SHAQUEM
Throughout our football careers, Shaquill and I have been very fortunate to play in some pretty amazing places. When we were in college, we played at the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I will never forget the feeling of having more than 109,000 people watching—and nearly all of them cheering against us. We played at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland, which was built in 1884 and is the third largest stadium in Europe, with a capacity of 82,300.
In the NFL, we have played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Soldier Field in Chicago, and the Coliseum in Los Angeles, which are three of the most iconic venues in American sports. We even played at Wembley Stadium in London, one of the most famous venues in the world.
And yet, after having played football for nearly two decades, I can honestly say nothing beats suiting up for your high school team on Friday night. For starters, it’s essentially the last time you’re playing the sport for sheer enjoyment and fun. Once you get to college and the NFL, it’s about trying to become good enough to get noticed and drafted.
When you’re a professional athlete, football becomes a job; your livelihood and career are on the line every time you step on the field. There is a tremendous amount of pressure to perform—or someone else is going to take your job.
Don’t get me wrong: playing football in college and the NFL is a dream come true for both of us—but there’s just something so special about high school football. For most kids, those are four of the best years of their lives because it’s the last time they get to play. Some of us are fortunate to continue playing, but the majority of us get on with the rest of our lives.
Some of the things I love most about high school football are its pageantry and the community spirit it creates. Some of my favorite memories are smashing through banners held by cheerleaders, playing with teammates who were my friends since preschool, and going up against the same teams that our older brothers did.
Our Lakewood High School games were a community event. Everyone sat together on metal bleachers, regardless of race, religion, or age, and put aside their differences to come together and cheer for the Spartans. High school football is about pep rallies, homecoming, marching bands, senior night, and going out with your friends afterward. Quite simply, Friday Night Lights is football in its purest form. There is nothing like it as far as I am concerned.
While growing up in St. Petersburg, Shaquill and I lived in the Lakewood High district. When we finished middle school, a handful of private schools tried to recruit us to play for them. We could have attended Tampa Catholic High School or St. Petersburg Catholic High School, which are both great schools.
One of our youth coaches, Roland Gary (a.k.a. Coach Ducky), was hired as an assistant coach at Admiral Farragut Academy, which is a prestigious military school located on the waterfront in St. Petersburg. Coach Ducky and other community leaders wanted to keep together the group of kids that were so successful as a youth football team. Admiral Farragut officials were willing to provide financial assistance to help the best players. A few of our friends, including Napoleon Maxwell Jr., Todd Macon, and Cortavious Givens, followed Coach Ducky there.
Shaquem and I were interested in going to Admiral Farragut Academy as well, but Dad was concerned that the school’s coaches would be accused of recruiting us, which might have made us ineligible to play. Our parents were asked to pay our full tuition for one year—which was about twenty thousand dollars annually back then—with the promise that we would be placed on scholarship as sophomores. My parents didn’t want to pay that much money in tuition, and Dad believed we needed to be competing against the best players, most of whom were attending public schools. Shaquill and I were not sure we wanted to leave behind most of the kids that we had grown up with anyway.
SHAQUILL
In September 2009, we enrolled as freshmen at Lakewood High School. Our older brothers liked to call it “Hollywood High” because most everyone there seemed so materialistic. A lot of kids wore designer jeans, carried their books in Gucci backpacks, and wore trendy sneakers. It was probably like most high schools across the country, to be honest.
Lakewood High School was a good place, and we had a lot of close friends, but it had its problems like most other schools. On the second day of our sophomore year in August 2010, a kid was stabbed while walking home from school. The victim ran back to the school for help. The guys who stabbed him chased after him, and administrators put the school on lockdown until police caught the kid who did it. During that same school day, there had been three fights in the hallways. One kid punched another student so hard that he literally knocked his change out of his pocket. Unfortunately, fights were normal events at Lakewood High School.
Shaquem and I were good students—we didn’t have a choice but to study and do well. In middle school, we had a couple of Cs on our report cards, and Dad let us know that was unacceptable. I’m not even sure he raised his voice; he gave us that look and that’s all we needed to understand the message.
We played on the junior varsity team as freshmen and moved up to varsity for the last four games. It was the only season in high school that we were able to play with Terell and our cousin Bernard Reedy Jr., both seniors that year. Bernard and Terell helped Lakewood High finish 9–3 and in second place in our district in 2009. We defeated Pasco High School 36–25 in the playoffs, which was our first postseason victory since 2002. We lost 20–15 to Jefferson High in the second round.
Terell spent a lot of time that season teaching me the fundamentals of tackling. After every practice, he showed Shaquem and me how to square up our shoulders, wrap up our arms, and use our legs to drive an opponent into the ground. Terell played slot receiver and cornerback and went on from there to spend one season at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, before coming back home.
