By Brice Cherry

Tribune-Herald staff writer

As a senior at Marlin High School in the fall of 2005, Jeremy Sanders fired eight touchdown passes to his favorite receiver, Danario Alexander. On the basketball court, he tossed a few dozen more passes — many of the alley-oop variety — to Alexander for high-flying buckets.

But Sanders’ greatest assist to Alexander came by simply being a good athlete himself.

Now a junior wide receiver at Missouri, Alexander is arguably the Tigers’ most athletically dangerous weapon for an offense whose arsenal might as well be classified as nuclear. Sanders, meanwhile, has settled in as a backup running back at Baylor after vying for the Bears’ starting quarterback position throughout preseason camp.

Though he’ll stand on the opposite sideline on Saturday, Alexander could never consider Sanders — known as J-Mo since his youth — his enemy.

“He put me on the map,” Alexander said. “I feel like I owe J-Mo everything. If it wasn’t for him, I’d probably be running track somewhere. All these schools that came in to look at him started noticing me, too. It all started with him.”

Though Sanders, who quarterbacked Marlin to the Class 3A Division II state final as a sophomore in 2003, was the more decorated and recognizable athlete in high school, that wasn’t always the case. On their first peewee football team at age 9, Alexander starred at running back. Helping to clear blocks for him was Sanders, the starting center.

“Our team was the Warriors, and Jeremy was the center,” Alexander recalled. “It’s so funny to think about. It’s pretty crazy — I think he moved to tight end before he finally got moved to quarterback.”

“Yeah, I played center,” Sanders said with a grin. “We didn’t have a center, and being young, I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I want to play center.’ ”

Nobody has ever mistaken Alexander for an offensive lineman. A well-chiseled 6-foot-5, 210-pound bounder, he was always blessed with off-the-charts athleticism. He was a dunking savant on the basketball court, and used those hyperactive hops to capture the 3A state triple jump title as a senior, while claiming silver in the long jump.

It was actually on the basketball court where Alexander first caught the eye of Missouri’s scouts. A Tigers assistant coach was in town to visit Sanders when he saw Alexander soaring through the air snatching rebounds and throwing down tomahawk dunks.

“Sometimes you have cases where you stumble across a guy,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said. “You’re watching film of one player and you see someone and go, ‘Who’s that guy?’ There’s no question that Danario is talented. He’s one of the most talented receivers I’ve ever coached.”

Though other schools, including Baylor, made a late recruiting charge at Alexander, he remained true to the first Division I school to show him some love.

“Missouri was the first team to offer me, and I stuck with that,” he said. “Baylor and others came along, but I wanted to stay loyal to the team that gave me an opportunity in the first place.”

Looking back now, Alexander believes he couldn’t have chosen a more perfect place to gain an education. That includes his schooling in Receiver 101.

“My ability to jump and run, that’s all God-given,” Alexander said. “I was really just raw talent coming out of high school. Here I’ve learned how to control it. Just through the strength staff and the coaches, I’ve learned how to be able to control myself in the air and I’ve learned the fundamentals of making different catches.”

Alexander played sparingly for Missouri as a true freshman in 2006, then broke his wrist in the season opener last year. After missing four games, he returned and emerged as a key cog in the Tigers’ offensive machine, catching 37 passes for 417 yards and a pair of touchdowns. But his season came to an abrupt end when he tore his ACL making a 19-yard run against Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship game.

Alexander endured not one but two surgeries on the knee, then had to clear another hurdle when he re-injured it in June, just two months before the start of fall camp. But he has persevered, and ranks third on the team with four touchdown grabs, behind Jeremy Maclin (seven) and Chase Coffman (five).

“The important thing to understand about Danario is that he’s got a phenomenal work ethic,” Pinkel said. “That’s allowed him to be successful despite the adversity he’s faced, especially with the injuries.”

It didn’t take long to realize that knee surgery didn’t ground this high flier.

“He could lose six inches off his vertical leap and still jump higher than most DBs in the league,” Missouri offensive coordinator Dave Christensen said.

Alexander’s old high school QB is not surprised at all that he has been able to overcome adversity to make an impact.

“Danario has heart. He always liked to compete,” Sanders said. “Really, it’s all about winning with him. He wants to win whatever it is. I guess as Marlin players, a lot of us got that same vibe.”

Their paths may have diverged a bit since those days in the purple and black, but Alexander and Sanders remain, forever, Bulldogs at heart.

“I’m pretty sure half of Marlin will be at the game on Saturday, looking forward to this one,” Alexander said. “Probably half on J-Mo’s side, and half on mine.”

bcherry@wacotrib.com

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