Column: From Santaluces, to the Hall of Fame?

FOXBOROUGH — Vince Wilfork retired as a member of the Patriots on Wednesday, in a ceremony that was true to the Patriots and Wilfork.

Robert Kraft was emotional about the bond that he shared with Wilfork after the passing of his wife, Myra. Bill Belichick perfectly encapsulated what made a player with little to no stats so great for the league’s most accomplished franchise. And Wilfork kept it real, about his career, why he made the decision and about how Tom Brady’s never had a great assortment of receivers (a little bit of an ouch).

On a much lesser note, the moment reminded me that I’ve known Wilfork for 18 years since we were both, at one point in time, residents of Boynton Beach, Fla.

Here are a few takeaways from the journey Wilfork has taken from high school student to potential Hall of Famer:

In 1999, I was a neophyte reporter at the Palm Beach Post living in Boynton Beach when I decided to go watch a practice at the neighborhood high school, Santaluces. They were a Palm Beach County power back then because there was no Boynton Beach High, and they also pulled from the western fringes of the area. It was a huge school at that time, and the football team played an ambitious schedule. The Chiefs were good, and Wilfork was the talk of the county as he was being recruited by everyone. If you’ve ever been to a high school football game, you know that the biggest kids are expected to dominate just by their size. Usually it doesn’t matchup. Not in Wilfork’s case. Two poor offensive linemen tried to block him and were absolutely flattened.

At the same practice, I saw him throw a perfect spiral 50 yards. Wilfork’s coach, Ray Berger, told me with a straight face that Wilfork could absolutely be the quarterback if they didn’t have a couple pretty good ones already.

Berger was a trip, basically straight out of football coach movie casting. He was short, but muscled up and had a flat-top. His face would turn a dark red when he yelled, which was a lot and responsible for his voice always being hoarse. Belichick eluded to Wilfork basically being the leader of the defense with the Patriots. It was the same thing in high school. When Berger talked about his defense, he basically admitted that everything ran through Wilfork.

His final two seasons at Santaluces, Wilfork was basically double-teamed on every snap. He still dominated.

Wilfork did not qualify academically out of high school and it was not easy for him to deal with. He refused to leave the house and his weight ballooned from 315 to 380 pounds. I saw him at a Santaluces game in the fall of 2000 and he had an empty lollipop box and the bottom was filled with hot dogs, at least six of them. There was real concern among the Miami coaching staff that he would never play for them. His father, David Sr., was played an integral role in getting his son to stop feeling sorry for himself, and get going.

His late parents, Barbara and David Sr., were fixtures at games. His father was one of the boys with Vince and his brother, David Jr., and was immensely proud of Vince. David Sr. would bring newspaper clippings to his dialysis treatments before his death to show off his son.

Barbara, who passed after her husband after a stroke, was the disciplinarian. Her final words to Vince were: “Take care of yourself.”

Vince’s wife, Bianca (formerly Farinas), ran the ship and was his rock since his high school days. There’s no way Wilfork would have made it as far and as long as he did without her.

Belichick spoke to her undeniable toughness: “This is a great moment because I see Bianca, I see (son) David and I think back to eight years ago and August 5th when David was born. So that was a hot training camp, which we’re not having now, but in that year it was hot. Every day it was, you know, and she comes to training camp ready to deliver it looked like every single day – day after day after day after day after day. You just felt so bad for her. She came early and stayed late. It was not like just show up at the last two seconds of practice. She was there. Then finally on the fifth she delivered and we’re out there at practice two days later and she’s back out there again. I said to Vince, ‘This is unbelievable. She’s made more practices than a quarter of our team has’. So at the end of the year we give out the ironman shirts for the players that don’t miss a practice. They’re there for every practice, not half a practice with a this or a that or anything. They’re there for every practice the entire training camp. It’s an ironman t-shirt. It really means a lot and it really means that you’ve made it through every single day without question. We gave one to Bianca because I had to. I had to. That effort was superhuman.”

There was an oft-told story from his freshman year at Miami about how the 350-pound Wilfork lined up on the outside in man coverage against running back D.J. Williams, who was a tremendous all-around athlete. No problem for Wilfork: he kept up with Williams and then batted away Ken Dorsey’s pass.

Wilfork was one of the smartest defensive lineman I’ve ever seen. Wilfork was where screen passes went to die. Through study and intuition, he always knew when they were coming. “We ask our players to not only know what they do, but know what the guys beside them do, understand the overall scheme and understand situational football,” said Belichick. “Vince is the best defensive lineman that I’ve ever coached at that because of his ability to not only know what he was doing but control the entire line but also understand what the situation in the game was, what they were trying to do, what our opponents were trying to do, how to adjust to it and so forth.”

Wilfork should absolutely be considered for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I remember a few years back when Pro Football Focus had Wilfork as one of their lowest-rated interior defensive linemen. According to my game charting, Wilfork was doing great. There are things you just can’t quantify in football. Wilfork was a master two-gapper (holding up a blocker and being responsible for the gaps on either side of the blocker), and that has enormous value in the Patriots’ scheme, and makes Wilfork impossible to compare to players that are asked and allowed to penetrate the backfield more. Basically, the Patriots can’t do what they want to on defense if Wilfork (or Malcolm Brown now) is getting crumpled by blockers. Nobody held his ground, or up against a double team, better than Wilfork. It was an often thankless job but it was essential to the Patriots’ success.

Thanks for the many memories, Vince. And here’s wishing you a long and fruitful retirement.