Peterson's hometown still supportive

— -- This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's Nov. 24 The State of Football Issue. Subscribe today!

IN A DARK and quiet corner of a high school stadium, a few yards from the end zone, two Palestine High booster club members grimace through another evening of woeful football.

Delton Atwood and David Richie sit faithfully in their lawn chairs, their enthusiasm giving way to resignation as the host Chapel Hill Bulldogs rip off a 94-yard touchdown run on the second play of the Oct. 17 contest. By late in the second quarter, with the outcome barely in doubt, the helmet tunnel the two men brought for the players to run through before the game sits in a crumpled heap. Palestine would allow 10 more touchdowns before the final whistle, losing by 40.

Nothing about the outcome surprises the 75 or so Wildcats fans who drove the hour to Tyler. This sort of blowout has become the new normal for the winless team, "and it doesn't look like it's going to get any better for a while," Richie says. The Wildcats' junior varsity team suffered a similar defeat the night before. There are no transcendent talents in the pipeline to reverse the team's fortunes any time soon. A town this size-if it's extremely lucky-gets only one of those in a lifetime.

And Palestine already had him.

The conversation, as it inevitably does around here, turns to that seemingly superhuman teenage boy who once made these nights as electric as anything anyone ever experienced in East Texas. A decade later, Adrian Peterson-now a six-time Pro Bowl running back on indefinite suspension from the Vikings-still has a powerful hold on his hometown. His two years on varsity won't soon be forgotten in Palestine. "Those were some fun times," Atwood says. "The stands were full every game, and we had people coming from out of town to watch him."

Lately, though, out-of-towners have been visiting Palestine (pronounced Pal-uh-steen) not because of Peterson's exploits on the field a dozen years ago but because of what he has done off of it more recently.

There hasn't been a fall this bleak for Peterson or Palestine in quite some time.