BallHawk
08-11-2007, 01:22 PM
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=645435
Shaun Bodiford knows that he probably should be on the streets, incarcerated or dead.
The fact that Bodiford instead is playing pro football makes no sense at all.
When the Green Bay Packers kick off their exhibition opener tonight at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, watch where No. 19 lines up. Just to the left of the kicker (L5 in special-teams terminology) will be Bodiford, a 5-foot-11, 192-pound wide receiver eager to perform the most hazardous duty on a football field.
"I went down as a 4 once or twice in pre-season my first year but never a 5," Donald Driver said. "You've got to be loony to hit a wedge. Shaun is one of those loony guys. He doesn't have a problem doing it."
Wide receivers almost never are assigned to sprint 50 yards and sacrifice themselves on the shoulders, chests and arms of 300-pound blockers. A year ago, Green Bay's "wedge busters" were defensive end Jason Hunter and several linebackers.
Dozens of aspiring players in a National Football League camp will tell you they'll do anything to make a team. When Bodiford says it, you believe him.
"I've always had that Napoleon complex," he said. "I just want to show the big guys that I can bang with the best of them. I want to play football."
The tattoo, crude and almost illegible on the inside of his left forearm, reads: "Shine. Rise Above All."
Bodiford looks down at it often, a reminder of where he came from and what he dreams might be in store.
Ten years ago, he was living on the streets of his native Seattle, stowing away in the homes of various friends or sleeping on garbage bags behind a 7-Eleven.
His mother first kicked him out of the house when he was 13. Two years later, she kicked him out for good.
"I sold drugs probably when I was 15," Bodiford said. "For, like, a couple months. Then I was, like, 'It's not for me.' My conscience got to me."
One night, Bodiford was crashed in some flea-bag motel in a section of town where the drug traffickers did business.
"A crackhead walked into my room and said, 'I can kill you right now,' " he said. "I woke up and he was looking at me. I don't know if he was holding a gun but he was holding something. I just lay there. That's why I'm really not afraid of anything but failure."
Bodiford said he had never been arrested or been in trouble with the law.
"I was lucky," he said. "Grace of God. God is good."
Rough beginnings
His father, Glenn, and his mother, Alvina, never married. When Shaun was born, his dad took him to Cleveland, where his aunt raised him until he was 8. Then he went back to Federal Way, a suburb 20 minutes south of Seattle, and lived with his mom.
Two years ago, Bodiford listed six brothers and one sister on a scouting questionnaire. This week, he said he had "four or five" older brothers and a cousin that the family adopted.
Two of his brothers have spent time in prison.
"My stepdad was a Blood," Bodiford said, indicating that other family members were in the gang known as Crips. "I've just been around. I never got jumped into a gang or claimed anything or anything like that."
He was into playing hoops with his brothers at the playground when others began saying his athletic talent could be a way out. Some people started calling him "NFL," and others wondered aloud what would happen if he channeled his energy into sports.
But Bodiford was in no position to play organized ball. He was carrying his belongings with him in two garbage bags, flopping here and there.
"I'd go over to people's houses and hang out and be, like, 'I'm too tired to go home, let me stay here,' " he said. "And their parents would say, 'It's OK.'
"Nobody in high school really knew it. I always changed clothes, always kept fresh. I never wanted anybody to feel sorry for me. But my closest friends knew what was going on."
He made the varsity basketball team at Federal Way in ninth grade but basketball fizzled out. He tried baseball one summer. Football wasn't in the picture.
Then Bodiford was befriended by Leon Hatch, a volunteer assistant football coach at Federal Way. Hatch took him in, made him follow rules and get to class.
In football, he played only three games as a junior, his first year in the sport, before starring as a senior at running back and defensive back.
Bodiford signed with Division I-AA Portland State in 2001 but was ineligible because of a low SAT score, so he sat out the year. He enrolled at Butte College in Oroville, Calif., where he played with Aaron Rodgers in '02. After two years at Butte, he re-signed with Portland State and had two productive seasons, catching 91 passes for 1,132 yards (12.4-yard average) and returning 48 kickoffs (but no punts) for 22.7.
Hatch, now head coach at Decatur High in Federal Way, still talks to Bodiford daily. Of Hatch, Bodiford says: "I know he turned my life around."
