Nobody handed me a football future.
I didn't grow up wanting one. My dad played Division II basketball — 6'8", the real deal — and that was always the plan. I was going to follow his footsteps. Then I stopped growing at 6'2", did the math on my game, and realized a guy who parks himself in the corner and shoots threes isn't exactly a college prospect.
Football was always there. I just hadn't taken it seriously.
Junior year of high school, that changed. I found a linebacker coach. I started studying the game. I ran 7-on-7 in the summer and felt it click — the reads, the angles, the way your instincts sharpen when you actually put work behind them.
By senior year, I was good. Not scholarship-good. But good enough that Temple University came calling with a preferred walk-on offer.
I said yes. First person in my family to play Division I sports.
The Room Has No Memory
Being a walk-on at a D1 program means earning your place in a room full of guys who were told from the jump that they belonged. I knew what I was signing up for — or thought I did.
Freshman year was a reality check. Scout team. Practice dummy. A role defined less by what you do and more by what you absorb. I didn't handle it perfectly. I'll own that.
But I adjusted. Sophomore year, I locked in. Took the walk-on role seriously, played scout team with purpose, and earned a spot on the travel roster. That felt like progress.
Then the coaching staff got fired.
A whole new staff came in. New culture. New depth chart. And I was back at zero. Junior season, I didn't travel. Didn't play. Watched home games from somewhere other than the sideline.
Three years into a college football career, and it felt like starting over my freshman year all over again.
The Part That Became Bigger Than Me
After the new staff came in, that's when I started Road to 1 Tackle.
Not because things were going well. Because I was losing myself. Three years of college football, not one game appearance, and I could feel the motivation draining out.
The little kid who loved sports (who played O-line, D-line, basketball, everything) was getting harder to find. I needed something to pull him back.
So I made it a series. My first tackle. My first game. The journey to get there, just documented, public, honest. And something happened when I put it out into the world: it stopped being just about me.
Athletes started reaching out. Walk-ons. Players who'd been benched. Kids who were grinding without any guarantee it would ever pay off. They were watching, and they were finding something in it. That changed everything about why I kept going.
First In, Last Out
This past spring, I showed up in a different way.
First to the facility. Last to leave. Two-deep linebacker. Running with the ones and twos. Proving to my coaches, my teammates, my family (and honestly, to myself) that I could actually play at this level.
I've never felt more like a football player than I did this spring. And I've never felt more like a content creator, either. Those two things feed each other.
My goal after football isn't the league, though I'd love that chance. My goal is to become the kind of content creator that people point to and say, Reggie changed my life.
Different sports. Different stories. All of it rooted in what I know firsthand: that the road back is real, and it's worth showing people you're on it.
Road to One Tackle started as motivation for me. It became something bigger.
And if you've ever had to start over from zero — in sports, in life, in anything — then you already know exactly what I'm talking about.
