As I step out of the car at Harmony Grove High School outside Little Rock, I’m greeted by a gentle whoosh of radiant heat, as if I just opened the oven door to see whether the cookies are golden brown yet.

It’s a sweltering August afternoon in central Arkansas — there is no wind to speak of, and the summer sun is punishing. There’s a faint murmur of crowd noise from a couple hundred yards away.

I begin the short walk toward the football field, and as I turn the corner around the basketball gymnasium, I catch a glimpse of a familiar face — albeit one that’s half concealed behind a pair of Panama Jack aviator sunglasses.

It’s Marcus Wimberly, the four-star safety and longtime Oklahoma commit. But he’s not wearing shoulder pads or carrying a helmet. He’s nothing more than a spectator today. And I’m not here to watch Bauxite High’s squad, for whom Marcus is the cornerstone. Like Marcus himself, I’m here to watch Bauxite Middle School’s sixth-grade squad, for whom his younger brother Chad is a standout linebacker and running back.

Marcus is wearing a Bauxite T-shirt and a pair of board shorts, and he sports a goatee. He cracks a smile and shakes my hand.

“How’s it going, man?” Marcus asks. “How was the drive?”

I give him the brief summary of my four-hour trip from the Grand Lake area as we walk over to the Miner bleachers. There, I’m introduced to an expansive Wimberly contingent that’s on hand to support Chad. Marcus, dad Tommy and mom Kayla are all there, as is Wimberly’s youngest brother — a four-year-old that Marcus refers to as “a wild child.” Also present are a number of extended family members and close friends.

Everyone, young and old, speaks with the same Southern twang. One of the family’s good friends — let’s call him Steve — has watched a few episodes of the Under the Visor Podcast, so he recognizes me. He’ll root for OU because of Marcus, he says, but it won’t change his identity as a die-hard Arkansas Razorback.

Steve then gestures toward Chad, who’s sitting with his teammates and awaiting the delayed conclusion of the fifth-grade game.

“You think Marcus is good?” asks Steve. “Just wait till you see this boy. His football IQ is so high, because growing up, he’s been able to watch Marcus and learn from everything he’s doing.”

Marcus doesn’t take it as a slight. He agrees with Steve’s assessment.

“He’ll be better than me,” he says of Chad.

As kickoff draws near, Marcus and Steve explain to me that before every one of Chad’s games, they’ll set an over/under on how many touches it’ll take him to score. Today, that number is 3, but Marcus offers the bold prediction that it’ll only take Chad one touch to reach the promised land.

Like his older brother, Chad’s jersey number is 1. He takes after Marcus in many ways, especially on the gridiron.

“I think right now, he wants to grow up and play safety for OU,” Marcus laughs.

I take a seat next to Marcus as the Bauxite offense trots onto the field. For the next hour and a half, the conversation is interspersed with the action, and the first topic is the latest subject of Marcus' own recruiting efforts.

“You think we get Jones?” he asks. “Christian Jones, the kid from Nebraska? I want him at OU so bad. I’ve been texting him so much lately. Every few days, just checking in, asking how he’s doing, all that stuff.”

Chad’s first carry goes for a chunk gain and a first down, but he’s brought down by a gaggle of Harmony Grove tacklers before he can fulfill Marcus’ prediction. Marcus laughs it off; he knows that one way or another, it’s only a matter of time before Chad finds the end zone.

Marcus’ smart watch dings. It’s a text from Oklahoma safeties coach Brandon Hall, which sparks a brief dialogue about Marcus’ own recruitment. He grew up a Razorback and was verbally committed to Arkansas at one point, but re-opened his process last December. Shortly thereafter, Hall and the Sooners got involved. However, when Marcus decommitted, he actually had his eyes set on another program.

“I was all about the Michigan Wolverines,” he chuckled. “I wanted to go play for Jay Harbaugh and Jesse Minter. But then that whole coaching staff left! Now, I still get a text from Jay Harbaugh every now and then, which is kind of cool. It’s like… hey, there’s an NFL coach texting me.”

