manxman2601
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I posted the link to an article about one of our new WR UDFA's in the UDFA thread but I believe it deserves greater attention than it'll likely get there. It's an incredible story. Some highlights:
Read the whole thing, it's an incredible story of turning adversity on it's head. I so want this guy to succeed.
http://www.newsrecord.org/sports/article_32f369fa-974f-11e2-83c2-0019bb30f31a.html
Kenbrell Thompkins is a former wide receiver at the University of Cincinnati and a former junior college All-American with scholarship offers from every top college program in the country. He’s also a former drug dealer, a former juvenile delinquent and a former stereotype of an African American male raised in a single parent home in one of America’s worst neighborhoods, Liberty City in Miami, Fla.
“I never really saw my mom that much, so everything I learned was from running the streets and adapting to what was going on around me,” Thompkins said. “Growing up in Miami, Fla. — in the area I grew up in — it was nothing but violence. Violence and drugs. I woke up to it and I went to sleep to it, so I thought that was the right thing to do and I ended up getting adapted to it. It became second nature to me.”
The overall lack of guidance nearly cost Thompkins his life at age 7, when he accidentally shot himself in the arm while playing with a handgun. If the gun discharged at a slightly higher angle, he’d likely have suffered a fatal wound to the chest.
By his teens, Thompkins was consumed by a lifestyle forged from a lack of guidance and the violence he was born into.
“Middle school was when I started hanging with the wrong crowd and doing things that I shouldn’t be doing, as far as selling drugs, smoking marijuana, stealing and picking fights — thinking it was the right thing to do at the time.”
By his 19th birthday, Thompkins was arrested seven times, three of which were drug related. But through all the tumultuous hardships, drugs and arrests, he somehow managed to keep football in his life.
Thompkins viewed the redshirt season as an opportunity and immediately went to work, on and off the field. He earned a 3.9 GPA in his first quarter at UC, spent extra time in the weight room nearly every day and, most importantly, stayed out of trouble. Three full years clear of any legal issues, Thompkins no longer resembled the troubled teen he had been.
“When you look at him and you talk to him, he doesn’t look like what he’s been through,” said Antrione Archer, director of player development at UC. “When I first met him he still had a little rough around the edges, but you could tell he was in the process of really finding his identity and being comfortable with the man that he was becoming.”
“To this day, my vision hasn’t changed, but to this day I’m still stereotyped,” Thompkins said. “I haven’t been arrested or in any trouble with the law since 2008, but I’m still stereotyped over my past. It’s something I have no control over, but I’m here today to tell you that the man I once was is no longer standing here. The person I am today is a humble guy, a guy that is willing to learn and a guy that is willing to do whatever it takes to live right and prove the world wrong.”
Read the whole thing, it's an incredible story of turning adversity on it's head. I so want this guy to succeed.
http://www.newsrecord.org/sports/article_32f369fa-974f-11e2-83c2-0019bb30f31a.html