Gary Palmer’s got jokes. And he’s not afraid to give his son, Mike, a sixth-year Boston College safety, a hard time about being in school for more than half a decade.

“I said, ‘You do know that going to college isn’t a career?’ Gary recalled laughing. “You have to eventually get a job.”

Gary likes to say he didn’t know Mike went to BC to become a doctor, but the satire is fiercely outweighed by his parental support. He’s overjoyed by the fact that the NCAA’s COVID-19 blanket waiver has gifted Mike an extra year. Underneath the jest, however, lies a real question.

“Now, where does he go from here?” Gary asked. “Does he go to the next level? I know he wants to. I know he’d like a shot. But if he doesn’t, then he starts his life.”

Mike’s already preparing for that.

He earned his master’s in sports administration last fall and recently started a certificate in executive leadership and organizational development. Palmer, a former three-sport star at Maine-Endwell in upstate New York, wants to be a high school athletic director someday.

Or maybe a coach​​—that’s what last season showed him.

Palmer’s second year as a starter in the back end was cut short when he injured and then re-aggravated his hamstring. It all started during BC’s 48-27 win over Georgia Tech on Oct. 24. The injury put a damper on a blowout victory that saw him record a 33-yard scoop and score. Palmer missed the next week’s game at Clemson and, despite feeling great heading into the following week at the Carrier Dome, exited the Syracuse matchup with a tweak.

He didn’t get back on the field the rest of 2020, but he found a role elsewhere.

“The game had definitely slowed down for me,” he said. “I was able to take the helmet off and put a coaching hat on. I started to see the game from a different perspective.”

Palmer spent the back half of the season working with the defensive coaching staff. He said he began approaching meetings like an assistant rather than a player. That meant putting the pencil down and just watching the tape with a focus on formations, alignment and team-specific tendencies. When game day rolled around, though, Palmer pulled out his writing utensil again.

“He’ll look at formations and plays, and he’ll draw ’em up on a card,” Hafley described to reporters over Zoom last December. “That way, I get ’em, and I go over them with the defense.

“He might be a coach in his future.”

Palmer, who deflects credit like it’s a wasp hovering around his nose, explained that it wasn’t just him taking on this pseudo-coaching gig. He was joined by fellow inactive players on the sidelines. Nevertheless, he acknowledged the advantage it gave defensive backs coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim and defensive coordinator Tem Lukabu.

“It’s hard to watch five guys with four eyes,” Palmer said. “So now you have six eyes to watch five guys, and I was able to say, ‘Hey, this is what happened here. They’re doing this.’

“And I really found joy in that.”

Actually, Palmer admitted that he probably enjoyed it a little too much.

“Him doing that now doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Matt Gallagher, Palmer’s high school coach at Maine-Endwell.

Gallagher commented that Palmer was always a “student of the game.” He elaborated on the cliché, declaring that, because Palmer was a multi-sport athlete, his athletic instincts would take over on the field, and that shined in the film room, too.

Palmer was named the 2015 Athlete of the Year by the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, New York. Back then, he was a three-time state champion, having won two Class A state titles in football and a pentathlon state championship in track and field. Before his high school career was over, Palmer defended his title in the pentathlon, upping his championship total to four.

The pentathlon is “grueling,” according to Gary, also a former three-sport high school athlete who ran track and field in high school but ultimately grew bored with the sport.

Mike never did.

He loved the competition and embraced the pressure. The pentathlon consists of five events: the 110 meter hurdles, high jump, long jump, shot put and 1500 meter run. To win his second state title, he cleared the hurdles in 14.91 seconds; high jumped nearly 6 feet, 7 inches; long jumped 20 feet; and shot 38-11 ¾, as reported by the Press & Sun-Bulletin.

Palmer’s bounce came in handy on the basketball court as well. Midway through his senior year, he was averaging double digits, in addition to leading Maine-Endwell in rebounds, steals and charges drawn.

“The more sports that they play, the better,” Gallagher said. “The more times that they can compete, the more times they’re actually going out there to try to win. We think that develops a competitive and a winning edge.”

Gallagher mentioned that, because a high school football season is under 15 games, it’s important for a player to put himself in additional high-intensity situations. Not only that, but other sports work different muscles, which strengthens the body.

They certainly made Palmer more versatile on the gridiron.

Palmer’s athletic ability is “off the charts,” in Gallagher’s words. His first two years on varsity, he played cornerback and piled up the majority of his 22 career interceptions. As a senior, though, Gallagher moved him to outside linebacker. It was the start of Palmer’s transformation, an evolution that has seen the 6-foot-1 defensive back gain 22 pounds at BC.

Along with his rover-like ability in the box, Palmer was Maine-Endwell’s return man and No. 1 wide receiver. The Spartans were a run-first team, but if they threw the ball, it was most likely going to Palmer, Gallagher said.

“We felt that anytime he could get the ball, that was a good thing for us,” he remarked. “We tried to use him as much as we possibly could.”

Maine-Endwell was 37-1 during Palmer’s three years with the football team. Except his senior year ended in disappointment as the Spartans’ 62-game win streak snapped. The loss did, however, mark the dawn of Palmer’s next chapter.

Palmer had offers to run track in college, but he wanted to pursue football. Unfortunately, as his father says, “New York [high school] football doesn’t mean much to people.” Before December of his senior year, Palmer was a two-star recruit with offers from Army and FCS Wagner. Because of his busy year-round sports schedule and New York public schools ending in late June, he struggled to make it to star camps for scouting evaluation.

He was ready to commit to Army, where his high school teammate Darnell Woolfolk was playing fullback. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, BC came into the picture.

