Panthers’ Norman right where he always envisioned as Super Bowl arrives

More than a week before Super Bowl 50, after the Carolina Panthers run through a practice back in Charlotte, a crowd of media forms in front of Josh Norman’s locker awaiting his arrival.

Thursdays are the designated day he usually speaks to reporters each week, now that he’s found himself in such high demand during a breakout season.

As Norman takes his seat, he faces away from the assembled horde and toward the lockers next to him while taking his time going through his process.

He’s been gold for the media this year, from his engaging comments to his “Dark Knight” routine – one of the personas he embraces as part of his mental preparation for games – and on this day there are more than a dozen reporters and television cameras crammed in front of his locker waiting for the show to start.

Norman stays in his zone, pulling out a small tomahawk of some sort from his locker to cut open a package. At times he puts his head in his hands, fixed in thought.

Panthers teammate Tre Boston starts providing mock narration from two lockers down.

“Look at the way he takes off his cleats … As we get a little closer, we might get to know the real J-No. Look at the way he takes off his [pads], just like us. Unbelievable,” Boston says in a dramatic voice, making light of the media sensation Norman – the fourth-year cornerback out of Coastal Carolina – has suddenly become.

Norman walks away for a bit as the media throng remains in position waiting, before soon returning to face whatever questions this day brings.

He’s asked about what new movies he’s watched, about a recent game of P-I-G with quarterback Cam Newton and teammates, about whether the Panthers still feel disrespected and, of course, about facing Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl.

Norman calls him “The Sheriff” and “P-freaking Manning” and talks about how he used to use him and the Indianapolis Colts in video games.

The questions keep coming. A reporter from Mexico asks him what he would say to children from that country who hope to one day be where he is now.

“If they’ve got a dream and if they’ve got a desire, just push for it because everything and anything is possible,” Norman says. “As long as you believe and have that faith, all things in due process [are possible]. … That’s how I got here.”

It’s a fitting response from a guy who a while back was sleeping on his brother’s couch, taking classes at Horry Georgetown Technical College and going to watch Coastal Carolina football practices waiting for his opportunity to walk-on to the team. A guy who two years ago was inactive much of the second half of the season and at an ultimate career crossroads. And a guy who is now a first-team All-Pro selection, in the conversation of best cornerbacks in football, one of the faces of a Super Bowl team and headed for a mammoth payday in free agency after this season.

As entertaining as Norman can be at times, though, he can also be very soft-spoken in other moments.

Boston, one of the Panthers’ free safeties, will say later that Norman was “destined” for this spotlight, this stature and that now that it’s come, he’s simply trying to manage it and find the right balance.

“I think at first Josh was excited to get [all the attention],” Boston says. “Now he doesn’t want it to be about him; he wants it to be more about the team. So when he has 40 cameras in his face, he might not seem excited anymore because he knows this isn’t about him. This is bigger than him. He doesn’t want the attention. We’ve got guys on this team without any egos and he doesn’t want an ego or anything to be built upon his character.”

Back in a smaller area off the Panthers’ locker room, in a more intimate setting as another reporter waits to ask him about his horse Delta 747 – a social media star in its own right now – Norman reflects on this transformation that has unfolded over the last year and a half.

“Man, life has been crazy,” he says. “So many more text messages, so many more phone calls, social media has been going off the roof. Everybody is on J_No24’s side now. Batman (or the persona he adopts) has gotten even bigger than I thought it would be. … Overwhelming is a word, yes, you could say.”

It’s even more surreal, though, for those who have followed his climb, his perseverance and now his arrival.

“It’s been very strange, I guess you can say,” says Tony Temple, Norman’s position coach at Greenwood High School who remains close with the cornerback. “It’s just mind-blowing because I was fortunate enough to coach him in high school and we’ve got a very close relationship, and he goes from struggling in the NFL to [even] get on the field consistently to last year turning it on and playing great and carrying it over to this year now where he’s one of the top five faces [of the team]. It’s Thomas Davis, Cam Newton, Josh Norman … you’re like what?

