His senior season didn’t go the way Kadeem Goulbourne of Cypress Bay High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was hoping it would. A year after watching the graduation of a lot of his senior teammates from a team that had gone to the state championship game during his junior season, Goulbourne was prepared to be one of the leaders as the Lightning tried to return to the postseason.

That plan ended almost before it started, when a hairline fracture in his right foot that Goulbourne suffered in practice ended his high school career just two weeks into his senior season. Goulbourne was relegated to walking in a protective boot … but said the injury ultimately helped him grow, on and off the field.

Wide receiver Kadeem Goulbourne will be the tallest SMU receiver as soon as he arrives on the Hilltop (photo by Goulbourne family).

“It actually got me to be better as a teammate,” the 6-4, 194-pound Goulbourne said. “It forced me to change as an individual. I was always a leader, and I expected to be a leader this year. But once I got hurt, it gave me a chance to give back to the other guys on the team. It was up to me to teach the younger guys what we did to get to the state championship game.”

As it turned out, the Lightning did not equal last year’s success, finishing with a 6-7 record and falling short of reaching the playoffs for the first time in years. But the experience, while disappointing to Goulbourne and his teammates, proved important to the future SMU Mustang.

“It was a learning experience,” he said. “You never want to lose any games, but it tested me, it tested my leadership. It helped me grow up to be a better man. I had to figure out a way to be a valuable member of the team, even when I wasn’t able to play.”

Coaches at every level covet tall receivers, and Goulbourne said he has been compared to numerous tall wideouts. But when asked who he thinks he most closely resembles, he said he identifies most with a player who offers more substance than style.

“I think I’m kind of like Marques Colston of the Saints,” Goulbourne said. “I’m tall, and I’ve got the same body type. He just goes out and gets the job done. He’s a very productive player. He’s accountable — (the Saints) know they can go to him. He doesn’t necessarily have the all-star power, but they go to him all the time, because he makes plays. That’s the kind of player I try to be.”

Despite his injury, Goulbourne became a hot commodity among college coaches, collecting scholarship offers from more than 20 schools before he committed to SMU, who called upon secondary coach Derrick Odum and receivers coach Jason Phillips to recruit Goulbourne to the Hilltop.

“SMU treated me like a five-star (recruit) since Day One,” Goulbourne said, “and that really says a lot about their program. They way they run their whole organization — they run everything in a professional manner. There are a lot of great players in Texas, so for them to come all the way to South Florida to offer me, that said a lot about how important I was to them. It feels good.

“(The SMU coaches) watched my film, and they liked what they saw, but I wanted to talk to (head) coach (June) Jones, too. They got him on the phone, and I ended up talking to the whole staff (which was in a meeting during the phone call). The whole staff — that’s another thing that stood out to me. For all of them to take the time out to talk to me made me feel really important. Coach Jones and Coach (Hal) Mumme talked about how they all saw me as a big part of their offense, and I was ecstatic about the opportunity. When you get offered in Texas, with all the great athletes they have there … that says a lot.”

The list of schools that showered Goulbourne with offers is lengthy, and includes programs from marquee conferences across the country, including the American Athletic Conference (SMU, Temple and Rutgers), Atlantic Coast Conference (North Carolina State and Boston College) and the Southeastern Conference (Ole Miss, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, which made it to the SEC championshjp game). But despite the quality of the other schools that pursued him, Goulbourne said his decision to pick SMU seemed obvious.

“Coach Jones is a legend out here,” he said. “He has had so much success with the Run-and-Shoot, and his receivers have always been productive. Now he added Coach Mumme, who has been so successful with his Air Raid offense, and you could see how they worked together this year when you look at the passing numbers (SMU) put up. That offense took a big step this year, and I want to be a part of that.”

Goulbourne, a member of the Sun Sentinel’s list of the top 50 players in Broward County and a member of the Cypress Bay track team (running the 200, the 400 and the 4-by-400 relay), said his family is extremely excited about his choice of SMU, in large part because of the school’s “amazing” academic reputation. But he said SMU’s consistent interest in him and the offensive system were big factors in his decision.

“I felt like SMU needed me the most,” Goulbourne said. “The day I get on campus in January, I’ll be the tallest guy of all the receivers, so that’s a different dimension I can add to the offense. Being from South Florida, I can run (Goulbourne has been clocked at 4.56 in the 40-yard dash). But that doesn’t even matter to me. I just know I’m going to catch a lot of balls, and that means a lot to me. If you decide that you want to go to the next level, you have to have film, and playing at SMU, I’ll have a lot of film.

“One thing I can say: if you’re a receiver in the 2015 class, and you want to catch the ball and do a lot of things, you have to look at SMU.”