Bernard was the best player at Lakewood High School in 2009. He ran for more than 1,000 yards and scored 36 touchdowns. He was named Pinellas County Player of the Year as a senior and accepted a scholarship to the University of Toledo, where he was named All–Mid-American Conference and most valuable player of the Military Bowl in 2011. Bernard spent some time on the New England Patriots’ active roster in 2017 and was on practice squads with the Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Arizona Cardinals. He was a guy we looked up to and really set the stage for us.
Shaquem and I moved up to the varsity team as sophomores and started every game on defense in 2010. We opened that season against our biggest rival, Gibbs High School, and had a 32–21 lead when the game was called because somebody fired guns into the air outside the stadium. Everybody in the stands and on the field panicked and scrambled for cover. After a few minutes, officials called the game, moved both teams inside the school, and evacuated the stadium. It was a crazy way to start our high school varsity career, but at least nobody was hurt, and we won the game.
As a team, we were pretty young and inconsistent in 2010. We had four turnovers in a loss to St. Petersburg High School and were embarrassed in back-to-back lopsided defeats against Countryside High School and Jefferson High School. We finished the regular season with a 6–4 record and made the playoffs only after another team in our district, Blake High School, had to forfeit a game for using an ineligible player.
Our first-round opponent in the state playoffs, Pasco High School, was unbeaten and defeated its first ten opponents by an average of thirty-five points. Our defense showed up ready to play, however, and completely shut down Pasco’s high-scoring offense in the first half. We had a 13–0 lead at halftime and scored another touchdown early in the third quarter to make it 20–0.
Pasco started coming back and tied the game late in the fourth quarter. As the last minutes were winding down, we turned the ball over with an interception, and Pasco High reached our 4-yard line with sixteen seconds to play. Unfortunately, their tailback, Janarion Grant, broke a couple of tackles and scored a touchdown for a 27–20 victory. We were devastated about blowing such a big lead. It was a terrible way to lose, and I knew it was going to be a very long off-season.
Going into our junior season in 2011, we had pretty high aspirations as a team. Most of our starters were coming back, and we picked up two wide receivers, Rodney Adams and Jacquel Cooper, who transferred back from St. Petersburg Catholic. Our quarterback, Tracy Johnson, was a first-time starter. We had very talented skill players and a big veteran offensive line, led by star tackle Isaiah Wynn. Along with Jesuit High School and St. Petersburg High School, we were probably the favorites to win the Class 5A, District 8 championship. Unfortunately, our team went 6–4 that season. It was so disappointing.
And then, regrettably, Shaquem and I made the biggest mistakes of our lives. We almost threw away our futures because of a prank that got out of hand—and could have been much worse. For several weeks that spring, our group of friends drove around our neighborhood and shot at each other with pellet and paintball guns. We were young and it was a foolish thing to do, but that’s what we liked to do back then. We’re lucky a police officer didn’t see us shooting at someone and think it was a real gun.
In high school, Shaquem and I drove our mom’s black Dodge Durango. We might have put thirty thousand miles on that truck just cruising around town. And let me tell you something, an eight-cylinder engine and a high school student’s wallet aren’t exactly a good marriage. There were several times we ran out of gas and had to push the Durango to a gas station. The gas gauge always seemed to point to E when Shaquem or I was behind the wheel.
One day that spring, we were riding around the neighborhood in the Durango. One of our best friends, Tito Bell Jr., was sitting in the back seat. We’d been pumping a pellet gun for at least an hour. When we drove near Lakewood High School, we saw one of our football teammates walking down the sidewalk with his girlfriend. Tito rolled down the back window and fired. Unfortunately, we’d pumped the pellet rifle too many times. The pellet punctured the boy’s arm, and he was hurt.
We didn’t even know that we’d wounded him, so we drove back to our house. We were playing video games in the garage when Dad walked in. He wasn’t happy and looked scared. It was one of the few times I’ve ever seen him frightened. He grabbed our cell phones and smashed them on the concrete floor.
“Y’all ruined it,” Dad told us. “Your lives are over. You threw everything away. The police are on the way here.”
Police officers drove us back to Lakewood High School, where they put us in separate offices and questioned us for a couple of hours. Surveillance cameras in the parking lot captured everything. It was a prank, but it probably looked like a drive-by shooting to them. I remember that my room was very cold, and I was very lonely. Had I really thrown my life away? Was my football career over?
When they allowed Tito to use the restroom, he walked by the office where I was being held and said, “Keep telling the same story. I’m telling a different one. I’m not going to let y’all ruin your lives.”
Tito ended up accepting all of the blame for the incident. Thankfully, the boy who got shot was fine. We went to the hospital and apologized, and his mother didn’t press criminal charges against us. Tito was expelled and had to transfer to another high school. He never played football again.