Chad gets bottled up on his second carry, but finds a crease on his third tote and breaks several tackles en route to a huge chunk of yardage. He’s brought down before he can cross the goal line, which prompts Marcus, Tommy and Steve to jokingly rue Chad’s inability to hit that pregame under. One of Chad’s teammates vultures the touchdown, but Bauxite leads 8-0 after a two-point conversion.

“One thing we noticed,” says Marcus as he wipes sweat from his brow and shifts back into recruiting talk, “is that all those coaches at OU are great men. My dad was a huge Brent Venables guy, just because of everything he stands for.”

And indeed, everything that Venables and his staff value is congruent with what the Wimberly family values. Faith in Christ, not excellence in football, is what truly defines Marcus. And everyone around him can testify to that.

“What I always say,” Steve remarks, “is that as good a football player he is, he’s a better worshipper.”

A gifted guitarist and drummer, Marcus is a regular member of the worship team for his local church congregation. And even when he’s not playing with the band, he and the Wimberly clan spend a great deal of time at the church.

“What time did y’all finish playing pickleball last night?” Marcus asks Steve and Tommy.

“Like… 11 pm?” laughs Steve.

Marcus turns to me and explains.

“They were out in the church parking lot playing pickleball last night. We love pickleball around here. I play a lot of pickleball. Me and my friends, we used to just go play for, like, five hours at a time.”

Meanwhile, Chad reminds us of his presence in great style, as he flows from his linebacker position toward the near sideline and lowers the boom on a Harmony Grove ballcarrier. The ball pops out.

Springing to his feet, Marcus roars, “LET'S GO! LET’S GO, BOY!”

A Bauxite defender recovers, eliciting a broader eruption of shouts and applause from the Miners’ cheering section. Upon seeing the referees signal Bauxite ball, Chad saunters off the field in jubilation, flexing for good measure. The kid can hit.

And hitting runs in the bloodline, as Tommy was a standout linebacker at Bauxite High back in the mid-2000’s. He might have played collegiately if not for an unexpected development: Marcus himself, who was born when Tommy and Kayla were still in high school. Seventeen years later, Marcus is carrying on the Wimberly legacy for the Miners, doing a little bit of everything to help elevate the program in his final semester of high school.

“They got me playing quarterback right now,” he laughs. “I can’t throw anything but a screen and the occasional corner route. But you think this is crazy?”

He gestures at Bauxite’s raucous crowd, which features at least a dozen parents that are ardently clattering identical cowbells.

“You gotta see the Pit on a Friday night, man. You gotta see the Pit.”

Marcus could play either linebacker or safety at the next level, and in fact, he’s received Power 4 offers at both spots. But he projects more ideally to safety, especially given his obscene athleticism. At the Under Armour Next camp in Dallas this spring, he ran a laser-timed 4.48 in the 40-yard dash. He broad-jumped well over 10 feet, and recorded the best vertical jump at a camp that featured hundreds of FBS prospects.

Oklahoma had long been pursuing Marcus by that point, but once he turned in those eye-popping testing numbers, the interest from other top-tier collegiate programs began to increase exponentially. None of it mattered, though. That’s because Brent Venables called him some 24 hours after the camp concluded and asked him if he was ready to commit to being a Sooner.

So Marcus returned to campus in early April, handed Venables his crimson and cream poker chip, and publicly announced his commitment to Oklahoma.

“Oregon wanted me at linebacker,” he remarked. “They wanted to fly me up for an official visit, and my dad’s a big Dan Lanning guy. We love Dan Lanning. But I made my decision about a week later.”

And even after Wimberly locked in with the Sooners, it didn’t stop other programs from sniffing around. Georgia safeties coach Travaris Robinson stopped by Bauxite High. Alabama inquired as well.

“Basically,” explained Marcus, “they asked me, ‘Is there any chance we could pull you away from OU?’ And I said, ‘No, sir. I’m pretty locked in.’ And you know, I mean it when I say nothing can change my mind about going to OU.”

Chad’s seventh carry of the game produces the explosive play everyone had been waiting on. It’s an inside zone call. Chad hits the hole, angles to the sideline and outruns everybody, rumbling 40 yards to paydirt. This time, Marcus’ reaction to the run is rather subdued, perhaps because he’s grown pretty accustomed to watching his little brother run circles around opposing defenses.