Lions offer chance
Detroit signed Bodiford as an undrafted free agent in May 2006. He broke the wedge throughout the exhibition season for the Lions, returned punts and kickoffs and beat out former top pick Charles Rogers for the last berth at wide receiver even though the sprained knee ligament that he suffered returning a kickoff sidelined him until Week 4.
The Lions used Bodiford to bust wedges for three games at mid-season before releasing him. Claimed by the Packers Oct. 23, he was sent out to return punts against Arizona six days later when Charles Woodson was injured and took the first one back 19 yards.
A week later, Bodiford showed courage, good hands and speed returning against Buffalo. The next Sunday, he was running downfield on the opening kickoff when a Minnesota tackler cracked him, breaking his fibula.
Special opportunity
In training camp this year, Bodiford looks like the only player on the roster with perhaps enough explosiveness and guts to fill the Packers' five-year void at return specialist. Besides durability, he will have to prove himself dependable and dangerous to win the return job. He has good but not great speed. Evaluating him as a receiver, offensive coordinator Joe Philbin says he's still raw.
"Roell Preston and Desmond Howard were specialists. Period," said Reggie McKenzie, the team's director of pro personnel. "Bodiford can play receiver. He's a better receiver than (Antonio) Chatman. He's a bigger man.
"The door is open and now he's got to show what he can do. You ain't going to get a job bobbling a punt or run into people's backs on a kickoff return."
To say Bodiford is driven would be an understatement. After the season ended, he went back to Portland State for winter session. He is three classes short of a degree in communications.
His toughness goes without saying.
"You remember Michael Bates?" said special-teams coach Mike Stock, referring to the five-time Pro Bowl kickoff returner and coverage ace. "We had him in Washington and he was an L5. I'm bringing up Bates because this kid can do the same thing inside."
And strength coach Rock Gullickson said Bodiford was as consistent and hard-working as anyone during the off-season.
"I really don't have any doubts about that kid," Gullickson said. "You wish they were all like him."
Back in Seattle's Central District, Bodiford used to watch the NFL as if it were Mars. The journey he has taken from Washington to Wisconsin sometimes must seem like Earth to outer space.
"I just have that feeling . . . that I can be a great receiver," he said. "One day my name's going to be just like Donald Driver's and Charles Woodson's and Al Harris'. I got a rough exterior, you know? But inside I'm a little softie."
Shaun Bodiford knows that he probably should be on the streets, incarcerated or dead.
The fact that Bodiford instead is playing pro football makes no sense at all.
When the Green Bay Packers kick off their exhibition opener tonight at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, watch where No. 19 lines up. Just to the left of the kicker (L5 in special-teams terminology) will be Bodiford, a 5-foot-11, 192-pound wide receiver eager to perform the most hazardous duty on a football field.
"I went down as a 4 once or twice in pre-season my first year but never a 5," Donald Driver said. "You've got to be loony to hit a wedge. Shaun is one of those loony guys. He doesn't have a problem doing it."
Wide receivers almost never are assigned to sprint 50 yards and sacrifice themselves on the shoulders, chests and arms of 300-pound blockers. A year ago, Green Bay's "wedge busters" were defensive end Jason Hunter and several linebackers.
Dozens of aspiring players in a National Football League camp will tell you they'll do anything to make a team. When Bodiford says it, you believe him.
"I've always had that Napoleon complex," he said. "I just want to show the big guys that I can bang with the best of them. I want to play football."
The tattoo, crude and almost illegible on the inside of his left forearm, reads: "Shine. Rise Above All."
Bodiford looks down at it often, a reminder of where he came from and what he dreams might be in store.
Ten years ago, he was living on the streets of his native Seattle, stowing away in the homes of various friends or sleeping on garbage bags behind a 7-Eleven.
His mother first kicked him out of the house when he was 13. Two years later, she kicked him out for good.
"I sold drugs probably when I was 15," Bodiford said. "For, like, a couple months. Then I was, like, 'It's not for me.' My conscience got to me."
One night, Bodiford was crashed in some flea-bag motel in a section of town where the drug traffickers did business.
"A crackhead walked into my room and said, 'I can kill you right now,' " he said. "I woke up and he was looking at me. I don't know if he was holding a gun but he was holding something. I just lay there. That's why I'm really not afraid of anything but failure."
Bodiford said he had never been arrested or been in trouble with the law.
"I was lucky," he said. "Grace of God. God is good."
