MOBILE, Ala. – Overcoming a lack of size, strength and athletic ability to contribute to a team on the collegiate level is not unheard of. If only that were the lone obstacle University of South Alabama wide receiver Bryant Lavender had to conquer.
While the Gulfport, Miss., native’s parents had divorced when he was six years old, it was a stunning development in his early teens that changed Lavender’s course in life.
“I’ll never forget it, it was 4:30, 5 o’clock in the morning. It was crazy, there was a knock on the door and I jumped up,” he recalled. “I woke up while everybody else was still asleep. I heard whispering that somebody died, then they called us into the living room and told us he [his father] was shot and killed and I started crying.
“We were supposed to stay with him that day, but he said not that weekend because he had work. We had gone there after school, but he told us we couldn’t stay with him that night. The last thing I remember him saying when we got in the car was, ‘I love y’all.’”
Although Lavender and his two brothers lived with his mother due to their father’s working the graveyard shift in a casino, he and his dad were extremely close as he grew up and began playing football in elementary school. “I was a daddy’s boy, I always wanted to go with him,” he said. “Anytime he said he was coming, I had my bags packed to stay with him for a day or a week, though somehow or another something would always come up and he couldn’t get me. Any time I had a chance to be with my dad, I tried.
“My brothers didn’t want to go — growing up I felt like I was the ugly duckling because I had an attitude problem and was mad all the time and would lash out. It was always two against one, and I felt like I was left out to dry. Since they were always teaming up against me, when I was with my dad I felt like I had nothing to worry about. We were closer than he was with my brothers, we just clicked; I was always closer with my dad than my brothers until he passed.”
The murder of his father left a 13-year-old Lavender at a crossroads — would he continue to display his anger streak or would he make changes in his life? A spiritual change helped lead him down a path that finds him where he is today.
“When my dad died, I began to get closer to God and asked Him for help in trying to understand everything that happened,” stated Lavender. “When he died, a little bit of my mom died too because even though they weren’t together anymore they were close friends. It was a period of grieving, and there was nobody else I could go to.
“I began to hang out with everybody because I figured life was too short. I stayed out of school for a month, month and a half, and when I came back everything was different. My whole mindset had changed, that’s when I really dialed in and focused on my path — I had promised him and myself that I was going to college and I was going to play football, so I kept going to class even though by that time my mom didn’t have to remind us of no pass, no play, because we all got good grades. It didn’t matter whether I was going to have to walk on or get a scholarship.”
The Jaguar coaching staff learned of Lavender’s circumstances during the recruiting process, and it’s something that has helped head coach Joey Jones get closer to his player over the course of the last two-plus years.
“Bryant and I have had a great relationship throughout the last couple of years, and I think a lot of it is due to that fact of what I had gone through growing up is very similar to what he has gone through,” said the fourth-year head coach of the Jags, whose father passed away when he was a child. “I’ve talked to him about it several times one on one, so there is definitely a connection there. I think that’s the one area I feel I can help kids because I’ve actually been through it and have knowledge of how to handle things. There’s no doubt that our relationship has become better because of it.”
Where Lavender is today is slated to start at wide receiver for the Jaguars as they open the school’s third season of competition tonight against West Alabama. Much like his youth, it hasn’t been an easy path to this point.
As a true freshman on USA’s inaugural team, the 6-foot, 185-pound Lavender saw action in four of seven contests, making one catch for five yards in his debut against Louisburg (N.C.) J.C. Last fall, with Courtney Smith — who signed a contract with the National Football League’s New York Jets over the summer — still the featured wideout, Lavender finished second on the squad with 16 receptions for 276 yards and two touchdowns, an average of more than 17 yards per catch. He opened 2011 with a career-high four catches for 67 yards, pacing the Jags in both categories, as they defeated Pikeville (Ky.) 56-0. He led USA again later in the year in a win over Georgia State, matching that reception total while recording a career-best 87 yards including a 40-yard scoring play in the second quarter.
Looking back, Lavender’s ascension can be attributed to the personal changes he made following the passing of his father.
“Work. Work and staying faithful,” he responded to explain his increased production in year two. “I know I’m not the best, or the fastest or tallest or strongest person out there, but one thing you can’t deny is work ethic. I found that out early, no matter how hard it is you can’t deny work. If you’re working to get better, working in the weight room and the classroom, at the end of the day whatever you work toward is going to have to show up. If you work on the same math problem every day, it’s hard at first but then it gets easy; it makes you look like you’re a better math student, but you might be the same math student who is good at that one problem because you’ve been working at it. It’s the same thing at receiver, the technique might be uncomfortable for however long, but if you work it enough to where it is second nature it’ll make you look better than what you really are. I’m not saying that I’m not good, but working has got me to this point now.
“My coach in high school (Howard McNeill) said that he could work with someone who did not have that much talent and works hard, but he couldn’t work with someone who had talent and doesn’t work,” Lavender continued. “You can be good if you’re raw, but you can be great if you choose to work. It’s a choice, and you have to go out there every day and decide what type of player you’re going to be.”
Can a player decide that he is going to be great? Jaguar head coach Joey Jones believes that Lavender proves it is possible.
“It shows that you can [make yourself that much better as a player],” he stated. “Is Bryant ever going to a run a 4.2 40? Probably not, you can’t do anything about that. But he can make himself a great route runner, be dependable catching the ball, knowing his assignments and having the right alignment. He’s done all that, we can count on him. That’s one thing I always ask my players, can I count on you? So yes, he has improved.
