Quarterback E.J. White was lobbing passes to him, but with 6-7 Donnie Jennert lining up on the other side of the formation, it was impossible for defenses to key on Boone’s 4.45 40-yard dash speed.
But White and Jennert graduated, leaving Boone as the lone confirmed threat coming into last season.
Turns out, the kid is a pretty good one-man band.
Just two years removed from being what Bulldogs’ head coach Mark Jackson said, “A basketball player running around on a football field,” Boone turned in an impressive season statistically, despite being the focus of opposing defenses.
The 6-foot, 180-pounder followed his 1,228 receiving yards as a junior with another four-figure receiving season (58 catches, 1,003 yards, eight touchdowns), adding to it 68 rushes for 540 yards and nine more scores.
He was the impetus for sending the Bulldogs back to the Class 4A playoffs, and that earned him Osceola News-Gazette Football Offensive Player of the Year honors.
Include a touchdown in the return game and a two-point conversion, and Boone scored 110 points, a county-leading total.
Granted, he didn’t get the ball in the same manner every time, and for that he can, and does, thank Jackson.
“He’s a great athlete, and you work to get the ball in your best athlete’s hands. Plus, he’s a hard kid to tackle,” the coach said. “We got inventive, there was something new every week. We’d put in the spread option, the jet sweep and other new ways to find him space.”
New starting quarterback, sophomore Philip Steinmetz, and Boone hooked up on an 84-yard touchdown pass on the Bulldogs’ first offensive play of the season against Osceola, but through five games, tough opponents who double-covered and shaded coverages toward Boone held him in check.
He had just 16 catches for 329 yards through three games, but as the Bulldogs began to click and ran off a six-game winning streak, Boone heated up as well, doubling those early-season number in the second half of the season.
“We told him, ‘Just be patient with a sophomore quarterback,’” Jackson said.
Boone said the team began winning because of Steinmetz, and not in spite of him.
“Philip really helped this team. He can pick guys up the way he plays. He’ll be a good one.”
Boone said he tried to do things to pick up young players like Steinmetz, receiver Cole Harvey and  running back Irving Huggins, all sophomores.
“I knew coming in that I had to be a leader because I’d been here so long and been through so much,” he said. “Coach wanted to get us back to the playoffs, and a bunch of young players came together to make that happen.”
Boone said he’ll never forget the Bulldogs’ 28-21 Soldier City Classic win over Harmony on Nov. 6, a win that sent St. Cloud to the playoffs. He had over 200 yards of offense, including touchdown catches of 28 and 44 yards. On a 61-yard TD run out of the Wildcat formation, he made a pitch-fake that folks are still talking about.
“I’ll never forget that night,” he said. “We lost so bad to them my first two years, that made us feel like a little brother and it was a bad feeling, which made us want to get rid of it so much more.”
Boone capped his career by playing for the West team in the Central Florida All-Star Game, in which he hauled in a 15-yard touchdown pass.
Boone played on the varsity all four years, and his development as a player and that of the Bulldogs program were similar. Boone was a running back and cornerback while the team struggled through its youth in Jackson’s first two seasons as head coach.
“Those first two years were tough. Coach used to say, ‘Those who stay will become champions,’” he said. “I’m going to miss this whole coaching staff and my teammates. I’ve been through the worst and the best and I love these guys.”
Jackson said Boone blossomed into a D-1 caliber player (he has orally committed to Colorado State) over the last two years, and that his absence will leave a void.
“He really matured during the 7-on-7 passing league the summer before his junior year,” said Jackson. “This year, he became a better receiver. He became a guy you couldn’t single cover, because he’ll run right by you. He’ll be a huge loss.”
The All-County football defensive team will appear in the Saturday edition of the Osceola News-Gazette.

Player of the Year: James Boone (Sr., SCHS).
All-county team: Osceola: Akeem Daniels (Sr.), Rashad Brown (Sr.), Matt Hedrick (Sr.), Paul Kyger (Sr.), B.J. Butler (Sr.). Gateway: Richard Simpson (Sr.), Devonte Dobson (Jr.).                St. Cloud: Richard Steinmetz (Soph.), Irving Huggins (Soph.), Dylan Myers (Sr.), Josh Chattin (Sr.), Kevin Greenwalt (Jr.), Kevin Ulysses (Jr.). Liberty: J.J. Elisis (Sr.), Mark Castillo (Jr.), Willie Johnson (Sr.). Poinciana: Duke Ellis (Jr.), Dan Gaskins (Sr.).     Harmony: Jared Beekman (Sr.), DeJoun Fisher (Sr.), C.J. Clayton (Sr.), Alex Perez (Sr.). Heritage Chr.: Ronnie Sawyer (Sr.).        Celebration: Dominick Saragusa (Sr.), Geoff Bangley (Jr.), Zack Dyer (Jr.).