Before Micah Parsons became one of the NFL’s best players, he was a nightmare matchup for central Pennsylvania high school coaches.

As a running back. And kicker. And return man. And, obviously, a defensive end/linebacker.

At Central Dauphin and Harrisburg, the two high schools where Parsons played, he did it all. It's no wonder, then, that the Dallas Cowboys’ star pass rusher has lobbied for opportunities on the other side of the ball.

"He could do it all on offense," said Mick Vecchio, the now-retired former head coach of Governor Mifflin, the team that knocked Parsons’ Harrisburg squad out of the Pennsylvania 6A playoffs in 2017, his senior year. "He would run around us, and he would run over you. The combination of the two, just unbelievable.

"He was a monster among boys." 

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To this day, Parsons strikes fear into offensive lines and leaves coaches shaking their heads. USA TODAY Sports spoke with several coaches from Parsons' high school playing days for a sense of his prowess as an offensive player and dominance in all three phases of the game.

How Micah Parsons first blossomed as a running back

As an eighth grader, Parsons played on the Central Dauphin freshman team. He started on varsity as a freshman at defensive end the next season and immediately stood out. 

Central Dauphin trailed by six points in the opener, head coach Glen McNamee recalled. The opposing team lined up for a punt. Parsons blocked the attempt, scooped the ball himself and scored to tie the game that Central Dauphin wound up winning. Four games later, Penn State – Parsons’ ultimate college destination following a recruitment that included just about every major program in the country – offered him a scholarship. 

"He was so gifted right off the bat," McNamee told USA TODAY Sports. 

Late in his freshman season, McNamee recalled, Parsons approached him at halftime of a game. He wanted to carry the ball. Central Dauphin had a suitable lead, enough for Parsons to make his formal debut on offense. McNamee called Parsons’ number on a jet sweep. 

"The timing was all messed up. The ball might have ended up on the ground," McNamee said. "But he ended up getting the ball in his hands and, in my memory, broke about six or seven tackles. Ended up with a nice gain."

Nobody was surprised, given Parsons' physical gifts. But it wasn’t until his junior year that the 2021 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year played both ways consistently.

"I think everybody felt that his versatility at his talent level was probably generational," said McNamee, who has coached in the region for 22 years. "Just wasn’t something that was seen much, if not ever, around here.

"He really was almost unstoppable on offense – catching the ball and running the ball."

According to MaxPreps, Parsons rushed 109 times for 1,239 yards (11.4 yards per carry) his senior season at Harrisburg (he transferred there after his junior year) with 27 touchdowns. He had six 100-yard games, including a 231-yard, four-touchdown effort against State College High School.

"Micah never left the field," State College head coach Matt Lintal told USA TODAY Sports.

Lintal said he vividly remembered one Parsons touchdown that came on a kickoff. As the Harrisburg returner, Parsons was lined up deep. To keep the ball away from him, State College made sure the player in front of Parsons in the formation fielded the kickoff. That plan worked. What felled State College was that the player fumbled the ball – right to Parsons, who picked it up and scored. 

"And of course any time the ball was in his hands, he was a difference-maker," Lintal said. 

As a runner, Parsons could power his way ahead between the tackles. But once he bounced an outside zone run to the edge? 

"He just flat outran everybody on the field," Lintal said. "Clearly, he was the biggest, strongest, fastest kid out there." 

The game was tied at 21 in the second half before Harrisburg found a second wind and walked away with a 51-28 victory. Twice in that game on kickoffs, Lintal said, Parsons used his big leg to pin State College at its own 1-yard line.

"He could boot it, too," Lintal said. 

Since Parsons played every snap, Lintal said he believes the multi-talented threat was more productive on offense than on defense in high school.

"I think he took a couple plays off on defense, because he was just exhausted," Lintal said. "But when he had the ball in his hands, here he is, running downhill – no one wants to get in front of that guy." 

In a Week 2 game against the New York Jets, Parsons stripped the ball from running back Dalvin Cook and took it back to the end zone. A replay review determined he was down by contact, but running into an open field with the ball was nothing new to him. 

"I definitely think I’ve still got my running back skills," he said after the game. "It’s a little rusty. I want to be more fluent in my cutbacks and my jukes, but we’ll take it how we get it."

Defeating high school Micah Parsons

Not all teams suffered against Parsons the runner. Nick Lincoln’s Imhotep Charter squad spent all week preparing for No. 23, who was heading to Penn State in a few months' time. The entire game plan revolved around knowing where Parsons was at all times. 

"It wasn’t really like preparing to stop him," Lincoln told USA TODAY Sports, "it was just preparing as best you could to not be hurt by him." 

That was the first game of Parsons’ senior season, a 33-14 Harrisburg victory. Parsons rushed four times for 36 yards and a touchdown, as Harrisburg did most of its offensive damage through the air. 

"It just looked like it came easy to him,” Lincoln said. "I knew he was going to be a defensive player at the next level. But he’s the type of kid, especially at the high school level, it’s kind of hard to take off the field." 

Harrisburg won its next 10 games, too, with a 448-point differential (552-104) through the first round of playoffs. Then came a home playoff game against Governor Mifflin. 

Rain was in the forecast that Saturday afternoon, and it turned out to be a miserable day, Vecchio said. That played into Governor Mifflin’s plans perfectly. The team was content with four yards and a cloud of dust on every play in its triple-option attack, led by fullback Isaac Ruoss, who went on to play at Navy. 

Defensively, they ran in the opposite direction of Parsons every single play. Governor Mifflin kicked away from him on kickoffs, but that didn’t stop Parsons from taking a kickoff for a touchdown to open the second half with the game tied at 14. A holding call negated the play and wasn’t the only penalty that turned an explosive Harrisburg play into 10 yards the wrong direction, Vecchio said. 

"At the beginning of the game, we were intimidated by him," Vecchio said. 

As the game progressed, their confidence grew. They could tackle him as a team, Governor Mifflin defenders realized. Parsons finished with 78 rushing yards on 11 attempts and no touchdowns for the first time all season, as Harrisburg fell 26-14. 

"Middle of the third quarter, you could just see he was getting tired as hell," said Vecchio, who was moved enough to pen a poem about the game. "Because he was doing everything. And it was raining. They couldn’t pass for (expletive). And that pretty much was the game.

"But what a player. What an unbelievable player."

In college, Parsons – slated at middle linebacker before his transition to a more true edge rusher in Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn’s scheme – mentioned his rushing and receiving capabilities any chance he could, according to Nittany Lions teammate and current Washington Commanders wideout Jahan Dotson. 

"So I would always ask him, ‘Why didn’t you get recruited as a receiver? Right?’ " Dotson told USA TODAY Sports. "He had nothing else to say.

"But no, he was a great running back in high school," added Dotson, who is also from Pennsylvania and remembers watching Parsons in the state playoffs. "He was definitely really good."

McNamee, the Central Dauphin coach, is often struck while watching the Cowboys, realizing Parsons was making plays like that against high-school competition only a handful of years prior.  

"People forget how young he is," McNamee said. "He’s only been in the league (three seasons). He’s made such an impact. His high school years really weren’t that long ago."