South Rowan pair focuses on football

LANDIS— The blur this season has been in the eyes of their opponents, and nowhere else.

As the Raiders ran over their third straight opponent last Friday night, one of the administrators at South Rowan High School added an exclamation point to the 34-6 victory over East Rowan.

The catalyst in South’s attack, the running back who had raced up and down the field for 176 yards on eight carries, could only see in one eye.

Amazingly enough, Henry Norman wasn’t the only Raider on the field with limited vision. Before any of his great runs could develop, center Zach Overcash had to snap the ball.

Two juniors. Two good eyes between them. On one team.

“It doesn’t limit them, they don’t harp on it,”South Rowan head coach Rick Vanhoy said. “The support is there from home. Some parents could be a little bit leery of that.

“They’re both going to be real good players.”

In fact, Norman and Overcash are already key performers for the 3-0 Raiders.

Norman tops all Rowan running backs with 307 yards in three games. Overcash anchors a line that powers the county’s top offensive force. He also plays every other series at defensive end on the county’s stingiest unit.

Norman and Overcash have played together the last four years: two on the South junior varsity and two at China Grove Middle.

It was during the seventh-grade basketball season that they suddenly shared something much more serious than wins and losses on the same playing field.

That winter, Norman was playing in the yard with some of his cousins when he got hit in the eye with a stick. His left eye filled with blood, required several surgeries, developed a cataract.

“That was the worst time. It was hurting, giving me a headache all the time,”said Norman of the cataract, which played a major role in keeping him out of school for more than two months. “The summer before eighth grade I went to the doctor and he was telling me I might not be able to play football.

“I talked him into letting me play,”Norman said quietly. “It was very important. I love football.”

That’s where Overcash came in. When he was 3 years old, a blood vessel began leaking behind his right eye. Steps to repair the damage proved unsuccessful.

Both youths had little more than peripheral vision in their damaged eyes.

Both played on.

“I told him he could deal with it and it shouldn’t affect him once he got used to it,”Overcash said. “It hasn’t.”

Vanhoy knew all about Norman since his middle school days. The Raider coach, whose daughter Courtney is the same age as the players, saw Norman dominate the middle school ranks, saw him dart and slash and pick his way through holes.

Vanhoy knew there was a great runner coming up from China Grove Middle. And he had no clue about Norman’s injury.

“Watching him play, I didn’t realize he had lost sight in one of his eyes,”Vanhoy said. “I found out about it from Courtney.”

Vanhoy also knew Overcash through his daughter. Both players headed to the high school fully intent on continuing their football careers. Overcash has started every game he’s played at South: two years on the junior varsity, three weeks on Friday nights.

Norman terrorized jayvee defenses a year ago, rushing for more than 200 yards in a game four times while seniors Toré Girty and Keith Garrett got the carries for the varsity.

“He’s a great running back. The only reason he wasn’t a varsity player last year was because we had Toré and Keith and we wanted him to get as much playing time under his belt as he could,”Vanhoy said. “He hits the holes quick. We’ve seen him make the good moves. Unless somebody told you, you’d never know.”

The same can be said for Overcash, who snapped the ball to quarterbacks Andrew Morgan and Hoke Shirley, then took on his blocking assignments to spring Norman on runs of 78 and 52 yards.

“He gets it done,”Vanhoy said simply. He’s our starting center and we haven’t made any adjustments for him as well.

“It’s just something they live with. They’re used to it,”Vanhoy added. “It’s never been a real big issue. As far as our staff and our players, it’s not really something we think about.”

After living so long with limited eyesight, Norman and Overcash don’t think about it, either.

“It’s not really hard. It really didn’t feel different,”Norman said. “My mom just tells me to go out and play as hard as I can: Don’t let it bother me.”

Added Overcash:“I’m used to it now. This is all I’ve ever known,”he said. “Half the people probably don’t even know about me, and didn’t know about Henry until they saw it in the papers.”

In the telling of their story, though, a wonderful message comes through.

“It’s saying that you can overcome the odds,”Overcash said. “People say, ‘You’re blind in one eye, you can’t play sports,’ and Henry runs for close to 200 yards. I made a couple tackles.”

With two good eyes — one right and one left — between them. On the same team. The same junior class, even.

“It was kind of odd when it happened (to Henry),”Overcash said. “We were in football and basketball together.”

“It’s unusual, obviously,”Vanhoy offered.

“It is kind of weird if you think about it,”Norman allowed.

Guess what, though?

The Raiders don’t think about it. They just don’t see it that way at all.

n

Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4287 or shanf@salisburypost.com .