“He’s not some far away character that you just see play on TV,” Rose explained. “Reggie is in our locker room, our weight room, on our field and in our community. When he gets off time, he comes here. He’s not in the Bahamas. He’s at Bob Jones High School.” That school is part of Reggie’s foundation—almost a defining character in his journey. Another one of those defining characters is his best friend Dez, who always made sure Reggie was on the right path, particularly when anyone was tempting him to go the other direction. There was always a lot of attention on Reggie, so Dez was always busy. “I’ll never forget the first time I met Dez,” Reggie, who showed up to high school a week late because he was at an AAU basketball tournament in Orlando, laughed. “He walked up on me and said, ‘Man, I don’t like you.’” “I’m like, ‘Man, what do you mean?’” Reggie, who was taken aback, responded. “Because you big as hell,” Dez laughed. It was the start of a friendship that helped guide Reggie through years of notoriety, accolades and temptations that could have otherwise put his journey on a different path. “After that we just got real cool, and I got real close with his family,” Reggie noted. Even if Dez wasn’t always doing the right things, he never wanted the same for Reggie. “He’d always tell me, ‘If anyone has a chance of making it, you’ve got that chance,” Reggie said, explaining Dez’s point of why Reggie shouldn’t be hanging around him at certain times. “Ever since then, I knew he was a real friend of mine,” Reggie noted. Dez played football, too. He wore No. 9 while Reggie wore No. 19. They were a pair—always together. “Dez was the glue of that football team,” Rose explained. “He wasn’t the best football player on the team, matter of fact we probably made some packages to make sure we could get him on the field, but he was the glue that held everybody together. “He and Reggie just had an outstanding relationship.” That relationship continued on after Reggie left for Alabama as a five-star player with a character and work ethic that should have made for an immediate impact in Tuscaloosa, but he’d soon learn it wasn’t going to be that easy. The first two years at Alabama weren’t exactly what Reggie had expected. He had played only sparingly—amassing just 25 total tackles over that time, which was tough for a player who had always been the best player on whatever team he was on. There were zero issues with his work ethic, character, or ability. He had quickly made the switch from outside linebacker to inside, per the request of Alabama head coach Nick Saban. It just hadn’t clicked for Reggie yet.
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