CLINTON, N.C. — A sign at Clinton High offers visitors a friendly warning. "Danger," it reads, "you have entered Dark Horse Territory."
It refers to the unusual nickname of the school's athletic teams -- Dark Horse Stadium, home of the five-time Class AA state football champions, sits next to the sign.
But it could also refer to a graduate named Willie Parker.
The Pittsburgh Steelers' 5-foot-10, 209-pound running back is not the first player from this rural town of about 8,600 to have made it to the NFL, nor will he be the first to have played in the Super Bowl when the Steelers meet the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday at Detroit.
But he undoubtedly is the first to have raced a pit bull as a teen, caught the eye of an NFL owner's son while still in high school, and all but disappeared in college before reemerging as an improbable 1,000-yard rusher for an AFC championship team.
A descendant of slaves who worked a farm not more than 10 miles from Clinton, Parker is the product of a blue-collar environment. Hog farming and hog processing drive the economy in Sampson County, and, when the wind blows just so, unsuspecting visitors had better brace themselves when stepping from their cars. Otherwise, the smell might knock them right off their feet.
Parker's father, Willie Parker Sr., was a hog gambrel before a shoulder injury put him on disability. Day after day for 27 years, he lifted the 200- to 300-pound beasts onto hooks for butchering.
The youngest in his family of six had much grander plans.
"When he was 5 or 6, he stood in front of the TV and he'd say, 'Me want to play for Carolina,' " his mother, Lorraine, said of the boy who did grow up to play for the Tar Heels. "I said, 'Get out from in front of the TV and go sit down.' And then when he was 10 or 11, he'd say, 'Me going to play for the NFL.'
"I said, 'If you don't get your behind out from in front of that TV ... ' "
Parker got moving, all right.
Speed always set him apart.
One Thanksgiving, noting that a cousin's pit full was so well-trained that when his owner whistled from across a field the dog would run toward him in a full sprint, Parker asked whether he could race it.
"The dog's name was Tyson," Willie Sr. said, "and Tyson would come full speed toward my nephew. And my son would try to beat the pit bull. It looked pretty good at the beginning, but the dog ran away from him.
"But he actually tried to beat that dog. He did it several times, and you could see from the muscles in his legs that he was giving it his all."
Two-legged challengers posed less of a threat to Parker, who could step right out from the side door of the modest, three-bedroom house where he grew up and run for miles without ever encountering a car, much less a pit bull.
Across the street was a kid's dream -- Royal Lane Park, an 80-acre recreational facility -- and that's where Parker set about chasing his dream.
It didn't seem unrealistic because of Clinton's glorious tradition.
"This is a unique place as far as football," said former Clinton High coach Bob Lewis, whose teams at various stops have won six state championships. "People love football. Friday night, the stands are packed full. You would think maybe you were in a place like Pennsylvania or Texas, that kind of environment.
"That's the kind of environment Willie came up with; he was in the weight room working out with guys that had played in the NFL."
Three other players coached by Lewis -- running backs Leonard Henry and Jerris McPhail and defensive tackle Ronnie Dixon -- played in the NFL. And Clinton grad Dennis Owens, who graduated before Lewis arrived, played nose guard for the New England Patriots in the 1986 Super Bowl.
"I can't explain it, nobody can explain it," Lewis said of Clinton's fertile training ground. "It's like these guys crawl out of the woodwork."
Clinton won two state titles during Parker's three varsity seasons, and by the time he signed with North Carolina after rushing for 1,801 yards as a senior in 1998, Lewis considered him a can't-miss prospect, at least as gifted as the three dozen other players he had sent to Division I college programs.
A former North Carolina high school assistant -- Pittsburgh scout Dan Rooney Jr., son of the Steelers' owner -- also thought highly of him. At the same time Parker was averaging more than 10 yards a carry as a high school star, Rooney lived for about 1 1/2 years in Clinton. His wife, a doctor, worked at the same clinic as the high school's team physician.
Parker, though, never caught on at North Carolina.
The coach who signed him, Carl Torbush, was fired after Parker's freshman season. And then, in August 2001, while Parker was in Chapel Hill preparing for his sophomore season, his best friend, Jamar "Marty" Smith, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Clinton.
"That just took something out of him," his father said. "I mean, he cried, cried, cried. It took him awhile to get out of it, and by the time he decided he was going to get out of it, he'd done lost his position."
