Wes Elrod had plenty of stellar athletes to coach in the Tennessee East-West High School All-Star game in 1976, but it was someone who wasn't playing who caught the eye of college recruiters.

Elrod, the coach at Maplewood at the time, took E.J. Junior with him to Murfreesboro for the game to serve as a team manager. Junior was a junior linebacker/tight end and not eligible to play because the game was only for seniors.

"We were there practicing one day and the college scouts were all mulling around,'' Elrod said. "This one guy walks up and says, 'Coach this is a good-looking bunch you've got here for this all-star game, but we were wondering who's the guy at other end of the field that's jumping up and dunking the football over the goal post?' "

It was Junior who was showing off his extraordinary athletic skills between filling up water bottles and chasing stray footballs.

Elrod had brought him along to get a taste of some of the accolades that were ahead. Junior would play in the all-star game the following year, become one of the nation's top college prospects and then help Alabama to national championships in 1978 and 1979.

After being a first-round draft selection (fifth pick overall by the Cardinals) Junior spent 13 years playing linebacker in the NFL with four teams. Junior, 50, will be inducted on Friday into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame.

College recruiters may have seen the potential Junior possessed at an early age, but he never did. Instead of looking forward to an NFL career, Junior planned to become an architectural engineer.

"If anybody had told me at that time I was going to go to a big school like Alabama and become an All-American and then a first-round NFL draft choice I would have told them there is no way, you're crazy,'' Junior said. "That was not my dream. When I was little I played baseball against a team called McKissack & McKissack, which was one of the best architectural firms that I knew of in the Nashville area. I really admired their work and that's what I wanted to do."

Instead Junior went on to become a three-time All-SEC selection and a finalist for the 1980 Lombardi Award, which goes to the nation's top lineman. He was a two-time All-Pro during his eight seasons (1981-88) with the Cardinals.

Junior became an ordained minister after retiring from the NFL while also entering the coaching ranks. He started out as linebackers coach with the Seattle Seahawks and had stints with the Dolphins, Vikings, Jaguars and Rhein Fire of NFL Europe.

"I wanted to stay in coaching and come home,'' Junior said. "I interviewed for the defensive coordinator position at Tennessee State when (James) Reese was the coach (2000-2004) and also spoke with Jeff Fisher a couple of times about doing something with the Titans."

Junior landed his first head coaching position in February 2009 at Central State (Ohio) University, which revived its program in 2005 after losing funding for football in 1997.

The Marauders, who won three NAIA national championships in the 1990s, were 1-10 last season. The school is now NCAA Division II.

"We're going through a transition because they had a national championship program that was on a hiatus for about 10 years,'' Junior said. "We're facing an uphill battle, but we're trying to turn it back around."