“It’s just kind of crazy to see him with them, see him doing ESPN work on the bye week. It’s just crazy that you got a kid who was not recruited highly out of high school, walks on, fifth-round draft choice that has just continued to push himself and work. Now he’s up on the big stage. The cool thing is he’s still Josh. He’s not trying to be anybody else. He’s still Josh.”

Walking on at CCU

Former Coastal Carolina football coach David Bennett remembers a young Josh Norman showing up at Chanticleer practices in 2007 to watch his brother Marrio, a defensive back on the team then.

Occasionally Norman would wander onto the field and start doing backpedals. Sometimes his brother would throw him the ball.

“I’d go out there and say to myself, ‘I could be here easily,’ ” he recalls.

Bennett remembers former Chants assistant coach Drew Watson pointing him out and saying, “That’s Josh Norman – Marrio’s brother.”

“He had something to prove,” Bennett says. “He’s always had something to prove.”

Coming out of Greenwood High School, Norman didn’t have many football options. Georgia had flirted with him, but he was a late qualifier academically and ultimately they wouldn’t make an offer.

Mars Hill, a Division II program in western North Carolina, wanted him and tried hard to lure him there, but Norman had his mind on one thing – the NFL and the most conducive path to get there.

He wanted to go play with his brother at Coastal Carolina – even if that meant living on Marrio’s couch and taking classes at Horry Georgetown Tech for a year.

“I sent a good friend [at Mars Hill] his highlight tape. He said, ‘Coach, he’s our No. 1 recruit,’ ” Temple recalls. “He said, ‘We don’t give full rides at Division II, but he’ll get a full one from us.’ … I tried to encourage him to go to Mars Hill. I said, ‘They’re going to pay for your college, you don’t have to pay a dime and secondly they’ve got people in the NFL and you’ve got a great coach there. Why are you going to go walk-on? You haven’t even qualified or been accepted into Coastal yet?’ ”

Temple’s fear was that being away from the structure of a football program for a year would sidetrack Norman's focus on working out and staying in shape to pursue his goals.

That wasn’t an option in Norman’s mind, though.

Talking during one of his media sessions in San Jose this week leading up to the Super Bowl, Norman recalls those days in great detail, right down to the worn-out couch he slept on while waiting for his chance.

“Sheesh, I recall just getting off that couch that sunk in deep. It was brown, dark brown. I’d get up off it, have my work right to the side of me,” he says, telling the story. “[I recall] going out the door, going down those steps and getting in a car that had no handles on it, getting into it, driving a green Camry to Horry Georgetown, taking classes there and when I got done, getting something to eat and going straight to work at the Lighthouse Care Center.

“As soon as I got done from there, I ended up coming back home and it didn’t stop for me there. I went outside and did sprints and I started to time myself on the sprints as I was doing it. I did that every day, and I tried to beat the time that I did the previous day. I remember doing that routine for months and months. … The whole time I was just working, working, working and working.”

According to Temple, Norman took nine credits each in the fall and spring semesters and six more in the summer to take care of the academics he needed to join the Chants as a walk-on.

Ask him now and he’ll say even then he envisioned all of this, the NFL success and the budding stardom … no matter how far away it actually was.

“Absolutely. Absolutely, ever since day one when I was in middle school,” Norman says. “I always knew I was going to be here. I always had that thought in my mind. [It was just] getting to the point of getting here and overcoming all the obstacles that I was facing. That was the main thing for me because I knew the talent that I have – it was just, was I going to work that hard to meet my talent? And the things that I had to overcome, they were just a test for me to say, ‘OK, are you going to go through this wall, or are you going to get stuck behind it?’

“I just kept hitting it, brick by brick, just kept bowling my way through it and finally I broke through and I’m here now. So I’m not going to turn around and change or be anything other than who I am or knowing where I come from.”

