Rookie Anthony Reddick amps up his play

The area is called Tatertown, and to Anthony Reddick it is still home.

It is a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that brings a smile to the face of the B.C. Lions defensive back and it is a place where he will return upon completing his first CFL season.

It is not, however, a place where an easy life is made, especially if it is done without either of your parents. But the 24-year-old made it out of Tatertown, just as he is picking his way through the potholes represented by playing a strange game in a foreign country for the first time.

Getting to the point where Reddick has become an increasingly valuable piece in the array of Lions defensive packages this year ultimately arose because he was able to overcome surgical procedures on both knees during a six-year stay at the University of Miami.

It also happened because the smallish back stayed focused on finding a way out of Tatertown through the aunt and grandmother who raised him. Reddick's mom only recently re-entered his life, as did his father, returning from a Mississippi jail.

"I learned from them and from their mistakes. I made up my mind I wanted to go a different route," he said. "I realized there are other paths. But it's not something that happens suddenly."

It certainly didn't happen when he started playing football at age six, when the only way his grandmother got through to Reddick was when the game was taken away from him as punishment or when he continually got suspended from school.

"I just did some of the things teenagers do, but I always was a good listener; if I didn't listen I wouldn't be here right now," he said. "My aunt and grandmother know what it would do if they took me away from football. It's my everything."

The passion also once showed itself in a less-beneficial way when Reddick was suspended four games in 2006 for a helmet-throwing incident while at Miami. It may have played a part in why he went unclaimed in the NFL draft, but it was the same toughness which attracted the Lions.

Reddick would definitely be placed behind Solomon Elimimian and Yonus Davis on a list of players to be considered for the club's top rookie nomination. But in a season where so much about the Lions has been reformed by coach/GM Wally Buono with rough-around-the-edges recruits, Reddick has more than played a marginal role.

Though railbirds at training camp in Kamloops thought he was a natural to start at safety, given that he played the position at Miami, defensive coordinator Mike Benevides was also aware he played dime linebacker in college. The hybrid position has become his role with the Lions, who didn't have an obvious replacement for Jerome Dennis when they traded him to Hamilton in the offseason.

"A lot of things are not easy for that position," Benevides said. "In one package you're a linebacker, the next you're a blitzer. I don't take that for granted when you look at what he's done.

"He's got an edge to him. He's tough-skinned. But the biggest thing I've learned about him from Week 1 to now is how he's developed as a professional and how he's taking care of his body. He's also diligent. Practice can be over for four or five hours and he's still watching film."

There is a slowly maturing sense to a player who was called "Amp" as a kid because he could only pronounce his name "Ampony." A lot comes with his approach.

Reddick was admonished by Buono after a game against Calgary earlier this year when he came free on a blitz, but whiffed trying to take down Stampeders quarterback Henry Burris.

However, given a second chance two weeks ago in the same situation, Reddick put a hit on Burris that may have been one of the best from a Lions defender all season by slightly changing his angle of attack.

A lot more maturing, Reddick said, took place in Tatertown simply because he had no other choice.

"It's not the best area," he admitted. "It's an environment where not all the people are fortunate, but it's a community that sticks together. There's crime, but there's crime throughout the world. It's a great place to live and I love my neighbourhood."

It's OK to have two homes. It's slowly working out that way for one of the large handful of Lions rookies this season.



(theprovince.com)