’t second-guess.

And even though his last chance to improve his game before college was ended before it began, Perkins said that this experience with Syracuse justifies his original commitment.

“Hearing that they were holding up their end of the deal,” Perkins said,” it meant everything to me.”

Published on September 23, 2014 at 12:10 am

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3