Roger McCreary: Road to the Pros Episode 1

roger mccreary seals it for the tigers i've been around amazing people in my life the people that i've been around like they made me who i am today [Music] i'm felicia james roger mcqueery's mother i was 17 still in high school playing high school basketball for williamson actually and you know what i'm saying he used to come to the games he used to come to practices and sit in the bleachers and cheers so he got a chance to see me play um when i played softball he was actually out there in the field with us catching balls getting chances at back with the softball team so he was very involved all the way through she was an excellent mother she i know she turned down basically a scholarship you know when she got pregnant and uh she basically did everything that a parent could do at her age i mean she didn't miss a beat at nothing i didn't like look for a father figure my mom she was so strong it may seem like you want to look for that or nothing like she supported me every way that there was every way and i'm so thankful for that so like really think about going back into life like i don't really need a father figure like my mom was everything i had i'm grateful for that every time i take him somewhere well my grandma when are we going back to my mama i i i want my mama i just say boy let's go we're going to do something with the family yeah but but i want my mama she's the only thing that he had basically in his life that he know he could depend on that he know that's going to be that mama going to be there from the time he was i must say able to walk which he started walking when he was like 10 months and he wasn't walking it was running so i already knew he was ready to get out and do something so um from there we i took him to parks on saturdays just to let him get the feel for the game whether it was football basketball he played soccer and i just tried to keep his mind off of what was going on in the streets because everybody was always into something growing up in neighborhood like i come from it crazy stuff happens on kids i grew up with they made bad decisions but my mom like she just made that life so perfect like it felt like i wasn't shrugging at all and it really was but it felt like that my mom because she didn't make me want to see that stuff she kept me level-headed she had me doing stuff so i wasn't beating none of them just scratches or nothing and i felt like with her she wanted my reach to the person i am today you know if we gonna overcome getting the kids off the street or getting them out of trouble you know we're going to have to open up something for the kids to do and roger had the opportunity to go to the boys and girls club he had the opportunity to go to the wreck and felicia made sure he stayed into sports boss girl club that always been outlet to kids like me growing up around the hood my mom grew up going there and people started telling me that hey your mom icebox i like ice balls i like why i call it ice balls if you ever seen the little giants and you seen the female playing football icebox that was literally his mom you know she was one of the toughest football players i've ever seen and ever been around and most people wonder where he gets his physical raw talent from and his mom was special i couldn't hit my brothers and sisters because they was all younger than me except for my older sister so i couldn't hit on them so i had to go and find some kind of other way to take my aggression out on somebody so i think football would help me with that i hear the story from everybody everybody's like oh your mom did this your mom did that mom used to knock everybody over on a football field and stuff like that i was like oh it's crazy like i can i cannot imagine my mom playing football at all she she actually broke a kid's collarbone and i during my time playing park ball she had literally she had to hurt maybe three or four four people playing football i mean it was just that violent that dangerous and you can tell she had a strong and a real true passion for the game oh i taught him everything like to be honest with you uh from thorn to catching well you know the coach gonna teach them the basic formations of what real football is but as far as catching throwing um tackling roger was determined hard worker very hard worker i don't think rod you ever missed a football practice you know and then when he came to practice he always gave his all when he went on the basketball court or the football court he worked hard very hard so what what they see in roger 9 that's roger when he was when he was coming up he was determined making his mom sister family proud i think he wants to let help make us have or let us have a better life this one he was lit i'm gonna be something i'm gonna be i'm gonna make y'all proud of me and i said okay boy you better make your grandma proud cause you know grandma got that belt back though no ma'am you don't need that yeah i'm gonna beat something and that was uh one of the most uplifting things that i've i could have heard from a child at that age and he was young me and roger met through football we've been playing football together ever since we was like 10 years old 10 11 years old around that age so yeah and ever since then we've been best friends we grew up around the game that's all we played know you feeling we all thought like that's all we ever think about for real and um just having a friend like him we were just good friends and always laughed and um we were just like brothers the stuff that we do i say is be goofy and funny so we'll do a lot of pranks on each other it'll be some weird stuff say i'll have a peanut butter jelly sandwich i'll smack him with it inside of his face that way we caught a prank or like he on the toilet and i'll put water ball and spray him while he on the toilet yeah i've been on the wrong anna most of all pranks i've been on the wrong end of so many times so many pranks the things we laugh at it's not even that funny so but that's one thing people probably don't know about him because like you know he's shot when he get around people he don't know if people he'll like see everyday he'll get shot apologies keep a straight face but now dude it's goofy yeah i've been mean roger freshman yeah when we first started playing high school ball i think it was it was just me him and his cousin ain't one we was the only freshman on the team that you're like the only freshman and we played like we played as like the only three freshmen playing and uh he can tell you like yeah we got all the hand-me-downs the helmets all all the all stuff you get a freshman when they first come in so yeah um freshman i had no good games i had no good games at all i'm getting scolded on left and right that was the time i feel like it's football for me my first time going to high school i was a man in middle school high school is different biggest stage like this good for me going into my 10th grade year that's when i started shining a lot more i remember every fat tools see everybody out the whole mobile having fun i get a call probably right when the parade start hey coach could you open up the weight room i