Tuesday marked 10 years since Saquon Barkley signed his official letter of intent to play football at Penn State inside the confines of Whitehall High School.

It’s been a whirlwind decade for the Zephyr alum, but on Monday morning, media were invited back to the Whitehall-Coplay School District campus to hear stories about Barkley’s time as a Zephyr and how a seemingly regular kid that played junior varsity football his first two seasons is now one of the best players in the NFL and taking the field Sunday in Super Bowl LIX for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Monday was celebrated as Saquon Barkley Day at the high school, where students and faculty were wearing their favorite Barkley jerseys throughout campus. His former locker room has his old Whitehall jersey hanging amongst the likes of former Super Bowl Champions Matt Millen and Dan Koppen.

A commemorative Rose Bowl plaque rests in the trophy case of the Whitehall gymnasium lobby, along with an image of Barkley centered in the gym entrance, where the school honors their Hall of Fame athletes.

But the one image of Barkley that resonates the most is in a hallway behind the basketball court, where a wall is flanked from floor to ceiling with photography headshots of former Whitehall students for an art project during Barkley’s senior year in 2015.

Canvassed amongst his peers, Saquon’s smile glimmers at the top of the wall. He added his signature two years later with “We are” on the bottom corner as a member of Penn State’s football team.

Whitehall principal Peter Mayes has only been with the school for the past three years, but as a Lehigh Valley native, feels and understands the impact a player and person like Barkley means to the students that walk the same halls he used to.

“The real impact is with our current students and how Saquon is a regular kid from right down the street and made a path to college and now the NFL,” Mayes said. “I think it particularly resonates with our students of color. They see someone who looks like them and has common family experiences as them and this shows them they have a path. Saquon’s had such an impact on people here and people had an impact on him. It’s even more encouraging as a high school principal to know that the system is doing the right thing.”

Barkley has taken the football landscape by storm this year with his breakaway touchdown runs, but also showcased elite athleticism with some of his trademark jumps over defenders.

Doug Bonshak, a veteran teacher at the school, was Barkley’s freshman running backs’ coach at Whitehall, but quickly pointed out that he had nothing to do with Barkley leap frogging tacklers.

“At the freshman level, if you were a runner and jumped, that was actually a penalty,” Bonshak said. “As his coach, I kept telling him you can’t jump and wanted him to put his cleats in the ground and cut back. So, I have no credit in him doing that right now, and certainly not jumping backwards, that’s for sure. He has that athletic ability to do things like that.”

Barkley also had a work ethic that Whitehall wrestling coach Tim Cunningham said was unmatched. Barkley was childhood friends with Cunningham’s daughters growing up and was a regular in their home, playing games in the basement and hanging out.

But Cunningham is also known for being an avid lifter, and Whitehall’s fieldhouse is where Saquon put in all the work that helped lead him to where he is today.

“He was in this weight room almost as much as I was,” said Cunningham. “When you look around this weight room, he holds a lot of records here. Pound-for-pound, he’s probably the strongest athlete ever to come through Whitehall. If he wasn’t good at a certain lift, he would spend extra time on that lift. He wasn’t afraid not to be the best at something, because he would eventually be the best. He didn’t know how good a football player he actually was going to be because he wasn’t starting, but he put his time in. It’s hard to explain how hard he worked. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a male athlete work like him. He just wanted to be the best.”

Barkley was also a member of the basketball team his junior and senior seasons, and started on the 2015 team that reached the district finals. He wasn’t a prolific scorer, but played one of the toughest positions for head coach Jeff Jones, and did a lot of the dirty work to help Whitehall reach the championship.

“We knew he was a really good athlete, and we had a pretty talented team, and when Saquon joined us he gave us unbelievable athleticism on the back end of our matchup zone at the four spot,” Jones said. “He didn’t know everything he had to do, but he worked so hard every day and that rubbed off on guys. He was our leading rebounder at 5-foot-10. We would not have gotten to the district championship without him.”

With the Super Bowl on Sunday evening, Whitehall will encourage their students to show out for Barkley again on Friday at the school.

Sunday is also Barkley’s birthday, when he’ll turn 28-years-old and play in the biggest game of his life.

From an 18-year-old high school senior announcing he’s going to commit to Penn State to becoming the best running back in football, Barkley has made a lot of people smile.

No matter what happens on Sunday, those smiles will never go away for a Coplay kid that will always call Whitehall home.