That used to be Reggie. It wasn't anymore. Football made him want something beyond that corner.

"I seen people standing on that same corner all my life," Reggie said. "You can Google me. You can't take anyone on this street and Google them. But you can Google me."

Like Reggie, teammate Malcolm Mitchell also learned to love the game in high school, and it loved him back, too. But while Reggie's last football game as a player was his last game as a Wildcat -- he raps full time now under the stage name Jim Rock -- Malcolm has gone on to star at wide receiver for the University of Georgia. His future looks limitless.

Yet he's already tasted immortality, too. Malcolm blossomed into a head-turning athlete his final season at Valdosta -- he wanted to quit his sophomore year until his mother talked him out of it -- and was wooed by schools across the Southeast, including Alabama and Florida.

That last high school season, he told me about a voice in his head when he took the field, how it told him to anticipate something before it happened, and what to do when it came about. He said the voice had never been louder or more distinct than it was that year. He'd given up trying to figure out what it was. He was just going with it.

"I want to say it's God telling me that something's going to happen," he tried to explain, "but it's something telling me."

Whatever it was, it worked. Malcolm broke Valdosta's three-decade-old record for most catches in a season. The previous record holder was Stan Rome, widely considered the greatest athlete in Valdosta's history. Stan went on to become an NFL wide receiver, as well as the father of Jay Rome, another highly recruited Wildcat and now Malcolm's teammate and roommate at Georgia.

"I got my way into the museum -- into the history books," Malcolm said one afternoon after that season. "I got to the point where I'll always be remembered. Maybe if I make it to the NFL it'll be bigger than this. Maybe if I make it to the Hall of Fame. But right now, people will remember me for this no matter what."

We talked a little more that afternoon about the Voice; Malcolm detailed the dialogues that ran through his head during a half dozen critical plays that season. I then mentioned Reggie's on-field conversations with relatives from the beyond.

Malcolm just smiled. He didn't find any of it weird or unconventional.

"For an athlete who loves to play the game, it happens more than you know," he said. "We're not just running around."

I knew that. Just forgot.