Rough beginnings
His father, Glenn, and his mother, Alvina, never married. When Shaun was born, his dad took him to Cleveland, where his aunt raised him until he was 8. Then he went back to Federal Way, a suburb 20 minutes south of Seattle, and lived with his mom.
Two years ago, Bodiford listed six brothers and one sister on a scouting questionnaire. This week, he said he had "four or five" older brothers and a cousin that the family adopted.
Two of his brothers have spent time in prison.
"My stepdad was a Blood," Bodiford said, indicating that other family members were in the gang known as Crips. "I've just been around. I never got jumped into a gang or claimed anything or anything like that."
He was into playing hoops with his brothers at the playground when others began saying his athletic talent could be a way out. Some people started calling him "NFL," and others wondered aloud what would happen if he channeled his energy into sports.
But Bodiford was in no position to play organized ball. He was carrying his belongings with him in two garbage bags, flopping here and there.
"I'd go over to people's houses and hang out and be, like, 'I'm too tired to go home, let me stay here,' " he said. "And their parents would say, 'It's OK.'
"Nobody in high school really knew it. I always changed clothes, always kept fresh. I never wanted anybody to feel sorry for me. But my closest friends knew what was going on."
He made the varsity basketball team at Federal Way in ninth grade but basketball fizzled out. He tried baseball one summer. Football wasn't in the picture.
Then Bodiford was befriended by Leon Hatch, a volunteer assistant football coach at Federal Way. Hatch took him in, made him follow rules and get to class.
In football, he played only three games as a junior, his first year in the sport, before starring as a senior at running back and defensive back.
Bodiford signed with Division I-AA Portland State in 2001 but was ineligible because of a low SAT score, so he sat out the year. He enrolled at Butte College in Oroville, Calif., where he played with Aaron Rodgers in '02. After two years at Butte, he re-signed with Portland State and had two productive seasons, catching 91 passes for 1,132 yards (12.4-yard average) and returning 48 kickoffs (but no punts) for 22.7.
Hatch, now head coach at Decatur High in Federal Way, still talks to Bodiford daily. Of Hatch, Bodiford says: "I know he turned my life around."
Lions offer chance
Detroit signed Bodiford as an undrafted free agent in May 2006. He broke the wedge throughout the exhibition season for the Lions, returned punts and kickoffs and beat out former top pick Charles Rogers for the last berth at wide receiver even though the sprained knee ligament that he suffered returning a kickoff sidelined him until Week 4.
The Lions used Bodiford to bust wedges for three games at mid-season before releasing him. Claimed by the Packers Oct. 23, he was sent out to return punts against Arizona six days later when Charles Woodson was injured and took the first one back 19 yards.
A week later, Bodiford showed courage, good hands and speed returning against Buffalo. The next Sunday, he was running downfield on the opening kickoff when a Minnesota tackler cracked him, breaking his fibula.
Special opportunity
In training camp this year, Bodiford looks like the only player on the roster with perhaps enough explosiveness and guts to fill the Packers' five-year void at return specialist. Besides durability, he will have to prove himself dependable and dangerous to win the return job. He has good but not great speed. Evaluating him as a receiver, offensive coordinator Joe Philbin says he's still raw.
"Roell Preston and Desmond Howard were specialists. Period," said Reggie McKenzie, the team's director of pro personnel. "Bodiford can play receiver. He's a better receiver than (Antonio) Chatman. He's a bigger man.
"The door is open and now he's got to show what he can do. You ain't going to get a job bobbling a punt or run into people's backs on a kickoff return."
To say Bodiford is driven would be an understatement. After the season ended, he went back to Portland State for winter session. He is three classes short of a degree in communications.
His toughness goes without saying.
"You remember Michael Bates?" said special-teams coach Mike Stock, referring to the five-time Pro Bowl kickoff returner and coverage ace. "We had him in Washington and he was an L5. I'm bringing up Bates because this kid can do the same thing inside."
And strength coach Rock Gullickson said Bodiford was as consistent and hard-working as anyone during the off-season.
"I really don't have any doubts about that kid," Gullickson said. "You wish they were all like him."
Back in Seattle's Central District, Bodiford used to watch the NFL as if it were Mars. The journey he has taken from Washington to Wisconsin sometimes must seem like Earth to outer space.
"I just have that feeling . . . that I can be a great receiver," he said. "One day my name's going to be just like Donald Driver's and Charles Woodson's and Al Harris'. I got a rough exterior, you know? But inside I'm a little softie."