Gamal Wallace helping lead Packers through difficult season

Published 11:44 pm Tuesday, October 20, 2020

MOULTRIE —It has been, Gamal Wallace agrees, a “crazy” 2020 football season.

From the loss of spring practice and restricted summer workouts to the quarantines that left him and his Colquitt County teammates with having played just four games deep into October, it has been a difficult time.

How has the senior linebacker dealt with it?

“I pray and pray and pray,” he said recently during another week in which Packers will not play a game because of the effects of COVID-19.

Even during the down times, Wallace says the Packers have continued to work hard to stay in condition, focus on football and concentrate on their grades.

“And we keep wearing our masks,” he says.

Wallace is clearly one of coach Justin Rogers’s leaders, a player he counts on to help usher the team through this unique and frustrating season.

“He is always positive,” Rogers said. “Always has a smile on his face.”

And is one heck of a football player, too.

“He’s got a nose for the ball,” Rogers said of his 6-foot-1, 205-pound senior. “And he knows only one speed.

“And he plays with the same speed on Mondays and Tuesdays that he does on Friday nights. He just loves football.”

That love of the game was nurtured early on by the coaches he played for in Colquitt County’s Pop Warner football program, which was started by his father George Wallace.

He lists a number of men who were associated with the program who encouraged him along the way, including Sandy Knighton, Ronald Alford, Pershaun Fann, Stefan Reynolds, Corey Jordan and Walter Grier.

The Moultrie team not only excelled against Pop Warner teams in the state, but also traveled to regional tournaments in Atlanta and Jacksonville and Orlando in Florida.

A large number of the current Packers are alumni of the community’s Pop Warner program.

“We’ve been together all this time,” he said. “They are all my brothers.”

Wallace started as a defensive lineman.

“I was a chubby guy,” he says.

He was a defensive lineman on the Colquitt County seventh-grade team when he  intercepted a pass and ran it 25 yards for a touchdown, a feat he would memorably reprise five years later.

No longer chubby, he was playing outside linebacker for the Packers when Valdosta faced a second-and-10 from its own 20 with just over eight minutes remaining in their Sept. 25, game on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium.

The Packers had just gone ahead 17-10 on a field goal by Emmanuel Perez, who then sent the kickoff deep into the north end zone.

Valdosta quarterback Amari Jones was stopped for no gain on first down, and on second down was under some pressure as he looked for a pass receiver.

His throw to his right never made it to a Wildcat.

Wallace explains what happened.

“I just saw the ball coming and I jumped up and grabbed it,” he said. “While I was up in the air, I remember thinking, ‘I’ve got to score. I might never get this chance again.’”

The Wildcats made an effort to stop him short of the goal line, but he fought through the attempted tackles to score.

The touchdown and another Perez extra point put the game out of reach in the Packers 24-10 victory.

It was extra sweet because it was the Packers annual rivalry game, Wallace said.

The Packers are eager to get back on the field and build on their 4-0 start.

Colquitt will play Camden County at home on Oct. 30 and then tangle with Lowndes the following Friday night, also in the Hog Pen.

Once this strangest of seasons is over, Wallace hopes to continue his career.

Rogers believes he will.

Asked recently about which current Packer might be a “sleeper” recruit, Rogers was quick to name Wallace.

“I think he will find a home somewhere,” he said.

Wallace says he has been contacted by a number of schools about joining their programs, including Austin Peay and the University of the Cumberlands.

He said he would really like to play at the University of Florida or the University of Georgia.

Wallace said he also is receiving mail from colleges and university interested in him for his academic prowess as well, including one from Yale.

Wherever he goes, he plans on studying psychology.

If he plays at the next level, he will be the second of the Wallace brothers to do so.

Mar’Kaybion, known as Bubba to family, friends and Packer fans, was a running back for Colquitt County the last two years and now is playing at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa.

That program is a little far from home for Gamal.

“That’s a 19-hour drive,” he said. “If I was there, I’d be so homesick.”