STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Former NFL Quarterback and 2002 Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer told the largest class in the history of the Community School to “keep your head on a swivel.”

If you focus on what’s directly in front of you, you will be blindsided, Palmer told the 45 members of the Class of 2018 during a two-hour graduation ceremony at the Sun Valley Pavilion Sunday afternoon.

Keep your eyes open for something that could knock you down, he continued.

“That something is called adversity,” he added.

Palmer knows adversity. A former quarterback for the University of Southern California (USC), he was the first overall pick in the 2003 NFL Draft. But he always fell short of the NFL’s most coveted trophy—a Super Bowl ring—thanks to a career marred by injuries.

“Every time I got close enough to the place I was ready to buy Super Bowl tickets for family members, the lightning bolt of adversity struck, said Palmer, who has three children in Community School with a fourth expected to enter next fall.

The first time it happened was in the playoffs during his second season in the NFL when Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle Kimo von Oelhoffen crashed into his knee on the first play of the game. His leg snapped in half even as Palmer unloaded the longest completion in Bengals playoff history.

He watched his doctor hold a press conference describing how he would never play again.

Palmer said he could feel the ring around his finger again when, he said, the Bengals matured into the best team he’d ever been part of. But his left knee buckled under him and again he was told he’d never play again.

He had yet another crack at it, he recounted, leading the Arizona Cardinals against the Carolina Panthers. But, one game away, he played the worst 60 minutes of his football career.

He missed Arizona’s 2014 playoff run with a torn ACL and sat out his final nine games with that team with a broken arm in 2017 before retiring.

“Adversity. It’s coming,” he told the graduates, offering a list that included being rejected by a fraternity or a job transfer.

“But, believe it or not, you’ll persist because you grew up here,” he added.

You’ve been wet and cold on outdoor trips, he continued. You’ve been lost on a mountain bike trip, he said.

“You may find something inside of you you’re not aware you have—and that’s true grit.”

“Don’t be a passerby. Be a difference maker. Find a way to leave a little of you behind,” Palmer continued. “Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. Strength comes from doing the things that you thought you couldn’t do.”

Cotton from cottonwood trees danced through the air as about 1,500 attendees listened to the graduates recount how grateful they were for being born into families that lived in such a beautiful place, how grateful they were for parents who had sacrificed so much for them to attend the school, how grateful they were for teachers who fueled a passion for wild places and for protecting those wild places.

One said he had only been at the school for six months, but it was the happiest six months of his life. Another credited the school for pushing her out of her comfort zone.

Henry Raff cited role models like bicycle mechanic Roger Mankus at the Elephant’s Perch.

“He strives to be the best he can be at everything he does,” he said.

Speakers Lucy Griswold and Anik Zarkos sent the audience into a chuckling fit with tongue-in-cheek stories of the ways their class had left its mark, even uttering the line, “skid marks on the underpants of the world.”

Griswold told her classmates to be amenable to change: “Don’t get hung up on who you are and who you used to be. The hockey player may arrive at college and say, ‘I think I’d prefer to study interpretive dance.’ ”

“Never quit saying, ‘You have a lot to teach me, world, but I have a lot to teach you, too,’ ” added Zarkos.

Head of School Ben Pettit praised the class for showing up and for being such a spirited group.

Your voice is heard and what you have to share is meaningful, he told them. With the need for adaptability in this age of acceleration, learn the difference between what’s urgent and what’s important, he added.

Above all, he said: “You are capable.” The world tells you that young adults are not ready, that they’re not competent, but you know you are, he added. You’ve rafted through big waves, stood atop  mountains, taken Islamic studies and a variety of other subjects.

“You are capable,’ he concluded.