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TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Billy Nicholas remembers the night he almost threw fists at Tony McCarron.
A heated argument between coach and father centered on the future of then-sixth-grader AJ McCarron, Tony's son.
Nicholas, AJ's park ball coach, had already identified the boy's star potential.
"I was extremely hard on him, extremely hard to the point where his daddy was ready to take him off the team," Nicholas said. "... He thought I was mistreating his son. I told him, 'Your son's going to play on a different stage than the rest of these kids. He's going to be held to a different standard, and as soon as he learns that the better off he's going to be. Everybody's looking to him to achieve this and achieve that.
"'Failure's not going to be an option for AJ.'"
AJ began to develop his stone-cold glare on the football fields of Mobile. It began at the age of 7 when AJ stepped on a park ballfield.
Nicholas vividly recalls the first 30 seconds AJ held the football, then stepped back to launch a 40-yard pass to another coach.
"I won't ever forget it," Nicholas said. "When we were having drills the first day I ever coached AJ, the assistant coach looked at me and said,
'This kid's going to play for Alabama.' I thought that was the silliest thing I had ever heard. After a couple of days, I realized this kid's got something that most kids don't."
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