Fast Track to Success

Speedy Transfer Demare Dezeurn will Try to Propel Palisades to Its First City Football Championship This Fall 

By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor

In the spring, Demare Dezeurn established himself as one of the fastest high school track athletes in the country. In the fall he hopes to establish himself as one of the nation’s best wide receivers—and in the process help  the Palisades High football team win its first-ever City Section title.

Coach Dylen Smith knows he is lucky to have a player as talented  and skilled as Dezeurn, who transferred to Palisades from Bishop Alemany in Mission Hills, where he turned heads by placing third in the 100-meter dash at the CIF state championships in Clovis on May 31, clocking 10.39 seconds. He blazed to a personal-best 10.35 to win the event one week before at the Masters Meet in Moorpark, where he also ran a personal-best 21.04 to take second in the 200 meters.

Now, as he enters his junior year, he has pass-catching on his mind and he figures to be targeted a lot by quarterback Jack Thomas, who won the Joe Spector Award as Team MVP after throwing for 46 touchdowns and running for 12 more last season.

“It’s a hard transition after only two or three weeks off from the end of track season, but I wanted to be here just to show my face… it’s all about football right now,” Dezeurn said after the first day of practice at Santa Monica College. “It’s not an easy decision switching schools but I believe this is the best opportunity for me and my future. It’s been nothing but love since I got here. We’ve all got the same goal—to win City. I love the team aspect of football and I’m studying all of the plays. I go to sleep with the playbook.”   

Dezeurn is happy to be joined at Palisades by his uncle Donte, who will be the Dolphins’ defensive backs coach and has been training his nephew since he was 8.

“We were thinking he was going to be an offensive lineman,” Donte said. “Then we saw how fast he was.”

Dezeurn already has more than 20 Division I offers and revealed his top five choices are USC, UCLA, Texas, Miami and Ohio State. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.3 seconds on a recent recruiting trip to Texas Tech.     

“What impresses me most about Demare is his desire to fit in from Day One,” said Smith, who enters his third season determined to pilot his team to a second straight championship game­—only this time in the Open Division. “He’ll be a matchup nightmare for anyone we play.”   

Dezeurn was on his way to a record-breaking sophomore season, amassing nearly 500 yards through the Warriors’ first five games, until an ankle injury sidelined him for most of the last six. He still ended up with 20 receptions for 451 yards and five touchdowns and added three special teams touchdowns (two punt returns and a kickoff return). He played in nine varsity games as a freshman, making 42 grabs for 567 yards and five touchdowns and returning a kickoff 92 yards for a score.