NFL Players Association surprises ‘grateful’ Clover football player with scholarship
Earnest “EL” Dickey was confused.
On Tuesday afternoon, during the fourth block of his school day, Dickey was asked by an adult he didn’t know to step outside his class. The Clover High School senior was concerned. And understandably so.
On the way back to the classroom, the same question kept bouncing around in his head: What did I do?
It wasn’t until after he returned to his classroom — when his chorus classmates, football teammates and even three members of his family cheered and clapped and gave him a standing ovation — that Dickey knew what he’d done.
And it was something pretty cool.
Dickey, a senior offensive lineman for the Clover football team, had earned a $2,500 scholarship from the NFL Players Association’s Professional Athletes Fund. Per the association’s website, the award is given to two athletes in all of North and South Carolina — one woman and one man — and is meant to “reward high school athletes for their non-athletic achievements and assist them in achieving their academic career goals.”
“Really excited,” Dickey said in an interview Tuesday with a big smile, “and really grateful.”
Dickey was presented the award by Colin Cole, the president of the NFLPA’s Charlotte region, and Marques Murrell. Cole is a former defensive tackle who played football at Iowa and bounced around the NFL from 2003-13. Murrell played at App State before having a pro football career from 2007-2012.
And that stranger who whisked Dickey away from his chorus classroom, only to escort him back to a standing ovation? That was Liz Benavides, who’s on the committee that oversees the selection and distribution of the scholarship.
“Sorry I scared the living daylights out of you,” Benavides said to Dickey in front of the class, chuckling. “We get a lot of applications every year, and it’s our job to go through them and select the winners. This young man stood out not only because of his athletics, but also because of his academics and really everything else about him.”
Dickey, at 5-foot-8, 180 pounds, was the starting center on the offensive line for Clover in 2021. The 18-year-old was born in Clover and always loved football, he said. He played fullback in his middle school and youth football days, back when Clover was a Wing-T town, before head coach Brian Lane came in and instituted a spread offense.
In high school, Dickey noticed that being an offensive lineman was a place where he could contribute. So no matter the fact that he was undersized or overlooked, he tried out for the position and every week stared down a defensive lineman that outweighed him by a lot — and always met that challenge.
Clover’s interior offensive line coach, Steve Churm, wrote Dickey’s recommendation for the scholarship. It was easy to find the words, he said.
“He starts at center on a 5A football team in South Carolina,” Churm said on Tuesday. “I mean, he’s kind of the epitome of the little engine that could.”
Dickey is Clover’s senior class president and will be attending Clemson to pursue a degree in communications after he graduates later this month. He wants to eventually study law and become a criminal defense attorney, he said.
EL will be joining his sister, Erin, at Clemson and will be continuing to make his mother, Millicent, and his grandmother, Amarintha Whitener, proud. All three of them were at the school Tuesday to see EL get surprised.
And what a pleasant surprise it was.
This story was originally published May 12, 2022 at 10:46 AM.
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