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| Nobody is "representing" TU better than Raheem Brock these days. |
Full disclosure.
I've never met Raheem Brock, but I feel like I know the former Temple star very well.
I was a big fan of his when he played in college.
Brock had a big role in Seattle's win at the New York Giants on Sunday and, when he got back to Seattle, tweeted just three words:
"Landed in Seattle."
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| Brock sports EBB bowl jersey at Super Bowl press conference. |
I tweeted him back: "Congrats and thanks for representing Temple as usual."
Two seconds later, he send me back a tweet thanking me.
Heck, he did not need to do that but that's the kind of person he's become.
Nobody mentions Temple more than Raheem Brock. Nobody wears the Temple football gear in the locker room more than Raheem Brock.
Other people talk representing.
Raheem Brock lives it.
Brock's tweet got me to thinking about my "small world" story about him.
You hear about people saying it is a small world, but in a city of 2 million people this is a very freaky but true "small world" story.
When I was in college Zach Dixon, Raheem's biological father, was thumbing down Broad Street at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night/Sunday morning wearing a "Temple football" sweatshirt, standing pretty close to the Baker Bowl sign at Broad and Lehigh.
I thought "geez, that's Zach Dixon" and I slammed on the breaks of my 1974 Opal Manta and gave him a ride back to the main campus.
(Heck, I didn't want to get our 1,000-yard rusher killed by the guy who might be coming behind me.)
Fast forward, ohh, 20-some years later and I'm jogging on Kelly Drive with wearing a sweet Temple football game jersey I picked up for $20 on Cherry and White Day.
Back then, in the middle of the Owl football Dark Ages, no one wore Temple football game jerseys while jogging on Kelly Drive except me.
So I'm wearing this jersey and a nice man who was working with a road crew yells out:
"Hey, Temple football. My son plays there."
I had to stop, just like I did 20 years earlier.
"Really?" I ask. "Who is he?"
"Raheem Brock."
He didn't look like Dixon, but I had to ask.
"Are you Zach Dixon?"
"No, I'm his step dad."
"Raheem Brock is going to make you a millionaire some day, he's that good," I said.
He just laughed.
"I hope so."
"I know so," I said. "It was great meeting you" and I continued my jog northbound toward the Ulysses S. Grant statue.
Two degrees of Raheem Brock separation about 20 years apart.
The bloodlines continue at Temple today. Dixon's son, Hassan, is on the team.
If the genes are any clue, he will represent Temple very well.
