FSU RECEIVER KERMIT WHITFIELD
is eager to shine with the Seminoles and show other Parramore kids a path to success.
TALLAHASSEE — When Kermit Whitfield returns to Orlando on Labor Day night for FSU’s season opener against Ole Miss, he’ll be proudly representing his hometown.
“It’s always good to have a homecoming and playing in the old stadium I used to play in,” said Whitfield, an FSU senior wide receiver and kick return specialist. “I ran back plenty of kicks in the Citrus Bowl. Maybe I’ll have to relive it … do it again.”
But Whitfield doesn’t necessarily consider himself an Orlando product. He identifies his hometown as the city’s Parramore neighborhood, and he speaks proudly of his upbringing despite some bad memories of the rough and tumble inner city streets.
“I’m from downtown, cross-town area, so it’s very different. We don’t really claim Orlando like that,” Whitfield said. “Everybody in Orlando has put down my area as the worst part. … Where I’m from, the tourists don’t really visit. I represent that area — Parramore Kidz Zone.
“I carry that torch. I gotta put them on my back and I gotta lead
them in the right way.”
It’s those same city streets that took the life of his father and countless other friends and family members over the years, but Whitfield said that’s just part of the territory.
“I didn’t really have nobody. My dad was dead,” Whitfield said. “It didn’t really affect me bad. He was in the streets so that’s what happens when you’re in the streets.”
Levonte Whitfield Sr. got into an argument with his best friend, Scott D. Jones, in 2006 and the fight, which according to police reports was over a basketball bet, eventually cost Levonte Whitfield Sr. his life. Jones shot him and he died shortly after his arrival at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Jones is serving a life sentence in the Santa Rosa Correctional Institute in Milton.
“We had a close relationship,” Kermit Whitfield said of his father, who he lost at the age of 12. The two share a first name, although the younger Whitfield has long gone by Kermit. “But that’s the thing … [getting shot] ain’t nothing weird. That’s normal where I’m from.
“You can’t forget about it. I feel it in my heart, but you gotta live and you can’t let that slow you down. I had to move on.”
What’s not normal is getting out of his neighborhood. Whitfield took advantage of the safe haven provided by football.
“There are a lot of things about Kermit that people don’t know,” said Kenard Lang, who coached Whitfield at Orlando Jones High from 2009-2012. “They’d be like, ‘Oh, he’s from Parramore,’ … Well, what difference does that make? … He left Jones with a 2.9 [GPA] almost a 3.0.
“Kermit easily could have turned and went the other direction. That’s more kudos to him for staying focused and keeping his eyes on the prize.”
Though his mother was a big part of his life growing up, Whitfield lived with his grandparents through most of his high school days.
“God puts you through stuff for a reason and you overcome it,” Whitfield said, “so it made me the better person that I am today. I’ve got my head on straight. He prepared me.”
He enters his final season in the Garnet and Gold coming off the best year of his career (57 catches for 798 yards and six touchdowns). He wants more. He wants to shed the label as a return specialist and he wants to be remembered for far more than one particular kickoff return.
The 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against Auburn that helped the Seminoles win the national championship in January 2014 was one of the biggest plays in school history, but Whitfield gets a little tired of hearing about it. That’s all people still want to talk about when they approach him.
“I won’t say it bothers me, but I don’t want to be remembered as just a return guy. I play football. I got here off playing football, not just returning,” Whitfield said.
He shrugs off the big play as though it was just something he expected.
“It was inevitable. It was going to happen eventually because it was open the whole game and the holes kept getting bigger. I just had to hit the hole,” Whitfield said.
Lang said he saw the huge hole in the Auburn defense from his living room in Orlando.
“I said, ‘There he goes,’ and honestly, for me, that was the first time that I saw Kermit really run,” said Lang, now the head coach at Orlando’s Oak Ridge High. “At Jones, Kermit was so fast, a lot of times when he scored, he wasn’t even running.
“That national championship game was the first time I really saw him sprint from goal line to goal line. And I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”
Lang said he never saw a high school football player faster than Whitfield.
“Never,” he said. “I remember back in his senior year when he scored on two kickoff returns in the first quarter against Freedom. What really made me a believer was his freshman year when we played at Zephyrhills and they punted the ball and it was rolling and slowing down at like the 2or 3-yard line.
“He just looked at everybody standing around and then he picked it up and started running. I was like, “What are you doing?’ … and then, ‘Oh my God that is an awesome play. Great job. Great job.’”
Whitfield has been through a lot during his 22 years, but he’s made the most of his opportunities.
“From the time I got here, I was making sure I didn’t redshirt. I was trying to play right away. No matter how I got on the field, I was going to play,” Whitfield said. “I made a couple of plays here and there, but freshman year and sophomore year didn’t go too well, so the whole summer before my junior year I just worked hard and I had a great season.
“Then coming into this season, I just worked even harder and now I’m just waiting for the outcome of my senior season.”
It kicks off in his old stomping grounds.
Lang said he will never forget Whitfield’s first game at the venue now called Camping World Stadium, where Jones High used to play all its home games.
“All of Parramore was there in the stands at the Citrus Bowl, cheering him on right behind us. I remember it to this day,” said Lang, the former NFL, University of Miami and Orlando Evans High star.
“They were all yelling at me, ‘Give it to Kermit. Give Kermit the ball.’ ”
Whitfield has accomplished a lot since his days at the Citrus Bowl, but there’s more to do, including shedding that return-guy image.
FSU receivers coach Lawrence Dawsey said there’s one way to do that.
“Tell him to get in that paint more,” he laughed. “But Kermit had a great year last year, so hopefully he’ll have an even better year this year.”
Dawsey has had a chance to watch Whitfield mature more closely than almost anyone.
“Kermit is a great kid. He works really hard, but the thing that he got better at since high school is being able to understand that you can’t take plays off,” Dawsey said. “You’ve got to play every play because you don’t know what play it’s going to be. He understands the team aspect of it more now. He’s also more attentive to details and running his routes the right way.
“But off the field, he’s never had issues since he’s been here. If all of them could be like that … never an issue with class, nothing. Kermit’s been a great role model for guys when it comes to that part.”
Count Lang as one who is not surprised at all by what Whitfield has accomplished.
“Some people play football, but Kermit is a football player. … It’s really rare to have a football player who really knows the game of football,” Lang said. “If he’s one of the No. 1 receivers again this year, that wouldn’t surprise me either.”
A big year this season will do nothing but enhance his NFL Draft buzz. Some analysts have said they can even see Whitfield going as high as the second or third round if the right team is there to draft him.
That would certainly have made his dad proud. Whitfield knows one thing. He has done right by his father’s name, so far.
“He would have been proud of me. I’d be happy for making him proud,” Kermit said of his father.
“Coming from where I come from, not too many make it out.”