By Ed McGranahan.

By Ed McGranahan

Roderick McDowell was not about to run away.

A concussion, the assorted foot injuries, the pulled and bruised muscles were incidental setbacks for the Clemson running back described by his high school coaches in Sumter as absolutely the best ever.

Buried on the depth chart, shadowing C.J. Spiller, Jamie Harper and Andre Ellington for four seasons hasn’t been the worst duty. For a young man with McDowell’s resume and pride it tested the limits of his dignity. At one point he contemplated leaving Clemson. Folks in Sumter weren’t unkind. They just wanted to know when it would be his time to cast a long shadow.

Instead of feeling low, McDowell was inspired by his mother who recommended prayer in his search for answers.

“I’m glad I stayed,” McDowell said. “I came here as a boy, and now I’ll leave as a man.”

Hardly any of them understood, really. Heck, few outside the immediate family knew what it took for Roderick to become “Hot Rod.” Until last week, even Clemson coach Dabo Swinney didn’t know about the surgeries on the right foot and leg, the casts and braces to correct the clubfoot that doctors insisted would make it difficult for him to walk without a limp let alone run.

Clubfoot is the most common congenital birth defect, affecting 1 in 1,000 births annually, boys twice as often as girls. It twists either or both feet at the ankles and makes walking difficult or impossible. Addressing it at an early age it can be corrected through orthopedic appliances and surgery.

NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, Heisman Trophy winner Charles Woodson, U.S. soccer legend Mia Hamm and former Olympic figure-skating champion Kristi Yamaguchi were each born with clubfoot.

The most visible anomaly is the right leg below the knee, which is distinctly smaller than the left. McDowell said his right foot is a half shoe size smaller. None of it has seemed to hamper his quickness and acceleration.

“They told my mom if I had one more surgery I wouldn’t walk again. I wouldn’t run again,” he said. “My mom said no more surgeries.”

Initially self-conscious as a child, McDowell discovered, “I was faster than everybody, so I ran with it.”

Grayson Howell said they first met the summer before that season. McDowell and some buddies were hanging in the gym. He wanted to be a receiver.

“Why are you going to do that?” Howell said he asked. “Why don’t you start off at running back and we’ll see what happens from there? Lo and behold, here we go.

“His first touch as a varsity player was a 51-yard touchdown run against South Florence.”

Paul Sorrells, his head coach at Sumter, did not notice the difference in the legs until somebody else pointed it out to him.

“I watched him play basketball in the gym one day. He would use that leg just like he ran a football,” Sorrells said. “He would plant that leg and make a 90-degree cut as fast as anybody I have seen.

“I still to this day can’t believe it,” he said. “It’s incredible because he can sure run.”

McDowell nodded.

“My right leg, my weak leg, is really my strong leg,” he said. “Most of my cuts are off my right foot.”

McDowell left a lasting impression in Sumter, etching a highlight film on Sorrells’ consciousness that he rewound and replayed in a heartbeat:

Hurdling two Stratford High defenders at the goal line for a touchdown and thinking, “I can’t believe what I just saw.” The referee later told Sorrells he hadn’t the heart to throw a flag.

Racing 80 yards for a touchdown the next year to beat Stratford in what Sorrells described as a track meet. “Literally, I don’t think we blocked a soul,” he said. “Players like that make a coach look good.”

Most especially he remembered the long touchdown run against Rock Hill in the state semifinals. Running left, McDowell planted that foot, made one cut through a sliver of daylight, then planted and cut again to score the touchdown. “That,” Sorrells said turning to one of his coaches, “was what makes him special.”

Football delivered McDowell to Clemson when he perhaps couldn’t have gotten here otherwise. Coming from a town rich in football history, McDowell was amazed how during a visit before he signed, people would holler his name and wave, just like at home.

Sorrells was concerned how McDowell might handle the adversity if things turned sour. “As long as you perform, they’ll love you. If you stumble, they’ll want the next guy. And there’s always the next guy,” he said. “You’ve got to keep all that in perspective.”

McDowell’s mother alone raised him, his older brother and younger sister. After he got to high school, Howell eventually became a stabilizing male influence.

“He is very close to me and my family,” said Howell, now the head coach at Easley High School, which is 20 minutes up the road from Clemson. “My kids love him to death. And he refers to me as Pops.”

Initially McDowell’s mother didn’t cotton to this man encroaching on her turf.

“I think she was a little suspicious of my motives,” he said. “I can respect that, but my interests were his interests. I didn’t have an agenda.”

McDowell understood. At Clemson he’s bonded with running backs coach Tony Elliott and seeks Swinney for counsel. Howell, he said, is “Pops.”

“Sometimes you want that father figure,” he said. “My father texts and calls occasionally, but at the end of the day I’m on my own now. My mom is really my mother and father.

“My mom is everything to me. She’s what keeps me going.”

When McDowell contemplated transferring after the 2011 season, his mother advised him to pray. He also sought Howell’s advice.

“I asked him, ‘What do you want to get out of this? Is it just about football, is it about you being able to make everybody at home think you’re a big star?’

“If football is that important and overcoming what people may see as a disappointment because you haven’t started at Clemson yet, then that’s the decision you need to make, but if it’s about graduating from Clemson and being part of putting Clemson back on the map and finishing this thing out, that’s a different decision.”

McDowell called the next day and told him he was staying. When Howell was introduced as the new football coach at Easley High School, McDowell was there to congratulate him.

“He could have given up a long time ago. He was buried on that depth chart and seemed like he was never going to get his chance,” Howell said. “He continued to work and persevere.”

McDowell entered Clemson as a wisp of a 160-pound back. Last week he weighed in at 198. He will leave Clemson with a degree in sociology, but he wants to inspire children.

“I have been blessed with the opportunity to play football. One day I want to mentor kids because I can relate to them,” he said. “A teacher at my old high school has a daughter with a club foot, and she has to walk in braces. She tells me I inspire her.”

Said Howell, “The man he has grown into being has just been a joy for me to watch.”

First order of business this spring is securing the primary job at running back left by Andre Ellington. Publicly he refers to D.J. Howard, Zac Brooks and himself as a three-man rotation. Privately he harbors the dream of being the “Hot Rod” that thrilled Sumter High fans.

“God blessed me to be here,” he said. “Hopefully I’m going to have a chance to be the go-to guy this year in this offense and have a chance to play in the league.”

The fact that McDowell stands atop the depth chart as his final spring began last week, “is a testament to his will,” Sorrells said, wondering if the handicap was an impediment or an inspiration. “Maybe his fight and determination with that handicap helped make him the person that he is.”

McDowell’s contributions in the bowl game win over LSU lifted his stock in the Clemson staff’s eyes. Sorrells and Howell just hope one day this season to again see him plant and cut.

“All of us here hope to goodness that everything goes great for him,” Sorrells said. “I’m still waiting to see him make one of those signature runs and make Death Valley absolutely explode.”