PREP FOOTBALL: Clintwood’s Osborne earns BHC’s Defensive Player of the Year honor

BY SPENCER CAMPBELL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

Most fans never get to meet their idols, and even fewer are allowed to spend meaningful time with them.

But during last summer that’s exactly the opportunity granted to Clintwood linebacker Alec Osborne, who has been selected as the Herald Courier’s defensive player of the year.

While he was busy lifting weights Osborne spotted former Clintwood player Justin Hamilton across the weight room.

A Clintwood, Va., native, Osborne’s earliest football memories are of sitting in the stands at Cummins Stadium, watching Hamilton score touchdown after touchdown.

When Hamilton left Clintwood for Virginia Tech – establishing himself as a running back and then reinventing himself as a safety – before being drafted by the Cleveland Browns, Osborne followed his every positional change on the Internet.

And now, as Osborne readied himself for the season, his hero approached him to ask if he wanted to work out together.

The NFL-style training Hamilton led the Clintwood players through exhausted Osborne physically. The NFL-experienced lectures he shared with him, however, reinvigorated his desire.

“He told us not to let anybody get in the way of our dreams,” Osborne said. “Just go out and do what you have to do to win.”

Osborne took Hamilton’s credo – the willingness to sacrifice everything, at any position, for the success of the team – and literally ran with it in 2008.

Always a gifted athlete and one of the fastest Clintwood players, Osborne played recklessly in 2007. His athleticism often found him near the football, but it also led him astray at times.

But an additional year in defensive coordinator Kent Grant’s stunting scheme turned Osborne not only into an athletic missile, but a guided one.

“Last year was a learning experience,” Osborne said heading into the region finals. “This year I was ready for it. We’re still putting in new things, I just took it in a lot easier.”

His speed and intelligence quickly made Osborne the most feared defender in the Lonesome Pine District.

“He’s the best defensive football player we played against all year. Period,” John I. Burton coach Jim Adams said. “He’s undersized, but he takes great angles, he’s got a nose for the ball, he can play pass coverage, he can play the run, he’s just a complete football player.

“We’d love to have him.”

Unfortunately for the Raiders, they did not have him. An Osborne-led Greenwave defense helped stifle Burton’s awesome rushing attack twice during the 2008 campaign.

Clintwood held Burton to 49 rushing yards in their Nov. 24 regular season match up (291 yards below the Raiders’ season average), and once again in the Greenwave’s 22-19 Region D Championship game.

With Hamilton watching from the sidelines in a green Mohawk, Osborne and the Greenwave marched through Southwest Virginia during the playoffs, before returning to the state title game in Salem, Va.

And although Clintwood lost the championship to Franklin 28-20, Osborne did not go quietly. His 85-yard kickoff return helped tie the game at seven, his two-yard touchdown run knotted the game again at 14 and an Osborne sack gave the Greenwave a chance to tie the score with only a few minutes remaining in the game.

Osborne finished the season with 103 tackles, nine sacks and seven defensive turnovers – grabbing him the Region D Defensive Player of the Year award.

But like his hero, his contributions were felt all over the field (he amassed 473 rushing yards on only 39 carries in addition to his return duties).

“He just has a nose for the football – a knack for getting to the ball and making big plays,” Clintwood coach Rick Mullins said. “It was not a surprise the type of year he had. We all expected him to have that type of year.”

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