Jon Robinson
Publication: IGN
Date: September 25, 2003
One week, Priest Holmes was the second coming of Marshall Faulk, the next he was Bo Jackson. “He’ll never play again,” they said.
They were wrong.
But Priest Holmes has been defying expectations his entire career. Check that, his entire life.
Before football, Priest fell in love with another game, the game of chess. He learned how to play from watching his father, then worked on his game for a couple of years before moving with his family to a new school in seventh grade. The new kid then strolled in to the school chess tournament and wanted to play. The other kids looked at his muscles and thought the jock must be crazy to step up to the game of kings.
“I strolled right in and won the tournament. From that point on, I knew I could play with anybody,” says Holmes. “They underestimated me, they always seem to underestimate me.”
From there Priest took his competition to the gridiron, even adapting skills he learned from chess onto the playing field.
“Chess is a game of time, it’s a game of patience, and that pretty much defines how I run the ball,” says Holmes. “I’m patient, always looking for the opportunity, and always trying to capitalize off the other person’s mistake.”
And capitalize he does, exploiting the smallest hole and exploding down the field. The man’s so fast, it’s like you can see him switching gears as he eyes the endzone, slicing through defenders like his favorite chess piece, the Bishop.
