For Birmingham wide receiver De’Von Flournoy, most things happen fairly quickly. Whether it’s sprinting 100 meters for his track team, going coast to coast on the basketball court, or taking a reception the distance on the gridiron, Flournoy gets it done in the blink of an eye.
Perhaps it’s not surprising then that Flournoy wasted little time in accepting a scholarship offer from USC this past weekend.
Birmingham head coach Ed Croson has been Flournoy’s coach for the past two seasons and was one of the first to learn of the commitment.
“He (Flournoy) called my son last night and told him he committed (Croson’s son also plays football for Birmingham). Flournoy was fired up about it.”
The Trojans beat out several schools, including a hard push from Notre Dame, for Flournoy’s services and Croson believes this is a commitment that will stick all the way through the recruiting process.
“USC is a school that he’s wanted to go to from the get go,” Croson said. “The coaches have known about him since his sophomore year and in the back of his mind, he was always hoping they’d offer. When they did, he jumped on it.
“I think he’ll stick with his commitment. His entire family really likes ‘SC and everyone has a ton of respect for the job they are doing. They want to be a part of it.”
Croson also could not stop raving about Flournoy’s accomplishments on the field.
“He never played football until tenth grade,” he said. “He came out with us during the summer and we could tell right away he had talent, he was fast and had great hand-eye coordination. But he was so naïve out there. He actually missed the first half of training camp, simply because he didn’t realize that he had to be there every day.
“We eventually put him on the frosh/soph team and in the second game against Long Beach Poly, he had three touchdown catches.”
The Birmingham staff knew at that point what kind of player they were dealing with and Flournoy found himself called up to the varsity team the very next week.
“The week that we brought him up,” said Croson,” we were playing Valencia, which is a pretty good school. “We ended up throwing him one pass that he took for a 75-yard touchdown. In fact, at one point, he had six catches and four of them were for touchdowns.
“I had to go tell our quarterback, ‘Look, I know these other wide receivers are your friends and you want to throw them the ball, but this kid here seems to make some plays.’”
Flournoy eventually finished his sophomore year averaging 31 yards per reception and turned quite a few heads doing so.
“Coach (Pete) Carroll has been to a game or two and (Steve) Sarkisian has been around. They’ve really liked what they’ve seen from him.”
Croson spoke about what Flournoy can bring to an offense.
“This past season, he averaged in the high-20’s in terms of yards per catch and he has the ability to score every time he touches the ball,” Croson said. He’s also incredibly difficult to tackle and he’s just starting to really learn the game. Athletically, he’s quite a talent. And he’s tough, as well.”
Though Flournoy may have just finished only his second year of football, the comparisons he draws are extremely impressive.
“He reminds me a lot of Steve Smith,” Croson said. “We played against him (Smith) four times when he was at Taft and you could tell how good he was going to be then. Both of them have the ability to go up in a crowd and come down with the ball. Flournoy has fantastic hands and is a real solid-character kid. He’s the kind of kid that ‘SC seems to consistently bring in.”
