Ask just about anyone on the Fort Dorchester High School football staff, and they’ll tell you the story.
It was a spring day nine years ago when the staff under longtime South Carolina high school football coach Steve LaPrad put on a middle school combine for kids at the North Charleston school. Each child got a chance to run through varying drills like the 40-yard dash or try their best to move a 90-pound dummy normally reserved for the high school teams.
Standing along the track and armed with a stopwatch, offensive line coach Joey Still clicked his timer as seventh-grader Dakereon Joyner dashed past him. Some say the watch read as low as 4.6 seconds. Others say it was closer to 4.8 seconds. Everyone agrees it was far faster than any seventh-grader they’d seen.
Joyner followed up his spring by pushing the dummy that weighed almost as much as he did at the time. He was the only middle-schooler the entire afternoon to move it.
“I was just absolutely amazed,” Still said through an excited breath. “I stopped what I was doing and jogged over to Coach LaPrad on the other side of the track and said, ‘Coach you have got to check this guy out. You’ve got to watch him.’ ”
Joyner is nearly a decade removed from the middle school combine that put him on the high school map. He’s since evolved into a four-star prospect for the 2018 recruiting class and one of the more prolific athletes South Carolina has produced in recent years.
Injuries and a position switch have largely limited his effectiveness at the college level, but he’s poised to be a veteran leader in 2021 for Shane Beamer’s first team as South Carolina’s coach.
Inconsistencies aside, those who watched him on the high school fields in and around Charleston still marvel at what made him so dynamic at the prep level.
“I mean, at this point in life, you can’t call everything out,” Joyner said in April in reference to his move from quarterback to receiver. “You just never know what’s going to happen. I’m prepared for everything. Right now I’m focused on being a receiver, but I’m ready for whatever because you never know what life will bring you.”
A standout in North Charleston
If Steve LaPrad had his way, Joyner would’ve been on Fort Dorchester’s varsity team as an eighth-grader had state rules allowed it. Instead, Joyner torched JV defenses as an eighth-grader.
With school letting at out at 4 p.m. for middle-schoolers and students at Fort Dorchester being released at 3 p.m., Patriots coaches were tasked with arranging for Joyner to be let out of class early each day and then driven over to the high school so he could practice with the JV team.
“He started for the JV as eighth-grader, and I mean he was was unreal,” former Fort Dorchester quarterbacks coach Ryan Charpia told The State.
Memories of Joyner’s darting, dipping and ducking that he parlayed into on-field success under center still rest at the front of his former coaches’ minds.
Charpia’s first memory is Joyner’s first-ever start, one that saw Fort Dorchester down perennial power Summerville for the first time in more than a decade.
LaPrad also jumps back to Joyner’s freshman season. Struggling to put away a pesky Carolina Forest team heading into the fourth quarter, he inserted Joyner at quarterback. The Patriots won the game 46-7.
“(Carolina Forest head coach) Marc (Morris) said, ‘Man, as soon as I saw that rascal come in off that sideline I knew we were done,’” LaPrad recounted through a laugh.
For Fort Dorchester receivers coach Kevin White, it’s the playoff game against Goose Creek the next season that comes to mind. Tossing an ill-timed interception, Joyner chased down the defender who caught his errant pass to save a touchdown.
“It was unreal,” White said. “To go back and relive those plays that he made and how he extended the play — for example, the Goose Creek play where he saved the touchdown — it was just like, wow.”
Joyner’s athleticism allowed him to climb the high school depth chart almost immediately. He traded snaps his freshman year with senior quarterback Kobe Garrett. Joyner would eventually take the reins of the offense for good later that season.
As a sophomore, he led Fort Dorchester to its first state championship, downing Dorman 59-31 in the title game. Joyner finished the day with more than 300 yards passing and a trio of touchdowns as he out-dueled future teammate and one-time Colorado State quarterback Collin Hill.
“He’s big. He’s fast. He moves like a cheetah runs,” Fort Dorchester defensive coordinator Brent LaPrad said. “But then you talk to him and that’s when it really blows you away. … Like even if you sit down and talk to him for five minutes, you’d be like, ‘He could be president one day.’ ”
Fort Dorchester finished Joyner’s four years of high school with a 54-6 record and a 40-3 mark when he started. Joyner accounted for more than 9,700 career passing yards and thrice eclipsed 1,000 yards rushing.
During his senior season that ended with him being named Mr. Football in South Carolina, Joyner completed 140 of 207 passes for more than 2,400 yards and 35 touchdowns. He again ran for over 1,000 yards and added 17 touchdowns on the ground. He did all of it while battling a severely injured Achilles that later required a procedure to fix.
“He makes everybody else up their game,” LaPrad said. “That’s the difference in him.”
‘I’ve been at this mess for 44 years and I’ve never had one like him’
Prior to his standout senior season at Fort Dorchester, Joyner pledged to former South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp over an offer sheet that included Alabama, Clemson and Oklahoma, among others.
In three-plus years in Columbia, Joyner’s collegiate career has ebbed and flowed. He spent his first two seasons at quarterback, while also splitting some time at receiver. He converted to receiver full-time a season ago, but never quite maintained the consistency that made him such a threat at the high school level.
Joyner is now fully healthy heading into the 2021 season and feels he has a deeper understanding of the position. Receivers coach Justin Stepp lauded his leadership and dynamic athletic ability this spring.
“I think I’m starting to come along well,” Joyner said in April. “I’m grateful. I’ve put a lot of time into the offseason and the ins and outs and everything. I’m not where I want to be, but I am making progress.”
Steve LaPrad and the rest of his staff say there was never any thought Joyner would transfer in hopes of latching on as a quarterback elsewhere. That would be against his competitive nature.
Fort Dorchester has produced a number of collegiate players in recent years. NFL defenders Carlos Dunlap, Robert Quinn and Byron Maxwell are among the school’s more decorated football alumni.
But to those who watched Joyner dash around, over and through defenses all across South Carolina, the former quarterback turned receiver remains among the most memorable players to pass through Fort Dorchester. After all, it’s his story of middle school combine feats years ago that have become a part of program lore.
“I’ve been at this mess for 44 years and I’ve never had one like (Joyner) and I’ve never had one like him since,” LaPrad said. “That’s saying something.”