At halftime, Bauxite leads 22-0, and Marcus makes an effort to get Chad’s attention down on the field.

“Hey, 1!” he shouts. No response.

“Wimbo!”

Chad turns and meets Marcus’ gaze.

“I’m gonna need you to go harder!” Marcus exclaims.

Chad nods and turns his head back toward the field. His services aren’t heavily utilized in the second half; after all, this is sixth-grade football. Everybody has to play. So the Miners empty the bench in various shifts, and the Harmony Grove offense remains stifled throughout. When the final horn sounds, the scoreboard reads Miners 28, Cardinals 0.

Everyone is sweating and eager to get out of the heat, so after some cursory postgame chit-chat with the other parents in attendance, Tommy announces the next plan of action. There’s a new Mongolian restaurant about five miles up the road, and stir fry is on the postgame menu.

The lunch crowd is a smaller one. Tommy, Kayla and the three Wimberly boys roll up to the restaurant in a white minivan. Steve, his wife and their three children are the only others at the informal gathering. It’s a party of eleven, but that’s no problem for the wait staff. They seat us quickly, and a waiter comes by to jot down drink orders.

Kayla asks for sweet tea. Chad requests the same, as does the Wild Child. Marcus breaks the rhythmic echo of their orders by choosing water.

“I love me some sweet tea,” he says, “but I also love water ‘cause it keeps me hydrated. I’ll tell ya, though — when I went up to Michigan, they didn’t have sweet tea! I was like… oh, no. What am I gonna do?”

The drinks come to the table. Everyone is at least a little bit confused as to how they obtain their stir fry, as the menu offers very little detail. The waiter points to a buffet bar in the back of the restaurant and explains that he’ll write your name on a ticket, you’ll take the ticket to the bar, and you’ll get a bowl and fill it up with your choice of ingredients. Then they’ll fry it up for you.

He takes down everyone’s name in turn. I’m at the end of the table, sitting across from Marcus.

“Your name?” the waiter asks.

“Parker.”

“Oh,” he says, smiling. “Like Peter Parker?”

That elicits some laughter from the table. He turns to Marcus, and doesn’t ask his name at all.

“You… Spiderman. Okay?”

A second round of laughter ensues.

“Perfect,” Marcus responds.

After all, if there’s anybody in Bauxite for whom that moniker is fitting, it’s him.

There’s a brief back-and-forth between Chad and Tommy about whether Chad will get a kid’s stir-fry bowl or a standard-size bowl. Though Chad channels his inner Mike Gundy and proclaims “I’m a man,” Tommy informs him that a kid’s bowl will be plenty. This proves true, as it turns out there’s only one singular bowl size when we arrive at the bar. Chad will get just as much food as the rest of us.

Marcus’ previous comment about Michigan’s unfortunate lack of sweet tea sends him down a bit of a rabbit hole as we begin to peruse the buffet.

“We went up there for the Michigan-Ohio State game,” he recalls. “111,000 people yelling at the top of their lungs, man. I couldn’t hear myself think. My chest was rattling. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I remind him that Oklahoma is due for a non-conference visit to Ann Arbor in 2026, which will be his sophomore season. Perhaps they’ll add sweet tea to the stadium beverage lineup by then.

Both Marcus and Chad move right past a diverse selection of vegetables. Their bowls consist of nothing more than Mongolian-style noodles, eggs and various meats.

“Neither of us are big veggie guys,” Marcus explains. “I do love bananas, but outside of that, I’m not a big fruit or veggie guy.”

Kayla chimes in to confirm that all three of her boys are very picky eaters. We hand our bowls to the cooks and head back to the table, where Marcus schools me on his restaurant of choice.

“I’ve never been to a place quite like this,” he remarks. “I’ve had hibachi-style food, but never quite like this. You know what I love? David’s Burgers. You ever been to David’s Burgers?”

I haven’t. Apparently, David’s is only to be found in Arkansas.

“It’s the best burger,” Marcus declares. “And it’s all-you-can-eat fries. And it’s pretty cheap, too. I can get a double burger and a whole bunch of fries for, like, ten bucks. Then you can get a big ol’ cup of ice cream for another two bucks. So good.”

