Multi-sport standout bet on himself in football recruiting - and won big in Nampa

Soft-spoken lineman Payton Gunter moved from California during pandemic shutdown in hopes to improve his stock as a prospect - and is now a University of Idaho commit

Payton Gunter isn’t one to brag.

The 6-foot-4, 232-pound Nampa High School senior defensive end/tight end caught a game-winning touchdown pass against Owyhee two weeks ago and hardly batted an eye.

But his story is one to boast about.

Despite losing an entire year of eligibility and having to move more than 550 miles due to the coronavirus pandemic, he still turned himself into a future NCAA Division I football player.

The University of Idaho commit will look to continue to do the improbable in trying to help the Bulldogs (5-2) pick up what would arguably be their biggest win ever in the Class 5A classification.

Nampa will look to clinch an unexpected second-place finish in the 5A Southern Idaho Conference River Division when it travels to No. 6 Mountain View on Friday.

“What separates him is he’s as high of a character of a young man as there is. He is a role model in so many ways for so many people,” Nampa High wrestling coach Roy Perales said. "Because here’s a young man, that’s done everything the right way and it’s paid off."

START AND STOP

Gunter, who grew up in Sacramento, didn’t even start playing tackle football until the eighth grade because of his size. He played flag football four years earlier, but back then, he was already pushing 6 foot and weighing around 130 pounds. Gunter could have still played, but due to the rules in California, would have been limited to just being an interior lineman. He only made the cut by two pounds in the eighth grade too.

So Gunter did everything instead, but never lost his dream of playing college football.

It started by picking up the sport again freshman year at El Dorado Hills’ Oak Ridge High School. The California perennial power won the Sac-Joaquin Section in 2019 and is just a few miles west of Folsom, who just beat De La Salle, which won a national record 151 consecutive games from 1992 to 2004. But the aspiration ended up getting put on hold rather quickly.

COVID-19 hit towards the end of his ninth grade year. It put California into a state of lockdown. Gunter and his family were ordered to stay in their houses for weeks at a time. They couldn’t even leave for groceries.

Gunter had never been much of a homebody either. This was someone whose entire weekends were devoted to sports. He routinely went straight from wrestling to basketball tournaments. Gunter once spent an entire day playing basketball in his driveway upon receiving a hoop from the neighbor in the second grade. His father Del Gunter had to tell him to come in when it got dark. Payton Gunter did - and then right back out with a camping lantern for light to keep on playing.

“I’ve probably told him that he should take a day off more times than I’ve told him to go to the gym and workout,” Del Gunter said.

Payton Gunter actually hopped the fence multiple times just to get back onto the football field when the school and its facilities were shut down. There was even a daily group chat to coordinate it all.

“Everybody had to be at the field by 7 a.m., so that we wouldn’t be seen on the field,” Gunter said with a laugh. “But it was really, really tough not being able to play sports and just being locked in my house all the time. I don’t really play video games at all too. So I was really bored.”

But you can only binge-watch all 10 seasons of the "Walking Dead" and go on so many walks before enough is enough. So with seemingly no end in sight, he, Del, his mother and sister all took a chance and left the only place it had ever called home.

“If your kids can’t follow their dreams, then what good is it being a parent?,” Del Gunter said.

INTO THE UNKNOWN

After looking at Arizona, Nevada and Utah, they kept coming back to Idaho where a family friend lived. The family had looked at some other schools, but was just so happening to be staying in Nampa. Del Gunter researched Nampa High School and discovered the recent resurgence of both its football and wrestling programs. So he reached out to athletic director Greg Carpenter, who put him in touch with Perales.

Perales met them at the Flying M Coffee Garage in downtown Nampa.

“I just saw a big tall high school kid with wrestling shorts and a football hoodie who didn’t say much,” Perales said

He helped set up a tour of the school and introduced them to the rest of the faculty.

They were sold. 

The family purchased a house within the Nampa school district boundaries. That ended up being the easy part. 

The moving truck canceled the day before. So while the rest of the family stayed in California until the house was ready, Del and Payton took four suitcases, a television and two camping chairs and lived in a hotel in order for Payton not to miss any more time. It was already December and wrestling was nearly a month in.

Payton Gunter jumped right in despite not really doing anything athletically for nine months.

He competed in his first wrestling match as soon as the mandatory 10 practices were completed, hopped on multiple bus rides and shared hotel rooms with people he hardly knew. However, Gunter still went 16-9, made a district final and came within one round of placing at state.

“He moved away from everybody he knew, everything he knew, his entire comfort level and now all of a sudden he’s got coach Perales screaming at him in practice,” Perales said. “But he came in and competed his tail off for us and gave us everything that he had. To be honest, it wasn’t fair what we did to him. I don’t know if I would do that to somebody again.”

FINDING HIS STRIDE

But Gunter quickly showed what he could do once fully acclimated and with actual time to prepare.

In spite of missing an entire year of football, he came right in and earned all-4A Southern Idaho Conference honors at three different positions last season. He was a first-team defensive lineman, a second-team tight end and an honorable mention punter while evening playing a little quarterback to help the Bulldogs make a fourth consecutive quarterfinal appearance that included upsetting No. 4 and league champ, Emmett.

Gunter then went 42-3 with district and state championships, along with a runner-up finish at Reno Worlds at 220 pounds in wrestling.

“I would not change anything that’s happened,” Gunter said. “I’ve changed a lot and it’s all helped make me the person I am today. It was a pretty big risk because we didn’t know what was going to happen. So it’s just a really good feeling that all my hard work just paid off.”

The standout junior year carried right over to this past summer when Gunter really made a name for himself. He was invited to watch film with Boise State coach Andy Avalos and was the defensive lineman MVP of both the "Gem State Showcase" and at the University of Idaho, which gave him his first offer. Gunter didn’t sit on it for long and committed to the Vandals on June 25 before any other school really had the chance to offer.

“We knew other offers were coming, but he knew he didn’t need to look anywhere else,” Del Gunter said. “You’re not going to get him with a big fancy stadium and halftime shows and things like that. That’s not what makes him tick.

“He could tell, just from the first time we went to junior day, how highly they thought of and wanted him. They also had a plan for him from the get-go.”

The decision also allowed him to just focus on helping Nampa transition up to Class 5A for the first time in five years this season. The last time it was there from 2014-17, it went 9-27 and at one point suffered a 14-game skid. It resulted in the Bulldogs being picked 12th out of 13 teams in this year’s 5A SIC preseason coaches’ poll.

Yet, they currently sit second in their division and have guaranteed themselves a home game in next week’s cross-divisional play with the winners receiving automatic playoff berths.

“I can’t remember a season where I’ve had more fun coaching,” Nampa football coach Jon Choate said. “A lot of times I look across the sideline and am like, ‘Oof, I don’t know about this one.' Most teams are bigger than us. We’re outnumbered. They have more depth. I think a lot of teams that we’re playing are better than us, we’re just finding ways to finish and win. So I’m just super proud of our kids. They’ve preserved.”

A lot of that has to do with Payton Gunter, who leads the team in receiving touchdowns with four, and despite of constant double teams, is still averaging a sack per game.

“The thing that impresses me the most out of that kid is just how tough and resilient he really is,” Choate said. “I mean, he does not come off the field. He doesn’t run down on kickoffs or run on kick returns, but he’s on the field in almost every other scenario.”

But you won’t hear Gunter say a single word about it.

He doesn’t need to.