TAMPA — High on Hillsborough’s locker room wall, just a few feet from the door to coach Earl Garcia’s office, sits a digital clock with bright, neon red numbers.
This particular clock doesn’t tell the Terriers the time of day. Instead, it counts down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to Friday night’s kickoff against Armwood.
The field house is abuzz with excitement for the upcoming matchup, which could turn out to be the district championship despite the fact that it’s only the second game of the season for Hillsborough. But perhaps no one is more ready to take the field than wide receiver Rudy Dawson III.
That’s because he knows just how quickly the game he loves could be taken away.
Midway through the first quarter of the Terriers’ win against Jefferson last week, Dawson received a punt and took off running. Out of the corner of his eye he saw teammate Anthony King come in for a block. There was a collision. He kept on going.
When Dawson was finally stopped, the junior looked over and saw King lying on the ground.
“He was screaming bad,” Dawson said. “He was laying on the ground just crying, and the whole team was in shock. …I didn’t want it to be true.”
King, who has been on the varsity squad since his freshman year, didn’t return to the game. And since the senior athlete has what doctors believe is an ACL injury, Garcia said it’s possible he won’t return all season.
The loss of his teammate was a blow. Dawson took it as a challenge.
In Hillsborough’s 33-24 win against district rival Jefferson, Dawson led his team with 143 yards and a school-record 14 receptions.
“Our chemistry was great through that whole game,” Dawson said of quarterback Dwayne Lawson. “I felt like I was in his head, he was in my head. We were as one.”
While Dawson’s record-breaking performance might have been a surprise, his connection with Lawson, a Miami commit, was anything but.
The two met playing flag football and basketball at Memorial Middle School, which sits right across the street from Hillsborough High. At the lunch table, they’d always have the same conversation.
“He was always talking about what we were going to do when we got to Hillsborough,” Lawson recalled. “To finally get there and see it happen, it’s a great experience.”
Dawson, who led the Terriers with 33 receptions in 2013, is one of six returning receivers who recorded at least 200 yards last season. With King possibly out of the equation, he’s ready to help pick up the slack.
The 5-foot-7, 160-pound receiver may be undersized, but his goals are not. Dawson said he’d like to hit 1,000 yards receiving, 500 yards rushing and at least 15 touchdowns before the season is over.
And though Garcia admits he’s “not a stats guy,” he believes Dawson could put up some huge numbers.
“He’s very quick, he’s very elusive and he runs with great authority,” Garcia said. “After that, the ball is not that heavy, you don’t have to be that big to carry it. And he’s good at it.”
It was a scorcher Wednesday at Hillsborough’s Marcelino Huerta Field, and Dawson had hours of practice ahead of him. Still, there was nowhere else he said he’d rather be. Keeping in mind his injured teammate, Dawson is determined not to take a single minute of the season for granted.
“For him, it’s gone,” he said. “You can’t get it back.”
So into the weight room he went, the clock behind Dawson’s head reminding him of his next test — two days, three hours, 50 minutes and 12 seconds away.
Contact Kelly Parsons at kaparsons@tampabay.com. Follow @_kellyparsons.