Ereck Plancher

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All football players have goals. Maybe it’s to make the all-area team. Maybe it’s to help their school win a district championship or make a state playoff appearance.

Add one to Jeff Charelus’ list.

The Lely High wide receiver learned recently of a new tradition at his school. One special player, every season, will be chosen to wear No. 5 for the football team.

It’s the number Ereck Plancher, the former Lely running back, once wore, creating a legacy that symbolizes something larger than the game.

Charelus would love to be the first honoree, but you figure he’s not alone. It will be decided by a vote, Lely coach Steve Pricer said.

“They’ll probably be one of the kids just like Ereck,” Charelus said Saturday, as he waited for the two-hour memorial service for his cousin to begin. “Someone who gives 110 percent.”

Friends say that’s probably what Plancher was doing the morning he died. Probably just pushing himself to the brink the way he always did.

Plancher collapsed following a March 18 offseason football workout, where he was preparing for his redshirt freshman season as a Central Florida receiver.

He died less than an hour later.

“The way Coach (Chris) Metzger trained us,” said former Lely standout Nixon Joseph, one of Plancher’s best friends since the third grade, “he ran us for days. He conditioned us to go against steel if we had to. I remember (Plancher) would put his hands on his knees if he was tired. But he always gave 110 percent.”

Lely’s looking for more like him.

That’s the reason Pricer, who took over as Lely’s coach when Metzger left for North Carolina following Plancher’s senior season, didn’t want to retire Plancher’s number. Nor did the other Lely coaches who discussed the topic with him last week.

“The immediate thought was to retire a jersey,” Pricer said. “But I think this is the best way for his legacy to be carried on in our football program.”

Not that it’s the only way.

As he addressed the crowd of mourners gathered Saturday in the school’s auditorium, Lely principal Ken Fairbanks flashed a metal sign that read “Plancher’s Place” and announced that it will be posted near an entrance to the football stadium.

In addition, the school will construct a memorial of Plancher to put in Nations Square, the prominent area inside the building where flags of several nations hang from the ceiling. The centerpiece of the display will be the December 2006 grad’s No. 28 UCF jersey.

Knights coach George O’Leary handed the jersey to Fairbanks after speaking Saturday. He gave another one to Edwin Plancher, Ereck's little brother.

O’Leary said UCF will honor Plancher, too -- by wearing a decal on its helmets or a patch on its jerseys. But he hopes it will go beyond that.

“You want to honor Ereck Plancher,” O’Leary said, “act like him. That’s the best you can do.”

It’s no easy chore.

You could fill a UCF media guide with comments folks at Lely have made in support of Plancher’s character, work ethic and family values.

In his speech Saturday, Metzger, who hadn’t seen Plancher since the coach changed jobs, gave perhaps the most telling testimony.

He told of Plancher’s relationship with Edwin, saying that Plancher always had his brother in tow for car washes and other Lely fundraisers.

He told of Plancher’s showing up at school every day before anyone else, saying that Plancher would wave to him from the parking lot as the coach left to pick up the star player’s teammates at their houses and bring them to Lely for early-morning workouts.

“Great day to be a Trojan,” Metzger said Plancher would tell him.

Metzger’s eyes were fixed on Plancher’s closest friends, the former Lely teammates in the auditorium’s front-left corner, for most of the speech.

But at the end, he turned his focus to the middle of the room, where Enock and Gisele Plancher sat with 10-year-old Edwin in the front row.

“You did it the right way,” Metzger said to them. “You need to write a book on parenting.”

To hear the Lely football family tell it, Enock and Gisele’s elder son could have written a book about leadership. He was a spiritual force on the varsity squad by his junior year.

“I’m older than him,” said former Lely linebacker Mark Sanon, a 2006 grad, “and I still looked up to him. He was such a great guy. Always a bright kid — a great kid. Always had a smile on his face. He’s a guy who didn’t have great size or speed, but his work ethic paid off.”

Culmer St. Jean, a hulking Wisconsin linebacker, had Plancher as a backfield mate in 2005, when St. Jean was the quarterback and Plancher the running back.

He said he’s going to find some way to honor Plancher this season. Maybe he’ll write his buddy’s initials on his wristband — something.

But that’s not all.

St. Jean said he will think back to the day he learned that Plancher had died. He said he will remember what Plancher was doing and how he did it.

“He pushed himself to the limit,” St. Jean said. “I’ll try to apply that to my everyday life.”

You can bet that Pricer’s players will, too. They’ll want to wear that special number on their chest. They’ll want to be the one to carry the legacy.

“To wear it on behalf of my cousin,” said Charelus, who wore No. 17 last year but would love to give it up, “I’d hope I’m half the person he was.”

Only one player has worn No. 5 at Lely since Plancher left. It was Fortin Faustin, who replaced him at running back last season.

Faustin is a senior. He’ll leave it behind.

“The kid who wears No. 5’s got to be a special kid,” Pricer said. “He’s got to embody the characteristics of Ereck — an ethical kid, a great student, a leader. And more important than anything else, as far as we’re concerned, he’s got to be unselfish.”

The decision to create a special number is not unprecedented. Ole Miss awarded the No. 38 in honor of Chucky Mullins — who died in 1991, two years after suffering a catastrophic neck injury during a game — to an outstanding defensive player for 16 seasons.

In 2006, the Rebels retired the number.

Such will be the tradition at Lely, where the player chosen to wear No. 5, even years from now, will stick out when alumni attend games.

“Same thing as Ereck Plancher,” Jude Paul, another former teammate, said, when asked what he’d expect of future players who don the prized jersey. “That number portrays his personality, his work ethic and the way he lived his life.”

It’s the reason Paul, a 2006 graduate, had “# 5” shaved into the back of his head for Saturday’s ceremony. He wanted to pay tribute.

Now, others will.

“He was soft-spoken,” St. Jean said of Plancher, “but I think his actions said more than his words ever could.”