By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

LANDIS — South Rowan’s 6-foot-5, 225-pound senior Alex Furr grew up as the Raiders’ biggest fan, slapping high-fives with South players as they headed for the field on Friday nights, looking up to athletes such as Austin Chrismon and his big brother, Andrew Furr.

Furr endured the losses — and there were a lot of those — and celebrated the occasional victories. His love for the red and black was a constant.

“I was always that tall kid growing up,” Furr said. “Always a tight end or defensive end from the time I started playing tackle football in second grade.”

Like most young athletes, Furr had dreams.

He dreamed about playing Division I football. He remembers watching South’s booming punter Marshall Long, who signed with the University of Georgia. He remembers seeing Chrismon, who walked on as a receiver at UNC, wearing the the blue jersey of the Tar Heels.

“A lot of people told me I’d never get an opportunity to get to a Division I school if I played for South Rowan,” Furr said. “I heard that every day for years. I wasn’t going anywhere. I just used it for motivation. People telling me I couldn’t do it, is what drove me to work as hard as I did.”

Furr is officially a Division I recruit.

He’s not on scholarship, at least not yet, at Gardner-Webb University, but as a PWO — that’s a preferred walk-on — he’ll be a member of the team from day one of his first preseason camp with the Bulldogs. He’ll be at all the practices and he’ll be in all the meetings. He’ll get gear. He’ll get meals.

Gardner-Webb has seen a lot of Furr and they like what they’ve seen. The Bulldogs actively recruited him. They brought him in for an official visit, and he’ll have a chance to earn a scholarship based on the progress he makes as a freshman.

“I’ve had some long conversations with the tight ends coach (Dean Cullison),” Furr said. “I’ll have a chance to be an asset to the team.”

Because of his height and hands. Furr’s potential has been evident for a while, but he made a physical jump between his junior and senior seasons.

“We talked at the end of his junior season about what it would take to get to D-I, and he spent every day working toward that goal,” South head coach Chris Walsh said. “He juggled a lot of different things.”

Furr is a busy guy. Besides football in the fall, he swims for South in the winter and plays golf in the spring.

He also worked last summer in concessions for the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers, but he always found time for morning workouts throughout the offseason.

“There were a lot of 6 a.m. weightlifting sessions with Coach Walsh and a lot of extra work with my quarterback (Brooks Overcash),” Furr said. “The goal was to get stronger and to get more explosive, and it paid off.”

He added 15 pounds of muscle, elevating from 210 pounds to 225. Nature also helped, as he added another inch to his frame to get to 6-foot-5.

The physical differences in Furr translated to the playing field.

In the opening game of Furr’s senior season he had three catches for 69 yards in a win against Union Academy. He had touchdown catches against A.L. Brown and West Rowan. His touchdown catch before halftime against Central Cabarrus started the comeback that ended in an exciting 29-26 homecoming victory that was South’s best win in several years. He had three catches for 50 yards against Carson.

Furr was coached at South by Walsh, tight ends coach Jarrod Smith and Chrismon, Furr’s former hero, who is now the receivers coach. They brought out the best in the tall tight end.

“I had some catches that helped us seal games or win games,” Furr said. “Just about every pass I caught was a route over the middle, so I took some hits, but I’ve gotten used to that. I felt pretty good about how the season went.”

Three wins, one of them in the county and two of them in the South Piedmont Conference, marked the best season South had had in a while. Furr was an important part of that improvement.

There were some Fridays where Furr’s job as the tight end was simply to block for workhorse back Landon Richards, but Furr had respectable receiving numbers — 18 catches for 219 yards and three touchdowns.

He was All-Rowan County and All-South Piedmont Conference. At the postseason banquet, he received the Rick Vanhoy Award, which is the Team Above Self Award at South.

With three sports and a job, Furr still maintained a 3.8 GPA. He plans an exercise science major at Gardner-Webb, with the long-term goal of becoming a physical therapist.

He’s excited about becoming a G-W Bulldog. There’s a new coaching staff in place in Boiling Springs. New head coach Chris Reisert got the job after winning a string of league championships at Division II Tiffin in Ohio,

Furr looks forward to playing on a winning team, but he’ll be remembered fondly at South for staying the course and fighting every Friday for a team that didn’t win often.

“Alex Furr is a great example of what it means to be a Raider,” Walsh said. “He’s an impressive guy. He’s the kind of young man you want to go out and represent your program.”