The 2024 NFL draft is up next for former Catholic Memorial and Alabama standout JC Latham
Growing up, JC Latham often was mistaken as being older.
When he was coming up the ranks with the Bay View area Redcats youth football program, his father kept his birth certificate handy due to questions about his age. Even then, he was so big that he was relegated to the line on offense and defense, and he wasn’t allowed to line up over the center because he was busting up plays before they got started.
The first time Catholic Memorial athletic director Matt Bergan laid eyes on Latham, it was to check out the “high school kid” doing elaborate dunks in the auxiliary gym as a varsity game was being played in the main one.
Latham was a seventh-grader at the time.
“He was doing 360 dunks and putting on a show in front of all the high school kids as everyone was oohing and aahing over this kid just slamming the ball,” Bergan recalled. “He could stand right under the hoop and windmill dunk the ball as a seventh-grader.
“At that time, he was probably about 6-4, 205 (pounds). The athleticism we saw when he was playing basketball was the first time you said, hey, this kid isn’t just going to be someone who is good in high school, he’s a college kid for sure.”
Latham cleared those marks. Now the NFL is calling.
The first-round of the 2024 NFL draft is Thursday night in Detroit and Latham, a 6-foot-6, 342-pound right tackle, is projected to be picked that day.
The Oak Creek native will be on hand with his parents, Jerome Latham and Monica Pruitt, and about 15 other family members.
“I’m very happy and very blessed,” said Latham's father, who also is the football and girls basketball coach at Milwaukee Bradley Tech. “A lot of hard work and time has paid off.”
Here is the look at the top Wisconsin high school product in this year's draft.
JC Latham was an immediate contributor at Alabama
Latham, who played at Catholic Memorial as a freshman and sophomore and then at IMG Academy in Florida as a junior and senior, entered the draft after playing in 40 games in three years with Alabama. He was a part of the Crimson Tide's special-teams units as a freshman. He started at right tackle and racked up 26 starts the past two seasons.
He was a first-team all-SEC selection by the Associated Press and conference coaches. Multiple outlets named him a second-team All-American, including USA Today.
He was listed as 360 pounds with Alabama last season but lost 18 pounds in preparation for his draft workouts.
Latham made one of the biggest plays in a state finals comeback win
Before Latham made his way to IMG, he helped Catholic Memorial win the 2018 Division 4 state championship. The Crusaders rallied from a 24-0 deficit to beat West De Pere 37-24.
Memorial cut that deficit to 24-16 but with about 3½ minutes left in the third quarter was in a tough spot. West De Pere was at the Crusaders' 31 when Latham forced a fumble and recovered the ball to set up a touchdown and 2-point conversion that tied the game.
He finished with five tackles, three for a loss, but it was one of those afternoons when it seemed like more.
“He was just phenomenal,” Catholic Memorial football coach Bill Young recalled. “He probably had 4 TFLs. Two fumble recoveries. He knocked down two passes. We knew he was special.”
That sophomore season was the year when Latham’s play began catching up with his prodigious potential. He started at defensive end the entire season. Midway through the campaign, he started practicing at tackle and by the playoffs was getting a significant number of snaps on both sides of the ball.
“We were up in that game 14-7 and Coach was like, 'JC, we’re going to put you in at tackle going into the second half,'” Jerome Latham said. “and next thing I know, all they did was run behind JC. And the next thing you know, we end up winning the game 41-14.”
Little did anyone know how valuable that experience playing offensive line would be.
More: Chris Simms evaluates Alabama tackle JC Latham
Injuries to O-line at IMG opened the door for position change
Latham spent his final two years of high school at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. He went there as one of the nation’s top defensive linemen.
During his early days of practicing with IMG, the team suffered a rash of injuries to the offensive line. Latham offered to change positions and the rest is history.
“(The coach) tried him at practice and next thing you know he’s handling these four-star and five-star defensive linemen like it’s no problem,” Jerome Latham recalled. “I’m talking about high-profile kids going to Michigan, going to Clemson, he’s handling them no problem on the first day of practice, so they were like we’ve got our book-end tackle for the rest of the year.”
The purpose of the transfer was to raise Latham's profile to a national level. It worked. He signed with Alabama as a consensus five-star recruit who was the top overall recruit in the SEC for the 2021 class.
NFL teams have taken thorough look into Latham’s background
Bergan and Young know first-hand how serious NFL teams are when it comes to vetting potential first-round draft picks.
Twelve teams set up calls or visited Catholic Memorial to get the scoop on Latham. Green Bay, which has the 25th pick, spent 2½ hours at the school. Chicago, which has the No. 1 and No. 9 selections, had about a 90-minute visit and then texted Bergan with more questions.
A scout from another team really wanted to speak to the maintenance guys to see if they had any interactions with Latham.
What did they want to know? Everything.
“They’ll sit down and they’ll just start firing questions at you,” Young said. “How does he interact? What kind of leader was he in the locker room? Was he a leader? Did he play multiple sports? Was he really good? How did he interact with his teammates? How was he with his teachers?
“They wanted to know when you get an assignment do you do it or labor at getting your job done. All those things because they’re investing a lot of money.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 2024 NFL draft up next for former Catholic Memorial standout JC Latham
