GARDENDALE, Ala. (WIAT) — Who is KT for people who don’t already know?

“I’m a free safety that plays for Gardendale,” Kamari Todd said.

Kamari Todd will be a junior at Gardendale High School this fall and is a member of the Rockets football team — the gatekeeper of the backfield.

Being a safety is a flashy job, but it takes a special athlete to do it well.

“I’m just everywhere around the field, always trying to make plays and do what’s best for my team,” Todd said. “On the defensive side of the ball, you set the tone and make plays. You change the outcome of the game.”

“You can’t have a bad player in the secondary; too many good offenses. You have to have a good player at each position,” Head football coach Chad Eads said.

If he was on the other team and you were going up against him, how would you prep for him?

“We’d go the other direction. You have to be careful where he is on each play,” Eads said. “If he’s on the defense you have to know where he is because he can cover so much ground in a short amount of time. What you think is open sometimes is not.”

“Whenever the receiver is running, I try to play behind the receiver so the quarterback doesn’t see me,” Todd said. “I try to bait him to throwing a pick or an incomplete pass.”

For KT, he sees a clear end goal in his future that keeps him motivated to do his best every practice and game day.

“Just thinking about that State Championship that we want to go win. Just thinking about how big it will be for the city and things like that,” Todd said.

“I think he can be as good as anybody that’s ever played here. He can be one of the guys that we talk about,” Eads said. “We’ve had a lot of really good defensive backs that have been at Gardendale High School. We have a long line of defensive backs that have gone on to play college football and I think he’ll be one of those.”

KT’s future is as bright as those Friday night lights, and that’s why he’s CBS 42’s Athlete of the Week.