DAVIE, Fla. — DAVIE, Fla. -- Carson Palmer, USC quarterback, 23-year-old Heisman Trophy winner, is a romantic.
He surprised Shaelyn Fernandes with dinner at an outdoor table at a cliff-top restaurant overlooking Dana Point. This on a day he had football practice, on a day NFL scouts had come by to poke, prod, time and weigh him.
He was frazzled and running late, and it was in the middle of his most fabulous season, but Palmer, from Laguna Niguel, never lost his poise, never varied from his plan. That is the Palmer method. Never panic, never complain.
"I couldn't figure it out," Fernandes, a former USC soccer goalie, said. "We were running late and I told Carson, 'Just call the restaurant and say we'll be late.' But Carson wouldn't do it.
"When we got to the restaurant, I understood. We were taken outside to this single table overlooking the ocean. We had our own waiter and violin player. Everything was ready. When dessert came, it was under a cover and the waiter took the cover off and there was the [engagement] ring.
"It's a perfect ring, just what I would want. Carson picked it out himself and it showed how well he knew me. And then I was trying to call my parents. I was calling their cell phones and home phone and no one was answering. It turns out Carson and his family had arranged for my parents to fly [from Northern California] to Carson's parents' house. When we went after dinner, everybody was there."
Carson Palmer is a goof.
His younger brother, Jordan, 18, a freshman quarterback at Texas El Paso, remembers the time Carson cut the tips off golf tees, put them into a BB gun and shot Jordan in the back. Jordan called their mother, Danna at work and yelled, "Carson shot me in the back." Jordan didn't mention the golf tips or the BB gun. Danna rushed home, imagining the horror. She found two boys fighting.
"That was pretty much the end of my working outside the home," she said.
Carson Palmer is a planner.
His older sister, Jennifer, 31, remembers how Carson would always send Jordan out to try new, scary things first.
"Water skiing, fishing, skiing, snowboarding, Carson would send Jordan down first, just to see how it went," Jennifer said.
"Yeah, I was kind of like the food tester," Jordan said.
Carson Palmer is a throwback.
USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett, a man who appreciates action instead of speaking and admires old-fashioned values, said that Palmer "could have played on our teams."