“Bryant has made up in his heart and his mind that he is going to be a great football player; I said in the first meeting this summer that everybody needs to have that look in their eyes that he has in practice,” added Jones. “The flip side of that is that he goes out and works, he is serious about every play — he’s just gotten better. To be honest with you, he is one of the most improved players that we’ve had come here. When he first got here Bryant was a solid player, definitely not a great one, now he’s edging toward good and maybe even becoming a great player one day.”
Lavender’s dedication and work ethic are apparent to even those who have never met him. USA wide receivers coach Ron Antoine joined the program after the Jags’ first season; in fact, his first day on the job came just as the program was beginning spring practice in February.
“I know that the first day I stepped on campus when we hit the field, he stood out from an effort standpoint,” Antoine said. “Most guys who have a talent for the game — whether it’s football or any other sport — who put that kind of effort into it are going to be successful, and that’s what Bryant did last season. He was hungry, only playing in four out of the seven games his first year — I didn’t go back and look at the stats, but he probably didn’t play very much — you want to experience what some of the other guys in your position group are experiencing; catching the football, scoring a touchdown. That’s what I hope he continues to be, though not just hungry to get on the field like he did last year but continuing to get better and experience more success.”
The hunger that consumes Lavender on the field goes back to that fateful day when his world turned. “Sometimes no one wants to practice, but it’s one of those things where I remind myself that I’m not just doing it for me,” he said. “I worked hard when my dad was alive, but when he died it gave me the motivation to work even harder because my support was gone; I had to learn how to lean on God and myself for things to work out.
“Getting here let me mark one goal off the list, now it’s time to become a starter. I went to work, and that’s one reason why I’m slotted as a starter; that’s all I’ve done since I got here,” Lavender continued. “It’s not easy, if it was everyone would do it, but I’ve got the opportunity that I wanted because I’ve done something with the setbacks that I’ve had.”
Lavender’s growth is a reflection of the Jaguar program in general — USA’s 10 wins in 2010 came against a higher level of competition than the seven the first fall. In fact, if he were in high school now it would be conceivable that Lavender wouldn’t earn a scholarship offer from the Jag coaching staff.
“If we had a way to get to know him, I think we would have. Had we just watched the highlight film, probably not,” observed Jones. “We need to do a great job in recruiting to evaluate character, how tough they are; we do, but sometimes you don’t get that luxury.”
He got started in football in the second grade, a year later than he would have liked — “I wanted to play in first grade because my older brother played, but my mom said I was I wasn’t old enough. In second grade, I was eight years old and I played for the Anniston Cubs,” he recalled — after watching Marques play. But once he got on the field, his love of the sport continued to grow even after his brother stopped playing.
“At first when I saw him play I wanted to play, because every time you see your big brother do something you want to do it. When I started playing I fell in love with the game; the next year he didn’t play and I kept playing,” Lavender said. “Every Saturday after the game I would go hang out at my dad’s house, we would watch football — Ohio State, Michigan, Alabama — and I would tell him I was going to be one of those guys, playing for a college on TV. I never doubted myself making it, from then on I put that in my computer in my head — I would say to myself, ‘Find out what you have to do to get there.’”
Ground rules were set early — if he didn’t pass his classes, he couldn’t continue to play, according to his parents — and though the two were divorced by that point they were both able to support Lavender as his career began to take shape. “My dad was my coach and my mom was my cheerleader; every time I went to play a game, he wouldn’t say anything but I could hear my mom yelling,” he remembered. “It was always the cheerleader who didn’t care if you did anything wrong and the coach who always scrutinized. It was good to have both of them there growing up in elementary school.”
He would go on to attend Gulfport High, where he would eventually letter twice in football and twice in track. And although he was an all-region selection, Lavender was looking at a couple of offers from junior colleges when USA discovered him.
“Coming out of high school everyone said I was real small, not tall enough,” he stated. “One of my coaches got a call from [former] offensive coordinator Les Koenning; it was actually a referee who had worked my games since elementary school who knew coach Koenning and told him I should have a chance to go to the next level. He [Koenning] contacted my coach, who called me and told me about their camp and took me there. I was interested because I didn’t have any offers — any opportunity I had to show that I could play I jumped at.
“It [attending junior college] wasn’t what I wanted to do. I set a goal when I was in elementary school a long time ago to go to a university, whether or not it was because of football. I knew I was going to make grades and be qualified.
“As a little kid I figured I could be a great athlete out of high school with scholarships to choose from and start as a freshman,” Lavender added. “As you get older, you start to understand and set realistic goals for yourself; coming out of high school I had two offers from junior colleges and one from South Alabama. I didn’t come here expecting to really play my freshman year, but I wanted to have the opportunity. I saw the type of athletes we had my freshman year, I knew I wasn’t as good as some of the guys here, but the one thing I knew would get me on the field was my work ethic.”
There was a time when Bryant Lavender, a youngster with an admitted attitude problem, could have travelled down a path that would have led him to trouble. But one knock on the door, one moment, one devastating loss, led to the development of an individual who can be looked at — by youth and adults — as a role model both on and off the football field.
“There are a lot of guys where I’m from who were great athletes, but when they went to college they stopped playing; when you see them they are not doing anything,” stated Lavender. “My bigger purpose is to show kids that no matter what anybody says or how many chips are against them, they can keep fighting and know that when they’re God’s child He will help them find their way; it may not be when they want it, but He’s always on time.”
“You can tell Bryant enjoys life, he is an excitable guy who loves to be around football,” observed Antoine. “He has an attitude where he gets after it on and off the field, and he appreciates what he gets to experience here at South Alabama. Bryant is a pleasure to be around.”
“I’m real pound of him and what he has done with his life; he’s one of those guys who’s going to make something of himself one day,” Jones added. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
—USA—