Mental note now made, I assure him that the next time I’m in Arkansas, David’s Burgers will be the stop.

Marcus wolfs down his plate with clinical efficiency, and Tommy insists that he order another. Marcus isn’t terribly inclined to eat any more, but Tommy reminds him that he’s got to continue packing on weight. He finished his junior season just north of 160 pounds, but as he prepares for the beginning of his senior year, he’s sitting at around 195.

Marcus would like to be above 200, but realizes it’s a little impractical to shoot for that goal. He’s already sweated off a few pounds since the start of fall practice, and he’ll continue to do so in the brutal Arkansas heat. He’ll need that extra stir-fry bowl just to help keep his current weight relatively stable.

He goes back to the bar and fills up another bowl. Armed with quarters, Chad heads for a claw machine in the corner of the restaurant. Steve takes this brief window of time to share an anecdote about Marcus’ competitive tendencies.

“You played Marcus in that new EA Football game yet? He won’t admit it, but I beat him the first time we played. Then he went and found all the little cheats. He went and watched a bunch of YouTube videos for three days and now he’s unstoppable.”

Apparently, Steve hasn’t won a game against Marcus since. He alleges that Marcus has mastered some sort of glitchy dark magic with onside kicks. The takeaway here? The kid really hates losing.

Marcus returns to the table. I ask him which protein he chose. He initially misunderstands the question.

“Dymatize Mass Gainer,” he says.

“I think he was talking about your food,” chuckles Tommy.

“Ohhhh!” Marcus laughs. “I don’t know. Whatever one was on the far left.”

We get the answer within seconds, as one of the cooks brings over a bowl brimming with nothing but beef and noodles. There is not a vegetable in sight. I explain the concept of the Oklahoma onion burger and ask him if he could tolerate such a mild vegetable as the humble onion, particularly if it’s cooked into a beef patty. He shakes his head. Vegetables are off limits.

“I like carrots,” volunteers Chad.

Marcus does not concur. Evidently, the only difference between him and Al Michaels is that Al Michaels runs a slower 40.

“I can’t wait for all that food at OU, though,” says Marcus. “And they get steak and shrimp and lobster on Tuesdays — I’m all about that. Well, at least two of the three. No lobster.”

“Since when do you like shrimp?” asks Chad, befuddled.

“I mean, I don’t love shrimp,” replies Marcus. “But if it’s cooked right, I like it.”

Marcus powers through the second bowl. Along the way, he grabs a straw and hijacks Chad’s sweet tea, indulging himself momentarily in the sugary beverage. But after two sips, he’s back to drinking his profusely sweating glass of ice water.

It’s a Saturday and there’s no football activities for Bauxite on the weekend, so Marcus has the rest of the day to kick back. And that’s exactly what he intends to do. Chad wanders back over from one of his trips to the claw machine and asks what’s next, to which Marcus smiles and responds concisely.

“It’s nap time,” he tells Chad, then turns to me and adds, “I love to sleep.”

It’s no wonder that he loved Michigan before Jim Harbaugh left — after all, the ex-Wolverines head coach once proclaimed that the four natural steroids are sleep, whole milk, water and red meat. Marcus will be hitting at least three of those four today.

Tommy settles the bill and gathers his crew, informing the wait staff that the family plans to return soon.

“See you tomorrow,” jokes one of the waiters as Marcus leads the way to the door.

To the white minivan they march. It’s about a 15-minute drive back home. Marcus will get his nap. Come the evening, he might sit down with his guitar, he might fire up the PS5 or he might head back outside to work out — “I do speed ladders every day,” he tells me. He does have a birthday party to swing by, so that'll account for a couple of hours.

Then there’ll be church in the morning, and Marcus’ weekly rhythms will begin anew on Monday. At least for another four months, he’s exactly like any other high school kid. He’s an everyman. And in the realm of blue-chip football prospects, that reality in itself is uncommon.

In a sense, he’s both unique and ubiquitous. That’s just Marcus Wimberly, future Oklahoma Sooner.

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