Walking On A Journey

Chris Stanley

Jour 325

Walking On a Journey

College Football is king here in the south. Saturday’s in the fall are sacred day we look forward to every week. Any given chance during the day, discussions fill the room about who is playing who, who will win and who will lose, all in anticipation for Saturday afternoon.

Being out there on the field representing the city, community and thousands across the country for your school is a huge honor. Not everybody can say they’ve played college football, let alone SEC college football.

Some never get the chance to see the field. Others recruited to their respective schools by an army of coaches and signed on national television for thousands to see. And then there are some who would do anything and go just about anywhere just to play the sport they love.

Sidney Rhodes probably doesn’t ring a bell when it comes to your marquee South Carolina football stars. He shouldn’t. He is a sophomore walk-on from Piedmont, South Carolina, and he’s come along way to be here.

Rhodes played his high school football at a small 4A school called Wren High School in Piedmont, a small, rural upstate community. Wren had never been a power or even much of a player in high school football until Rhodes senior year when the Hurricanes won their first division title and went to the playoffs for the first time in 16 years.

Rhodes was the team captain and by far their most outstanding player.  As a receiver, he caught 46 passes for 733 yards and 13 touchdowns as well as three interceptions at free safety. He also started on kickoff return, punt return and field goal teams to average well over 100 plays a game.

“I went to a bunch of combines in high school,” Rhodes said. “I threw up some above average numbers but nothing I thought would get me recruited heavily. So I made some highlight tapes to sent them out to different schools.”

However despite Rhodes impressive numbers, colleges weren’t knocking on his door or even stuffing his mailbox. As matter of fact, they weren’t sending him anything. Rhodes size in high school impaired him from getting any legitimate looks, at only 160 pounds and standing at five foot eight inches.

“Kids like Sidney get overlooked for a number of reasons,” said Mike Johnson, head trainer at Velocity Sports Performance in Powdersville, SC. “Sometimes it’s the high school they go to, other times they get put in the wrong position for the better of their team.”

Rhodes and his father compiled 35 different highlight tapes and letters to send all across the southeast to schools he thought he could play at. He received two letters back.

“Once basketball season was over and track picked up I knew it was crunch time,” Rhodes said. “I hadn’t received any calls so I began applying to different schools for academics.”

Rhodes applied to a number of different schools, one of which was to Western Carolina University in Cullowee, North Carolina. While visiting there with his dad, he got the chance to run by the athletics department and physically hand his highlight tape to Western Carolina officials.

“Once I really started looking around Western, I legitimately thought I could play here,” Rhodes said. “I talked to the coaches, they liked what they saw and I received a preferred walk-on position.”

Rhodes arrived as a walk-on to Western Carolina’s practices but caught the eyes of coaches when he played like a starter. Through Rhodes determination and heart, with according to him some luck as well, he would work in some playing time in the first game against NC State.

“When Sidney first showed up I had already known who he was,” said Western assistant coach Arketa Banks. “I had heard from some Vanderbilt coaches that they had seen him before and they told me what an outstanding player he was. With most walk-ons, you just expect them to earn their keep. Sidney wasn’t like most walk-ons.”

It wasn’t for another eight weeks Rhodes would get his opportunity to get his first start against FCS power Appalachian State. Starting running back Mike Johnson, who usually manned the kickoff return duties for the Catamounts, sat out for a breather. The coaches would gamble on Rhodes to return and hit the jackpot, sort of.

“The first kickoff I received I took all the way back untouched,” Rhodes said. “But it got called back because of a penalty. But from that game on I guess the coaches had some confidence in me and I just kept doing it.”

From that game until the end of the season, Rhodes would handle all of the Catamounts return duties as well as play some receiver.  By the end of the season Rhodes would earn freshman All-SoCon honors at returner as well as the SoCon Freshman of the year. During his postseason meetings, Rhodes was hoping that he had earned a full scholarship for his work on the field. Western Carolina had other things in mind.

“In the meeting with coach Wagner he told me they would offer me $2500 as my scholarship money,” Rhodes said. “I took that as an insult. I know as a college player we play for peanuts more than anything but I had thought I had proved myself worthy of a scholarship during the season.”

It was after that Rhodes had decided Western Carolina wasn’t for him. During his winter break, he was busy filling out his paper work to transfer to the University of South Carolina. He would continue to attend Western through the spring and even run track while he was there.

“I sure miss having the opportunity to coach Sidney,” Banks said. “I learned a lot from him, I hope he learned a lot from me. If there is one thing for certain, Western Carolina lost one heck of a kid, and South Carolina picked up one hell of a football player.”

However, the Western Carolina saga didn’t end that quickly. According to Rhodes behind the scenes, Western track coach Danny Williamson was fighting with then head football coach Dennis Wagner to get Rhodes the scholarship he deserved.

“Coach Williamson really had my back,” Rhodes said. “He wanted me to stay and had been talking with the athletic director for awhile about the matter. I couldn’t tell you the full context of the conversation, but I knew they had talked to coach Wagner about me. It wasn’t until after the spring I had learned that Western Carolina had offered me a full ride to play football.”

Unfortunately for Rhodes it was just too late. He was all set for Columbia and he had no other choice but to leave the full ride back on the table, and never take use of it.

“It left me really confused,” Rhodes said. “Obviously free money is on the table, and I wasn’t going to be able to take it. I had to leave it behind and prove to myself that I could take my game to the next level.”

During the summer of 2011, Rhodes worked out every day. He attended specialized training sessions at Velocity Sports Performance run by Johnson. He knew that Rhodes was headed for big things.

“I came in to see everyone working out when I saw Sidney and thought this kid had to be D-1 material,” Johnson said. “Even when I found out he was at Western I knew he had D-1 talent. He works hard and he is a true professional. Being a D-1 athlete isn’t all about talent and a lot of people don’t understand that. “

By fall, South Carolina had open tryouts for walk-on spots and Rhodes took advantage. According to him, he felt like he was on the team. But the NCAA eligibility office had other things to say.

“I thought I had a pretty good shot to make the team,” Rhodes said. “One of the rules to play was that I had to have 40 percent of my major completed before I could suit up and basically I just had to sit out a year. Plus there was a roster cap and it was full.”

After watching South Carolina win a school record 11 games in 2011, Rhodes was hungrier than ever to make the Gamecock squad. Come springtime Rhodes went through the process that all walk-ons do at USC. He attended the walk-on meeting and filled out all the remaining papers he didn’t get to in the fall.

“With all my papers filled out already from the fall, I was just waiting for my chance to work out,” said Rhodes. “Once are papers were cleared, the coaches put about 60 us through a mini combine: we did a 40, pro shuttle, pushups, sit ups and a broad jump. I guess I tested pretty well and I made the next cut.”

The second cut involved about half the number of kids going to another workout at Williams-Brice Stadium. For Rhodes, he caught passes, ran routes and showed his receiver savvy off to the coaches for one last time before the final cuts were made.

After all of the workouts were over and done with, Rhodes hurried to the Floyd building to check the list to see if he had made the cut. As Rhodes looked down the yellow sheet of paper he eventually came across a familiar name written in black sharpie, “Sidney Rhodes”.

“After I read the list I acted a clown in the parking lot,” Rhodes said. “I jumped up and down with my hands in the air. I was just so happy I had finally made it.”

Unbeknownst to Rhodes, his future coaches watched his antics from the upper windows. According to Rhodes when he went up there, the coaches all joked with him about watching him out the window.  

 “If there’s one thing I can take away from all this it’s that everything happens for a reason,” Rhodes said. “Just keeping your focus and, if your lucky, everything will fall into place.”