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Milwaukee JS: Bodiford's grit helped him turn life around


E-Dog Night

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Pretty cool article on the Redskins newest addition. Now I know why we signed him - he's found God! (Ugh, sorry, cheap shot.) Seriously, the dude has been through a lot. If he can get healthy, he could make a nice addition to the team.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=645435

Bodiford's grit helped him turn life around

By BOB McGINN

bmcginn@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Aug. 10, 2007

Green Bay - 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."

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Personally, I would like to wish Bodiford the very best and continued success in finding God.

However, talentwise - a proven commodity, I wish we had picked a taller receiver. Doug Gabriel or Clarence Moore ... especially, Moore would look in a Skins uniform.

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