It began here in the high altitudes of a desert city situated in the AntelopeValley, where stifling summer days give way to icy winter winds. This is Palmdale, Calif., where sprawling housing tracts and strip malls sit under the gaze of the San Gabriel Mountains. There is the orange-trimmed, tan house with the Spanish tile roof where he spent many a Friday and Saturday evening because his mother didn’t like him going out at night. Over on Palmdale Boulevard, nestled in a tired shopping plaza, is the dry cleaner that his parents have owned for 13 years, where he would help ring up customers. On Rancho Vista is the HomeTown Buffet that offered him his first job.

And there is HighlandHigh School.

Rewind now a little over a decade and you’ll spot the moment that changed the boy’s life.

He is 13 and only a week into his freshman year. His family has just relocated for the eighth time and once again he’s worried about fitting in. Chubby, and with a headful of black curls, he thinks maybe his toffee-colored skin won’t be to the girls’ liking. Walking home with a new acquaintance, he spots the football field and something in him jumps. “I remember I used to play that,” he says, recalling one season of powder puff years ago.

CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW LEFT: Kim Allen stands on the HighlandHigh School football field where Will Demps played. Allen, a receptionist at the school, helped Will become a walk-on after no Division I schools recruited him. • A mantel at the Demps’ house bears an old family photo and a picture of brothers Will and Marcus when they played for San DiegoState. • Demps jerseys are in his high school’s hall of fame.

Over the next two weeks he continues to stop and stare at the football field, until one day he asks a player how he can sign up, too. He is directed to the coach who tells him to come on out and show them what he’s got. The boy’s been looking for some sort of greatness in his life. This could be it, he thinks.

When he appears on the field, his eyes are flashing and it’s like all he’s ever wanted to do is blitz that quarterback, pull that ball out of the sky, dive for that first down — and everyone notices the pudgy kid looking as if he’s played this game his entire life.

And that was when Will Demps saw his future.

“I just knew football was for me,” says the 26-year-old. “I went out there, just tore it up, ended up blowing up. I knew football was my calling.”

Push through the double doors of Highland High and you’ll see proof of that premonition: Two framed jerseys with Demps’ name on it above the words “Sports Hall of Fame.” One is from San DiegoState and the other is from Baltimore, where he spent his first four years in the NFL. The school will soon add another. Demps is about to start the season as a New York Giant.

There are other traces of Demps throughout the school. A newspaper clipping announcing his recent contract posted in a hallway. An engraving on a plaque when he scored the winning touchdown in the school’s first-ever victory against rival Antelope Valley High.