Dexter Falls serves a special role at South Pointe

Everything you need to know about South Pointe assistant football coach Dexter Falls can be learned in one anecdote from York coach Bobby Carroll. He was the Northwestern defensive coordinator when Falls was an 11th grader in 1998. Falls started at linebacker alongside his buddies Donte Talford and Will Massey, both of whom liked to pick on Falls by going in his locker, taking clothes and football equipment and hiding it.

So Falls went to the PetSmart on Cherry Road. The next time Massey opened the locker, there was a live python sitting in it, named “Bad Girl.”

“They never went back in my locker ever again,” Falls said Friday. “Ever again.”

Maybe the best word to describe Falls - a fireball of energy, excitement and positivity - is gung-ho. He was that way when he played linebacker at Northwestern and he’s still that way in his role at South Pointe as the team’s official motivator.

“Wide open all the time,” said South Pointe coach Strait Herron, “and it’s all about the kids and the game of football.”

Happy Thanksgibbin’

It’s 8 a.m. Thanksgiving morning and it looks like members of the South Pointe football team have already shoveled a trough’s-worth of turkey into their guts. But their sluggishness is quickly snapped as they approach the football stadium’s gate.

“Happy Thanksgibbin’!” Falls shouts, so fully-lunged that bystanders almost cringe. “Happy Thanksgibbin’!” (Seriously, that’s how he jokingly pronounces it.)

The kids roll their eyes, some take playful jabs at him, and one sassy retort is answered with a head-lock. Then, another player strolls up with the wrong colored sweatshirt. South Pointe’s players were supposed to wear their graphite-colored sweats, but this fellow has a red hoodie on. Falls grabs him close and begins to whisper in his ear.

This is where Falls’ value - and he is invaluable - to the South Pointe program manifests. Unofficially, he’s the team dad, smack-talker, sunflower seed-provider, and loudest person. He’s also the enforcer.

The Hill

Falls is responsible for punishing violations of his personal policies. Those include sagging pants, poor grades, smart-Alec behavior, wearing the wrong practice clothes, not holding the door for old ladies, or missing class. It’s part of teaching teenagers how to be men.

Punishments are meted out on “the hill.” It’s located behind the school, a grass-patched, red clay hill. Visitors to South Pointe football practices can often see Falls seated on a railing overlooking the hill, while a teenager trudges up or down the slope. Falls said the hill honors Harold White and Pete Roseborough, a pair of standout linebackers in 2008 that were two of his greatest projects.

“I’m out there every day,” said Falls, who appreciated the parents for accepting his old-school form of tough love.

No one - no matter the number of college scholarship offers or touchdowns scored - is spared from the rules, or the consequences of breaking them.

Senior offensive lineman Lamon Bryant has been on the hill four times, as recently as last week for not wearing a practice jersey after his ripped. One lap around the hill was enough for him. Bryant laughed when he remembered thinking, “I’m gonna kill this man when I get to the top of this hill.” It clearly wasn’t funny at the time.

Even Ruff, who hasn’t thrown an interception in over a calendar year, had to hit the hill last week because he didn’t wear his sweats.

“I think we’re gonna have to end up calling that ‘Falls Hill’ or ‘Falls Hole’ or whatever,” Herron said. “Our kids understand. ‘If I mess up, I’m going to the hill.’”

A heat-seaking missile

Falls loves to laugh and have fun. But a different side of his personality came out when he played football. He wouldn’t talk an entire Friday until 5 minutes before kickoff. Then - he said - he would scream in coach Jimmy Wallace’s face and be ready to explode.

Falls made over 600 tackles in three years of varsity football, earning defensive MVP honors in the North-South all-star game his senior year. Carroll called Falls “the most instinctive linebacker” he ever coached, a heat-seaking missile perfectly suited for the hard-hitting 1990s game.

Falls was the wall-leader on Northwestern’s punt unit - a role usually reserved for a team’s craziest character - and Carroll explicitly remembers him breaking at least two players’ femurs with crushing hits.

“One hundred percent full-speed, whether it was practice, weight-lifting, whatever,” said Carroll.

When Northwestern lost to Richland Northeast in the 1999 playoffs - ending Falls’ career with the Trojans - Carroll remembers his former player sitting in the locker room still fully dressed in his uniform.

“I said, ‘man, come on, we’ve got to go,’ because I knew he was gonna make the North-South. He said, ‘nah, coach Carroll, I don’t ever want to take this purple and gold off.’”

As a coach and motivator, Falls channels that passion into his players. Nick McCloud, who has known Falls since he was 7 or 8 years old, said that Falls is miserable that his football playing days are over.

The message is “put everything you’ve got into the game,” McCloud said, “and you won’t have regrets.”

“Give back to the kids the same way I gave to you”

Falls loves football like a close relative because it changed his life.

Calling his upbringing “super hard,” he basically lived on his own until he was 14 years old, his father absent from the scene and his mother on “a vacation” in jail. When Falls showed up at Northwestern as a ninth grader, assistant football coach Benjie Young entered his life.

“He took me up under his wing,” said Falls.

Football gave him the only excuse he needed to avoid trouble. After graduating from Northwestern - and donating “Bad Girl” to a guy that lived up the street - Falls played a year of junior college football before finishing his career at Langston University in Oklahoma. He returned to Rock Hill a college graduate despite a life path littered with obstacles. Falls has worked at South Pointe since 2008, using Young as a template for what his role should be.

“He told me ‘no matter how far you go in life, don’t go buy me no car if you make it to the league,’” said Falls. “’Just promise me one thing, you’ll give back to the kids the same way I gave to you.’ That right there stuck with me ‘til, today, you know what I mean?”

Herron reckons that Falls’ upbringing earns him credibility with the South Pointe players, especially the ones enduring similarly uneven home lives. At 34 years old, Falls is a valuable go-between for the players and coaches, a spark-plug that boosts players and coaches alike.

“Where he came from and the life that he had, he knows he’s in a great spot,” said Herron. “I think that energy just comes from loving the game of football and being able to do what he’s getting to do.”

That’s why South Pointe’s players don’t mind his shouting in their ears, or his tough love, or his unmoving expression as they pass by on another lap around the hill. It’s also why they’ll react when he gets them so worked up before Saturday’s 3A state championship game that they could smash down a cinder block wall.

They all know why he does it.

“All he ever wanted to do was get the best out of us,” McCloud said.

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 5:11 PM with the headline "Dexter Falls serves a special role at South Pointe."