Iverson on gridiron? The mind boggles 'I FEEL LIKE I'm the quarterback on the basketball court," Allen Iverson said, and the very thought of it made your mind wander. What must he have looked like, back in high school, calling signals under center? What would Iverson look like today, wearing a helmet, maybe a green helmet with silver wings on it? You wonder. That's what off days are for, wondering. The Sixers and Raptors are tied in their best-of-seven playoff series, two games apiece. The Sixers are in the midst of an enormous test of their character, not just because of the Raptors but because of the injuries that continue to rock their foundation. The latest is George Lynch's broken foot, which will end his season unless the Sixers make it to the NBA Finals - and maybe even then, too. Lynch's absence will put even more pressure on all of them, but we all know who bears the brunt of everything around here. It is Iverson. He is as essential a presence as any player in the NBA. His importance to the Sixers these days, his and nobody else's, now rivals the importance of a quarterback in an NFL game. Which, just writing it, makes you wonder some more. What if he had stuck with football? What kind of athletic havoc might Iverson now be wreaking? "I wonder sometimes," said Dennis Kozlowski, Iverson's high school football coach back in Hampton, Va. "I think he would have been a major Division I quarterback in college - and after that, who knows? But when I saw him get the 54 points [in Game 2 of the Sixers-Raptors series], what I thought about was this look he used to get. He would get it, this look in his eyes, when he was ready to play great, just totally awesome. "I guess he had it that night," Kozlowski said. Iverson is asked who his favorite football player is, and he says, "Michael Vick." It is an interesting choice. Vick is also from Virginia, the star quarterback at Virginia Tech, great legs, great arm, recently the first pick in the NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons, who traded up to get him. Why is it interesting? Because as Gerald Carr said the other day, repeating the question: "What kind of player was Allen? He was Michael Vick before there was a Michael Vick." Carr was the Eagles' wide receivers coach on Ray Rhodes' staffs. He is now the quarterback coach and passing-game coordinator at Indiana University. But back in the early '90s, Carr was on the coaching staff at the University of North Carolina. One of his areas of responsibility was Hampton, where Iverson played for Bethel High School. He was on the varsity in ninth grade, playing wide receiver and safety. He was the starting quarterback and safety in 10th and 11th grades. He was an all-state safety and kick returner in 11th grade, and just missed out on being Virginia's top quarterback as well. It was the year of all athletic years - quarterback on the state championship football team, and then leading scorer on the state championship basketball team. While basketball was always first in everybody's mind, the football aspirations were real. Iverson was being scouted heavily, Kozlowski said, by schools such as Florida State (which already had the basketball/football thing going with point guard/quarterback Charlie Ward), Virginia Tech, Minnesota and others. Football practices would offer this unexpected sight: basketball coaches sitting in the stands, people such as then-North Carolina assistant Phil Ford, as well as other Division I head coaches. "They wanted to see his work habits," Kozlowski said. "He was one of those players we term oh-my-God guys," Carr said. "We were very interested in Allen for football and so was everybody else. I tell people this and they don't believe me, but I'm not sure he wasn't a better football player than he was a basketball player. I think he threw for 30 touchdowns his [junior] year. "When I was with the Eagles, we taped a thing with him working out in football. He caught the ball well, played defensive back, threw it almost the length of the field in the [Eagles' old practice] bubble." P.S. - That was about 70 yards. Kozlowski said they ran a sprint-draw option kind of an offense, which was perfect for Iverson's skills. They didn't lose a regular-season game in Iverson's sophomore season and lost two games by a total of two points the next year, when Bethel won the state title. There is still one Virginia football record Iverson holds, as a defensive back. Most interceptions in a game: five. "I would look at NFL games and see things Deion Sanders did and know that Allen did them for us," Kozlowski said. "And the thing was, we'd get him the first day of practice and then he would be gone right after our last game, gone to play basketball. We got him to lift some weights after practice with everybody else, but we never got to work with him in the offseason." Iverson didn't get to play football as a senior in high school. He was charged at the time in that bowling-alley brawl - which led to a conviction and jail time, followed by a pardon from Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder. Carr said: "I think the whole country was extremely interested until everything came down. Then a lot of [colleges] backed off. I'm just glad Georgetown stepped in and took a chance on him. Georgetown and [then-coach] John Thompson are to be applauded for that." But it was all basketball by then. Which means that his last organized football game, the last one that really counted, was the Virginia Group AAA Division 5 championship game in 1992. Iverson's team beat E.C. Glass by the score of 27-0. And this is all Iverson did that day: passed for 201 yards, ran for one touchdown, intercepted two passes and returned a punt 60 yards for a touchdown. Oh-my-God, indeed. Iverson really didn't want to talk about any of this, saying it was a time to concentrate on basketball. That's fine. You can't help but wonder, though, especially on the off days. You can't help but wonder, as the Sixers deal with a football-like level of injuries, as Iverson leads them into Game 5. *		Author Rich Hofmann   Source Daily News   Return to Articles