By his second year at Coastal Carolina, he was put on scholarship and would go on to set a Big South record with eight interceptions. He’d finish his collegiate career with 13 while garnering several FCS All-American honors.

And so believing in himself as he always has, he traveled to New York City for the 2012 NFL Draft expecting to be selected in the first three rounds.

When that didn’t happen, he left and headed home. He’d eventually get taken by the Panthers in the the fifth round and draw from that even more motivation.

“I think he was very disappointed at that time, but it’s part of the story that’s really driven him to perform and show people that, ‘Hey, you missed out,’ ” Temple says.

Adds Bennett: “I text him all the time, ‘Keep that chip, keep proving yourself.’ He says, ‘I appreciate it.’ That’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to keep proving himself.”

Slow start in the NFL

During his first season with the Panthers in 2012, as his old high school won a state championship, Norman called Temple to say congratulations.

Norman had just landed in Kansas City for a game against the Chiefs while preparing to make his 12th straight start as a rookie, and he invited Temple to come watch him play the next week at home against the Atlanta Falcons, so he headed up to Charlotte that following weekend.

“That was the first game they took him out of the starting lineup and he had no idea,” Temple recalls. “He was very disheartened, very upset because he felt like he was good enough to play.”

Norman played sparingly the rest of the first season and in general, his first couple years in Carolina did not go at all as he envisioned.

In the second game of his second season, he missed an assignment against Buffalo that allowed the Bills to score the eventual game-winning touchdown and he would end up inactive for 10 of the next 15 games (including the playoffs).

Visiting Norman in the locker room before the Panthers’ 2013 first-round playoff game, there was no crowd around his locker, no television cameras waiting for him.

Rather subdued while reflecting on that trying season he said then, “It’s definitely something I’m not going to get used to.”

Privately, Temple says, Norman just wanted a chance to start over somewhere else.

“At that time he was like, ‘Man, I just wish I could get traded,’ ” Temple recalls. “I said, ‘Look buddy, this is where your faith has to kick in – it’s when things aren’t going good. Right now the only thing you can control is Josh Norman. You be the best practice player, the best teammate every day and if you handle yourself like a pro during the hard times eventually you’ll find yourself where you need to be.’”

The transformation

So much has changed in two years.

From the scene in the locker room at Bank of America Stadium last week to Super Bowl 50 Opening Night on Monday in San Jose, it’s clear now that Norman has arrived.

Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders wanted some of his time Monday night to interview him and settle some sort of misunderstanding over comments Sanders made in the wake of Norman’s high-profile spat in late December with New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

Meanwhile, Denver Broncos quarterback and future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning had taken his turn singing Norman’s praises.

“He’s made a couple game-saving interceptions, of course one against the Saints, so he’s an outstanding football player,” Manning would say. “Some say he’s a great cover corner, and it’s just labeling a guy one way. This guy’s an outstanding football player and fits in great with this defense.”

Norman tallied four interceptions and three forced fumbles in the regular season, scored two defensive touchdowns and was named the NFC’s Defensive Player of the Month in September.

The Denver wide receivers have been prompted with questions about Norman all week as well, and toward the end of the team’s media availability the Broncos’ Emmanuel Sanders was so tired of being asked about facing Norman that he slipped a comment that reporters took as a dig at the corner, that Norman had “talked himself into the media,” before the wide receiver later clarified his comments.

Meanwhile Thursday, Norman was being visited in the media room by rapper Snoop Dogg.

Again, so much has changed in two years.

From a performance standpoint, though, his Panthers teammates say they aren’t the least bit surprised by Norman’s transformation into a bona fide NFL star.

“The guy that I saw a couple of years ago is exactly the guy we’re seeing right now, with a lot more confidence,’ linebacker Thomas Davis says. “He had the opportunity when he first came into the league to compete and work his butt off and go against Steve Smith on a day-in and day-out basis and that made him a better football player.”

“He’s been this way for the couple years I’ve known him,” Boston says. “It was only a matter of [time] for people catching on. It was only a matter of [time] before he locked down that one receiver [and] you all finally gave credit. And he deserves it because this isn’t something that just sprung on us this year. It happened over time.”

