He’s a top-60 recruit nationally, but this Myers Park football star wants to play two sports
Myers Park’s Rodney Dunham is The Charlotte Observer’s preseason football defensive player of the year in Mecklenburg County.
A 6-foot-4, 227-pound junior defensive end, Dunham has nearly two dozen high-level Division I college offers from schools including Auburn, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan.
He’s the No. 6-ranked edge rusher nationally among high school juniors. He’s committed to the All-American Bowl, which will be played after his senior season in the fall of 2025. And his coach thinks Dunham’s ready to topple the numbers he put up as a sophomore: 58 tackles, 15 tackles for a loss and four sacks.
But as good as he is in football, Dunham is also a very talented pitcher with an 89 mile-per-hour fastball.
Dunham, who turned 16 last month, is being recruited by schools such as Duke, Notre Dame, South Carolina and Tennessee in baseball.
And he said there is no decision about which sport he’ll pursue.
“I plan on playing both in college,” said Dunham, who has a 4.2 GPA. “I feel like I’m good at both and I feel like I can make it somewhere with both, and so I’m not going to (pick) one or the other. If I keep doing what I’m doing right now, I know I’m going to have a lot of success.
“I know that.”
Not long after helping Myers Park to a 7-4 record in football last fall, Dunham was part of a Mustangs baseball team that finished 20-6. Dunham was 3-0 with a 1.75 ERA.
“He’s a special talent. He’s a young kid, but the sky is the limit for him. Seriously,” said Myers Park football coach Chris James. “He’s a two-sport guy that could possibly get drafted in baseball. I hope he sticks to football, though, because his upside is crazy.”
James said that as a younger player, Dunham still has some technique challenges and is learning to master his position. But, he said, Dunham has some things you can’t teach: The size, the freakish weakspan, the quickness off the ball and what James calls “the willingness to get better.”
James said that on the football field, Dunham really transformed into a team leader in the spring and summer, beginning to understand the defensive schemes more and becoming more comfortable with his size and talent.
He’s expecting a breakout season for a player who’s already built a bit of a national brand for himself.
“That’s kind of scary to think about, right?” James said. “Like where does he go from here? Teams definitely have to game plan for him. He’s got a big target on him. I told him before last year, ‘You will go into the season and not a lot of other people will know about you, so the double-teams will be few and far between. But now, you’ll get double-teamed every play, dang near.’ But there will be some teams that will want to challenge him. I want to see how good he is. I think he’s ready to step up to that challenge and I know he sees the potential.”
Dunham said he’s ready for everything this season, and that he only wants to get better and have the kind of the year that makes people remember who he is.
“Yeah,” he said, “I want to get a lot of sacks, a lot of tackles, and keep flying around and having fun. That’s really about it.”