It was the coaching staff at Johnson City High School, where Palmer’s future BC teammate Adam Korutz played, that tipped Eagles defensive coordinator Don Brown about Palmer.

“Literally within a week, they went from no contact for five months to taking an official visit on that Friday to an offer that Sunday to me committing next Wednesday,” said Palmer, who attended a recruiting camp at BC that previous summer.

It was a whirlwind and so were Palmer’s first few weeks on campus. BC brought Palmer in as a cornerback, and, almost instantly, wide receiver-turned-corner Gabe McClary took him under his wing. While John Johnson—now, the 10th-highest paid safety in the NFL—was Palmer’s mentor, McClary taught Palmer how to study football, understand the playbook and grasp the team’s defensive assignments. The junior’s wish was for Palmer to not throw in the towel on his freshman year, even though he was redshirting the season.

Because when your number is called, you have to be ready, Palmer said.

That’s what happened the following season at Clemson. Palmer’s first game action of his college career. In Death Valley. Against the No. 2 team in the country.

“All of a sudden, I get thrown in there against Clemson,” Palmer said. “I haven’t played football in two years, now I’m out here like, ‘Oh, what am I doing?’”

The next season, he figured that out.

More specifically, Week 6 at North Carolina State. There were less than four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, and BC was trailing, 28-16. Special teams coordinator Ricky Brown told Palmer and the rest of the unit that the Eagles needed a spark.

Palmer can still illustrate the sequence vividly. He recited the details of the play like it was yesterday, even noting that BC had memorized N.C. State’s rugby and directional punt formations during the practice week. This time, the Wolfpack trotted out for a directional punt. Linebacker Kevin Bletzer recognized the alignment and called it out to Palmer and Co.

Then came what Palmer refers to as the “up and under.” Palmer went out wide of the N.C. State “shield” offensive linemen before dipping underneath and throwing his hands up.

“I couldn’t see anything,” Palmer said. “I couldn’t see the ball, but I felt it. I felt the ball hit my hand. And then it was just a scramble.

“You hear the ‘thump, thump,’ which is either the best sound in college football or the worst sound in college football, depending on what side of it you’re on. And then, all of a sudden, you hear the roars in the crowd.”

The ball bounced in the heart of the N.C. State end zone, and running back Travis Levy calmly fielded it for the touchdown. Palmer said he basically blacked out, but, looking back, he realized that was his first significant contribution to the Eagles. The blocked punt capped a breakout performance for the safety, who piled up a season-high 10 tackles and a pass break-up.

BC’s comeback bid fell short, but that game was enough to give Palmer the confidence boost he needed. It also earned the trust of defensive backs coach Anthony Campanile, another mentor for Palmer, and head coach Steve Addazio.

So when BC graduated four seasoned defensive backs that offseason, including starting safeties Will Harris and Lukas Denis, Palmer was expected to step up. He and Brandon Sebastian were the only two returners in the Eagles’ secondary with extensive in-game experience. That was an adjustment for Palmer, who isn’t a natural vocal leader.

“When we finally got to the season and everything, and you’re looking around like, ‘Ok, well, where’s Luk, where’s Will? It’s like, ‘Oh, they’re not here. It’s you now. You’re that guy now.’”

If Palmer was an animal, he’d be a golden retriever. He’s excitable, and sometimes he talks with so much energy that he stumbles over his words. He’s always smiling with the kind of ear-to-ear grin that’s as infectious as an early-morning yawn. Gary believes it’s his son’s best quality: It fosters comfort and invites laughter. But he also says that his son doesn’t like confrontation.

That was a hurdle that he had to overcome as a redshirt junior. It was a particularly difficult transition because Palmer was without Campanile, who left for Michigan before the season. What’s more, the Eagles switched defensive coordinators. The secondary needed a leader, and Gary remembers having a conversation with his son centered around the question, “Why not you?”

“Sooner or later you’ve got to step up because nobody’s gonna step up for you,” Gary said. “I said you’re not there to make friends. You’re there to get a job done when you’re on the football field. You can be friends after.”

Palmer said that season was the hardest of his career. Although it included his own milestones, such as ranking third on the team in tackles and tallying his first two picks, BC’s back end was torn apart by opponents. The Eagles allowed an average of 285.5 yards per game through the air, the ninth most in the country.

At the end of the year, the program cleaned house. Addazio was gone. And Palmer’s third defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach in as many years were on their way to Chestnut Hill with new head coach Jeff Hafley, a defensive back guru who mentored a pair of first-round cornerbacks in his lone year as Ohio State’s co-defensive coordinator.

“It helped me understand, if you want to play football at the next level, which, ultimately, that would be my goal, that’s how it’s going to be every year,” Palmer said. “You’re going to have to prove yourself over and over and over.”

He went head to head with Maryland transfer Deon Jones for time at free safety and started four of the seven games he played before his bum hamstring spoiled the end of his season.

When Palmer was on the field, he made his mark. He logged the best Pro Football Focus coverage grade on the team and registered two of the biggest takeaways of the year: a 70-yard tip-drill interception return against Texas State and that fumble recovery touchdown versus GT.

What he did on the sideline as a coach at the end of the season, though, was more revealing. His selfless dedication to the team during a pandemic year with no fans in the stadium affirmed why he was given the Jay McGillis Memorial Scholarship, an award distributed annually to a BC defensive back in honor of McGillis, who died from Leukemia in 1992.

And it offered a glimpse of what his life might look like after football.

The 2021 season buys Palmer some extra time to determine the next step of his career​​—as a player, a coach or an administrator.

“I’m glad these guys got to go back because now none of them can say to themselves, ‘Would’ve, should’ve, but I didn’t’” Gary said.

“They did. So now, they get that last year.”