Clayton Holmes has led a nomadic existence throughout his high school football career.

He’s played at three different schools, and at twice as many different positions. He’s been a running back, a receiver and a quarterback — sometimes in the same year. Finally, in his senior year, he made himself at home at Porters Chapel Academy.

Holmes, Porters Chapel’s senior quarterback, threw for 1,574 yards, ran for 909 more, and, just as a throwback to his multiple threat roots, returned three kicks for touchdowns. In all, Holmes amassed 3,199 total yards, accounted for 34 touchdowns, and earned The Vicksburg Post’s Offensive Player of the Year award. It’s the fourth straight year a player from PCA has won the award.

“This is a great accomplishment. I was hoping to get this from the beginning of the year, and to get it is great,” said Holmes, who helped PCA go 13-1 and reach the MPSA Class A semifinals.

Holmes’ meandering path to stardom started at Tallulah Academy. He saw significant playing time as a freshman in 2005, then pulled off a rare feat by leading the Trojans in rushing, receiving and passing as a sophomore. He played about three games each at tailback, receiver and quarterback and amassed 571 rushing yards, 234 receiving yards, and 468 passing yards.

He also played defensive back and was fourth on the team with 64 tackles.

“The first three games I played tailback. The second three I started at wide receiver and the next three I played quarterback,” Holmes said. “Coach said he had to move me around so the defenses wouldn’t know where I was. I just tried to do the best I could.”

Holmes’ tenure at Tallulah was cut short, however, by a series of off-the-field circumstances. Head coach Brandon Parker — who had convinced Holmes to play football — was fired after going 4-16 in two seasons with a young team. Then, Holmes became involved in a lawsuit with a teacher over a jet ski accident away from school.

“I didn’t want to be in her class with that going on,” Holmes said.

Unhappy with his situation at school, Holmes decided to transfer to Porters Chapel. Since he was going from one Mississippi Private School Association member to another, however, Holmes would have had to sit out a semester and miss football season. He wanted to play and thus took a detour to St. Aloysius, which is a member of the Mississippi High School Activities Association and not subject to the same rules on transfers.

Holmes spent the first half of the 2006-07 school year there before transferring to PCA. He played running back and defensive back for the Flashes, finishing second on the team with 519 rushing yards and five touchdowns. Holmes transferred to PCA for the spring semester and starred for the school’s baseball team.

“It was tough at first because I didn’t know anybody. But after time, I realized it was the best decision for down the road,” Holmes said of the decision to leave Tallulah. He still lives in the Louisiana town and commutes to Vicksburg every day. “I had a bunch of friends at St. Al and I still am friends with most of them. It wasn’t hard to adjust.”

Although he had played nearly everywhere before arriving at PCA, it didn’t take Eagles coach Randy Wright long to figure out what he wanted the speedy, strong-armed, 6-foot-1, 170-pounder to do for his team. Wright had been aware of Holmes’ athletic ability since his days at Tallulah, and almost immediately penciled him in as the starting quarterback when Holmes enrolled last January. Once he saw him at practice, Wright realized Holmes was as sharp with the mental aspect of football as the physical part.

“He’s a really smart kid. He’s got a lot of football knowledge,” Wright said. “We have an extensive amount of offensive formations, and I was concerned with him being able to learn what we do. Clayton picked up our entire playbook and was able to run our entire offense in three days.”

Holmes said playing at so many different positions, and for so many different coaches, helped increase his football IQ. It exposed him to a number of different systems and scenarios, and allowed him to see the game from several different angles.

“It helped me to know what it was like, and I knew what my receivers would run if I was in the same position,” Holmes said.

Holmes said he hasn’t gotten any serious college offers, but he does end his high school career with some impressive stats. He had 4,540 yards from scrimmage in his four seasons — more than 5,000 total yards if kick returns are included — and was responsible for 55 touchdowns. His stats from the two seasons at Tallulah don’t count toward Warren County records, but if they did he would be the only player in the history of the county to rush and throw for more than 2,000 yards in a career. Holmes had 2,164 yards and 22 touchdowns rushing, and 2,042 yards and 25 TDs passing.

“That seems like a good career to me. I’ve enjoyed my football career. It was a lot of fun,” he said, adding that this season was a good way to cap things off. “Thirteen-and-one is obviously going to be a good year even if we didn’t reach our goal. It was a fun time. It was good for the program, and fun for our seniors.”

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Contact Ernest Bowker at ebowker@vicksburgpost.com