Panthers bring Stephon Gilmore closer to Rock Hill, the football town that shaped him
Early Wednesday afternoon — a few hours after the news broke that Stephon Gilmore was leaving the New England Patriots and taking his NFL All-Pro defensive back talents to the Carolina Panthers — Perry Sutton, somewhere, had a smile on his face.
Gilmore, after all, was coming home.
Sutton is a youth football coach who has become a fixture in a town affectionately called Football City, USA. And, of course, he knows Gilmore: He coached Gilmore as a kid for the Sylvia Circle Demons. He watched his son, Najee, grow up with Gilmore. He remembers seeing Gilmore, with a sand-filled rucksack on his back, run down Ogden Road while he was a budding star at Rock Hill’s South Pointe High School — quietly outworking anyone who had the same dreams he had.
Sutton followed Gilmore’s success as a South Carolina Gamecock. He received visits from Gilmore when he hosted his annual youth football camps, even when the defensive back was breaking records and becoming nationally recognized.
And on Wednesday, Sutton was smiling as Gilmore’s newest chapter begins.
“With him coming back as a veteran, I think it’s going to be really good,” Sutton told The Herald in a phone interview Wednesday. “Not only for him, but for the city of Rock Hill.”
Gilmore trade no-brainer for Panthers
So many reasons point to why this move is special for the Panthers.
For one, Gilmore is a generational talent. The last season Gilmore was healthy was in 2019, when the now 31-year-old tied for a league-leading six interceptions and 20 pass deflections en route to NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors. (It helps that his services are needed by the Panthers more than ever right now — what with first-round draft pick CB Jaycee Horn out with broken bones in his foot.)
And more significantly, Gilmore’s move to the Panthers could help Rock Hill embrace the NFL organization that has been trying to cultivate fans in York County.
The Panthers, after all, have invested a lot in Rock Hill. Panthers owner David Tepper donated $700,000 to finish Miracle Park. The Panthers broke ground on a new practice facility that is planned to be ready for training camp by 2023. They’ve ramped up the community involvement south of the state line — particularly with the city’s youth football programs. (The Panthers’ attempt to bring a game between South Pointe and Myers Park to Bank of America Stadium was part of that initiative.)
But perhaps getting Gilmore is a bigger step in forging that relationship: Out of the over 30 players Rock Hill has sent to the NFL, not one has played in a regular-season game for the Panthers. Not one of the players, who thousands of kids with outsized football dreams look up to, have repped their “home team.”
Now that’ll change.
And if it goes well, Gilmore might just compel some of the other Rock Hill guys — say, his former teammate and current Cleveland Brown, Jadeveon Clowney — back down to the South.
“Look at the marketing for Stephon, man,” Sutton said. “He’s already a Defensive Player of the Year. I can tell you right now that there’s going to be a big billboard of Stephon going up somewhere in Rock Hill with a Panthers uniform. Mark my words. It’s going to happen.”
‘Right here with his family’
As for Gilmore himself? It makes sense for him to return to Carolina, too. He spends his offseasons at his Charlotte home. And he still has family in Rock Hill — and that’s important to him.
Just ask Strait Herron, another former coach of his who was smiling on Wednesday after he heard the news. Herron, an assistant at South Pointe while Gilmore was there, said that as much of a talent he was on the football field — playing quarterback but also defensive back when necessary on a stacked South Pointe team that won a state title in 2008 — he was always a family guy. Gilmore always looked out for and supported his younger sisters (Sabrina, Sierra, Scarlet and Savannah) and younger brother (Steven), Herron said.
“Most people are going to say, ‘Hey man, isn’t it great that the Panthers got a great football player? It gives us a chance to win, etc.,’ ” Herron said in an interview. “That ain’t what I’m concerned about. The thing you gotta know about Stephon is he is a family guy. He loves his family.
“And that’s the most exciting thing about him coming back to the Carolinas: He’s going to be right here with his family.”
Here, in the Carolinas, playing football for the Panthers.
Here, near his hometown, which means so much more.
This story was originally published October 6, 2021 at 9:21 PM.
.jpeg)