In our minds, Tito made the ultimate sacrifice for us. We wouldn’t be where we are today if Tito hadn’t accepted responsibility. If he hadn’t taken blame that day, I think there’s a good chance we would have been kicked off the football team. We might have been charged with a crime, which would have scared away college recruiters. We’ll never be able to repay Tito for what he did for us.
Dad stayed mad at us for a long time. Eventually, he didn’t want to talk about the incident anymore. That day changed our lives forever. We were kids and didn’t have bad intentions, but it was a very important lesson. After that incident, Shaquem and I started hanging out with a different crowd and tried to stay on the straight and narrow. Needless to say, the incident scared us straight. We were given a second chance, and we knew we couldn’t blow it.
SHAQUEM
Man, we were absolutely stacked heading into our senior season in 2012. More importantly, everybody seemed to be buying into Coach Cory Moore’s message of putting our stats and egos aside and embracing a common goal of winning as a team. In the previous season, I think we might have had too many guys focused on how many touches or how much playing time they were getting.
During our senior season, we had more than a dozen guys who would play college football, including Isaiah Wynn and wide receivers Rodney Adams and Marquez Valdez-Scantling. Each one of them ended up playing in the NFL. We absolutely destroyed our opponents at the start of the 2012 season. We shut out four of our first six foes and outscored them by a combined score of 265–9. I’m not sure the 1985 Chicago Bears even did that.
My twin brother was showing out too. Shaquill scored on a 30-yard interception return in the third game against Dunedin High School and returned a kickoff 82 yards for a score in the next game against Middleton High. When we finally played a close game, against our longtime rival Jesuit High on October 19, 2012, we blocked a field goal with thirty-two seconds left to preserve a 20–17 win, which clinched us a spot in the region playoffs. It was the first time in school history that Lakewood High defeated Jesuit High.
We finished the regular season with a 9–1 record and were the number two seed in the region playoffs. We beat Bishop Moore 37–13 in the first round of the state playoffs in Orlando. That victory gave us exactly what we wanted in the second round: a rematch against Robinson High, the only team that beat us in the regular season.
SHAQUILL
We played Robinson High on November 23, 2012, the day after Thanksgiving. We wanted to make sure it was their Black Friday and not ours.
Robinson High jumped on us early in the first meeting, and we wanted to make certain it didn’t happen again. We took a 13–0 lead in the first quarter and were feeling pretty good about our chances. Unfortunately, Robinson High scored two touchdowns in the second quarter and led 14–13 at the half. It was a good, competitive game, and even though we trailed, we felt like it was ours for the taking.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Rodney Adams scored on a 7-yard run to give us a 19–14 lead. Then our defense forced the Knights to punt and we took possession. With less than three minutes remaining, we faced fourth-and-one at our 40-yard line. Instead of punting, Coach Moore decided we were going to go for the first down to try to win the game. Or at least that was what he wanted Robinson High’s defense to believe.
What Coach Moore really wanted was for one of Robinson High’s players to jump offside on a hard count, which would have given us a first down. A Robinson High lineman did move, but officials missed it and didn’t throw a penalty flag. Coach Moore tried to call time-out before the ball was snapped, but the referees didn’t see him. Our quarterback, Tracy Johnson, kept the ball and tried to run for the first down. He got a bad spot and was four chain links short.
Robinson High got the ball back on our side of the field and quickly drove inside the red zone. The Knights reached our 4-yard line with eighteen seconds left. I will never forget what happened next. On the most important defensive play of the season, our defensive coordinator decided to take Shaquem off the field. I’m not sure why he did it, and even years later, I never asked him about his decision before he passed away.
But in my heart, I’m certain he took Shaquem out because he didn’t think he would make the play, when in fact he’d been making big plays all season. The guy who replaced Shaquem hadn’t even played defense much that season; he primarily played on offense. I’m not even sure if the guy who replaced Shaquem knew what to do on the play that was called.
With our season hanging in the balance, Robinson High quarterback Zain Gilmore took the snap, faked a handoff to the tailback, and then lofted a soft pass over the replacement’s head for a 4-yard touchdown. The Knights won the game 22–19, and our season and high school careers were over.
It was such a deflating way for it to end. Not necessarily because we lost the game, but more so because of the way it ended. Shaquem was named Class 5 All-State and All-Suncoast by the Tampa Bay Times. He was one of our best players on defense but wasn’t even on the field when we needed him most because of a coach’s decision.
Even after everything Shaquem accomplished and how hard he worked in high school, coaches still had doubts about him because of his limb difference. And it was wrong and unfair. To this day, after all these years, I know Shaquem would have made the play if he had been on the field. Unfortunately, it would not be the last time a coach had doubts about my brother’s abilities.