The future

Just like folks back at Coastal Carolina are sharing in the ride with Norman this week as he plays on the game’s biggest stage, so too are the people back in Greenwood.

People around town are buzzing about it over social media, linking to stories about Norman, Temple says.

“I think one main reason is not just because he’s from Greenwood, but since he’s been in the NFL he’s been back to Greenwood a numerous amount of times, done charity work, special events, spoken to the football team,” he adds. “He’s given back so much to the community, that’s why they’re so proud of him.”

According to Temple, Norman has made donations to local churches and gave a local family $10,000 to pay for the medical bills of a childhood classmate who died of cancer, among other returns for his hometown.

“We’ve texted back and forth this week,” Temple says. “I’m just happy to see a kid that’s worked that hard, an underdog to do it and at the same time to be so humble and to give back.”

Meanwhile, Bennett, the former Coastal Carolina coach, is in Florida this week for a getaway with his wife and yet his phone has kept ringing with calls from reporters who want to talk about Norman.

He too says he still sees the same player he coached with the Chants.

“Josh is Josh,” Bennett says. “He likes to be a little flamboyant, but people don’t realize he was a theater major for two years and realized he couldn’t be a theater major and play football so he changed to communications. So that football field became his stage. He’s a [guy] that laughs and jokes all the time, but when he steps on the field, that’s [done]. He’s Clark Kent becoming Superman. He’s Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. He goes into a different role when he steps on the field.”

Norman may not have changed, as those who know him say, but his life is surely about to in a big way – even more so than it already has.

Bennett says before the season a friend of his claimed to have knowledge that the Panthers were offering Norman a five-year, $37-million extension, so he texted his former player and told him to ask for $9 million per year as a negotiating tactic.

“Josh called me up and said, ‘How do you know those numbers?’ ” Bennett says. “I said, ‘I want you to stay a Carolina Panther.’ He said, ‘Coach, you might coach 40 years, but my window in the NFL is a whole lot smaller.’ He said, ‘I’m going to have one shot at signing a five-year deal and there’s corners making a whole lot more money. I’m going to prove that I’m as good or better than every one of them this year.’ ”

The Charlotte Observer reported in mid-September that Norman and the team had formally halted negotiations as he chose to play out the season for a $1.54-million salary while planning to become a free agent in March. And if those numbers Bennett was told are accurate – or, regardless, whatever the numbers were – Norman’s bet on himself this season is about to pay off big time.

According to Spotrac’s NFL salary database, 11 cornerbacks made $9 million or more this season with the Jets’ Darrelle Revis, the Cardinals’ Patrick Peterson, the Seahawks’ Richard Sherman and the Browns’ Joe Haden all making at least $13.5 million.

“I hate to say it, but he was right,” Bennett says. “He’s going to sign a five-year contract that will last him the rest of his life.”

During the Panthers’ final media availability this week, a reporter from the San Francisco area asks Norman his impressions of his stay here and whether he’d have interest in signing with the 49ers.

Norman smiles and repeatedly taps the Super Bowl 50 patch on his jersey.

“All that matters to me,” he says. “After that game, that’s probably when I’ll have a sea upon a sea of questions about all that stuff. … But all my time and energy is focused on this right here.”

And after the game Sunday night, he says he also might spend a little more time thinking about how far he’s come from those days sleeping on his brother’s couch, from everything that’s made up the path that has led him all the way here.

But that too is not a topic he’s felt the need to dwell on too much during this special season, he says.

Because no matter the road, this was always the intended destination.

“I don’t really reflect on it too much because with my work ethic I feel I was going to be here anyway,” Norman says. “It’s just getting that shot, getting the opportunity and the chance and once I got my chance and opportunity, God shed light upon it and made it grow.”

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 7:23 PM with the headline "Panthers’ Norman right where he always envisioned as Super Bowl arrives."