When Sammy Seamster arrived at Ooltewah High School, he couldn’t play football because of late-arriving eligibility papers from Minden, La., but he sure made an immediate impact on the Owls’ track and basketball programs.
And when Seamster’s father finally signed the papers and they were in the hands of school administrators, Benny Monroe wasted no time in whipping the youngster into football shape the following fall.
“We tried him at wideout, but his hands were horrible,” Monroe said.
“He couldn’t catch anything. He would grab at it. But later on we’d hit him with a little pass out there and once he got it they couldn’t catch him.”
Seamster helped the Owls win a state track championship as a junior and before he left high school for Middle Tennessee State had ran on three state title relay teams and claimed the 200-meter title. He played basketball and former coach Jesse Nayadley called him a phenomenal athlete, but realized early on with his tremendous speed that football would become his calling.
And it did.
Seamster, as a senior, earned all-state and all-region honors and led the Owls to an 11-2 record – he recorded 53 tackles, six interceptions and broke up 25 passes.
That earned him a scholarship to MTSU and eventually a roster spot with the National Football League Miami Dolphins.
“That was my dream: to be able to play at least one snap in the NFL,” Seamster said Thursday afternoon, a few minutes before the school retired his No. 8 jersey during a ceremony in front of the student-body in Edward M. Foster Gymnasium.
Seamster’s former teammate, Jacques Smith, who played collegiately at Tennessee, had his jersey retired during halftime ceremonies at a game in 2013. Smith is currently on the Atlanta Falcons practice squad.
Seamster, a 6-foot-1-inch, 205-pound defensive back, was able to attend the event – it was his first return to Ooltewah since graduating in 2009 – because he suffered a hairline fracture of the collarbone in his second game with the Dolphins, a 29-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills.
His dream had come true the week before in the Dolphins’ season-opening win over New England.
The injury resulted in the Dolphins placing Seamster on the injured reserve (IR) designated to return list and he’ll miss the rest of the season. That was, he said the best-case scenario because the other option was being released, which he endured with the Baltimore Ravens weeks earlier.
Or, the Dolphins could have released him with the option to bring him back at a future date.
“When the Ravens released me I was willing to stay in the NFL any way I could,” Seamster said. “I was very excited when the Dolphins picked me up. I got my first playing time on the kickoff against New England and then got hurt the next week. I was a gunner on a punt and their corner slung me down and I tried to catch myself, but landed on my shoulder.”
Seamster, who didn’t excel at MTSU until his senior year, but caught the eyes of NFL scouts at the all-important combine in Indianapolis where he turned in a 4.44 40-yard dash, 35-inch vertical leap and a 10-foot-4-inch broad jump. He actually had a workout with Miami before the draft.
After his release in Baltimore, Seamster became the Dolphins’ sixth undrafted rookie to make the team’s 53-man roster, and 12th rookie overall.
The shoulder injury shattered – at least temporarily – Seamster’s NFL dream.
While on the IR Seamster cannot practice or play, but can sit in on team meetings, talk to coaches and go to the team facilities and work out when he’s able in about a month.
“My agent told me the Dolphins liked me a lot and I thought that was obvious because they decided to keep me around. This gives me time to learn more about the defense and hopefully I’ll be able to play more next year.”
Seamster was warmly welcomed by friends, former classmates and coaches at Thursday’s ceremony. He spoke briefly, following principal Jim Jarvis, athletic director Nayadley and Owls defensive coach Doug Greene, who was on Monroe’s staff who coached Seamster.
There was a lot of reminiscing going on just prior to the jersey retirement ceremony.
Seamster lived in Minden, just east of Shreveport, when Katrina devastated a large portion of southern Louisiana in 2005. Thousands of people fled the area in the hurricane’s aftermath, but that wasn’t Seamster’s reason for moving to Tennessee.
His parents were divorced and his mother lived in Ooltewah. Seamster wanted to join her and made the move after his freshman year of high school in Louisiana. His father’s reluctance to sign the eligibility papers delayed his football career with the Owls, but Monroe paid special attention to the newcomer.
Seamster was actually to practice with Monroe’s squad only in the fall of his junior and senior years. He was tied up in the spring with the track team, which Monroe also coached.
“It was not a tough thing to do,” Seamster said. “I just had to meet new people and teammates and that was the only tough thing. I remember playing a little junior varsity ball, but I could not play with the varsity.”
Even with limited exposure to the Owls’ football team, Monroe recognized he had a gifted athlete that simply needed to polish inadequate gridiron skills.
“His stepfather brought him to one of our practices,” Monroe said. “They told me other schools wanted to join their teams. I told him that we’d take good care of Sammy at Ooltewah. He slowly got bigger and once I saw him on the track I knew we had a good one. He could fly.
“His mother ran track at LSU and his daddy played football, so he’s got good DNA.”
As a senior, Seamster ran with the Owls’ 4x200 relay team that won a state title with a time of 1:27.73. That same year Smith won a state discus title. The year before Seamster helped that team claim a title with a 1:26.72 and the Owls also captured a 4x100 state championship with a clocking of 41.57. He also finished second in the 100-meter dash to teammate Tommy Myricks’ 10.97.
Monroe also recalled remarkable showings by Seamster and the Owls at Best of Prep meets in Chattanooga and the Tom Black Classic at the University of Tennessee.
“We went to Tom Black, where they had 50 or so teams from across the United States and we blew their doors off in those relays,” Monroe said. “Our first year up there they were saying, ‘Where is Ooltewah?’ The next year they were asking, ‘Will Ooltewah would be back.’
“That year Sammy beat a kid from Ohio that was the No. 1 pick for Ohio State than had run a 10.4 100 meters, but he couldn’t catch Sammy when he got the baton. If you want to retire anything, retire his track jersey.”
Prior to his spring exploits, Seamster earned all-city basketball honors under Nayadley’s tutelage.
“We had a lob-pass play for Sammy and several times he would miss the shot because he was 2-feet above the rim,” Nayadley said. “I told him to hold onto the ball until he came down and then dunk it.”
Seamster’s senior-year heroics caught the eyes of college recruiters, including Syracuse, but MTSU coach Rick Stockstill and assistant David Bibee, who coached safeties, had made inroads with the Owls star and, as a two-star recruit who earned all-region and all-state honors, signed with the Blue Raiders in the spring of 2009.
Jarvis said Tennessee’s John Chavis “would have taken Seamster,” but failed in his attempts to convince the other defensive coaches.
As a senior, Seamster played in 13 games with six starts and posted a career-high 33 tackles (22 solo) and got his first interception.
He was invited to the National Football League Players Association Collegiate Bowl and signed a free-agent contract with the Ravens on May 12 of this year.
Seamster clearly enjoyed his time at his old high school and spent most of his time with a wide grin seemingly plastered on his face.
“I’m glad to be back, walking around and seeing my jersey hanging up out front and my track records hanging on the wall in the old gym,” he said. “It feels good.”
There are only a few things that could top that.
One is waiting on Dolphins general manager Dennis Hickey to take him off the IR, a move that would continue Seamster’s NFL dream.
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)
From left, Jesse Nayadley, Ed Foster, Sammy Seamster, now with the Miami Dolphins, Benny Monroe and Jim Jarvis pose for pictures prior to a ceremony to retire Seamster's football jersey at Ooltewah High School on Thursday.