like roger what you're not participating in festivities i don't like that uh man could you open the weight room right then i knew that that did man this guy was something different jeff thompson back in the game bringing that arm into senior quarterback over the middle he goes trying to connect with artel howard intercepted right at the goal line and who is that cory mr everything roger mccrary yeah they need to also look at time and tempo here court going vertical over the top trying to connect with roger mccurry and that is a touchdown so roger uh played numerous positions for for williamson high school we played quarterback he played safety linebacker offensively he played quarterback running back wide receiver special teams he was the kicker he was the punter roger did a lot for williamson high school and if you go back and look at the film over the years he was one of those kids that never came off the field and never had any injuries he may cramp up a little bit but never had any injuries that's how tough he was and that's how much he wanted that he was very hard-working and determined especially my mom she was very hard on roger growing up playing games if he didn't do good in the game she would cuss him out because she know what he's capable of and how good he really is able to do he might have well called me a coach um if he ran for a touchdown i was on the sideline running with him if he did a bad call or made a bad play i was like on the field fussing at him from the sideline like him the coaches the referees i was one of those parents everybody knew everybody respected him because of his his work at the on and off the field so he got along great with the teammate and he was a one of the better players that i have coached in my 20 years not just saying athletically but just as a person and roger would be the type guy that my daughter 21 years old dad i could say that i want you know i'll be like yeah you can marry a guy like roger so yeah no matter what people say about women's i love i love being at williamson talking to the younger guys or you know guys in general on your team what are some things that you you like to tell them or preach to them keep pushing like always keep pushing i thank them a lot because some like really like make me better like i'm shy like off the field but like when it's come time to get on the field they know we're friends before the field but i want to feel it's time to compete kind of compete i'm gonna try to make you get better but i'm still competing with you like i felt like i wasn't gonna never get an offer that was kids i like at other schools i was getting offered i'm like well i wouldn't get an offer so it was it was getting a little hard on me i wasn't really believing like should i play football um like i played this my whole life so what am i going to do i was a three star because i hadn't got no accounts and none i feel like that's what they really like make people stars is the counts like they they put their name out there going to places and different kinds to compete and that wouldn't mean like i didn't i didn't do nothing none of that stuff i just played my season and went about it that was some that was some schools be like i'm too short to play safety and that was out playing my whole high school career so they didn't want to offer me so i was three star that's somebody who told me that say i'm too short to play safety and i'm too slow to play conor i i know who that person i want to say i know that person is that's why i had that mindset every time i played against it they always hit my mind that they said this i'm gonna prove them wrong you know some people look at the size but to me it's not the size it's the heart and and all and uh roger had the heart and yeah you look at the size now you know you you he what five with five eleven at the most and then you have receivers like be six twelve or six not six square was you know six one six two six three you know and they scared to come to him i ain't saying they're scared to come to him but you know it's very seldom you gonna throw his way things that he possessed you know that you could just see with the naked eye and understand that he was going to be a special kid i see it in you if i didn't see it in you i wouldn't ride you like i do you you're special you're a special kid you're going to go to the next level you're going to play at a high level at the next level and you're going to have the opportunity to go to the nfl my coach said we should go to this um visit south alabama me and jamal went me and jamal so we went we visited it was our first first visit so like we went we took pictures we saw the campus and all this stuff and coach said he wanted to talk to us our head coach already knew that we were getting a scholarship but we didn't know so me and jamal and now talking to the head coach and he said he really loved us he liked our game he liked that i mean he was close so he's going to be a hard duo and everything and they said they want to offer us so me and jamal office like we were just shocked like we finally getting an offer like this is what we finally were talking about and like a couple seconds later jamal said he committed i'm like damn my boy finally committed he committed and they all licking them and they're like well what'd you mark me what you gonna do i looked at jamal i like my best friend i'm gonna commit together so that day i feel like that day was there my process started i didn't even know he committed to south it was just a surprise to me um he told me about the offer he taught me about quite a few more offer but when i read about him because i had to read about it he never told me that he even committed to solve so when he told me i was like okay all right so we're going to south we're in mobile so i'd rather for you to be in the south so that's that's good both of these young men will play both ways we'll be calling their names a lot but i tell you folks roger mccreary jr is special if he gets beyond the line of scrimmage you can look for him to turn it into turbo speed both of these young men have verbally committed to south alabama when that happened a lot of other colleges started hitting me up like southern miss louisiana lafayette there's a lot there's plenty a lot way a lot more but it was at a low like it wasn't like really the high school i wanted to go to the high levels and everything so i was kind of still like like am i not good enough to play at the high level because i'm comfortable like i know i'm good but like whether like what is wrong like what they don't see that i don't see and everything that coaching style was really like a great coaching style but later on that process they had left so that's why i had decommitted like you said as he kept playing his junior year senior year it just opened up for him i got a chance to further my career and go to the nfl playing at auburn you know so uh auburn shaped and helped me in ways no one can can ever realize i ever remember you know and travis was an all-star linebacker at at auburn you know and when i got up there i think he was a ga once i took over as defensive coordinator um i shot you know i'm an auburn guy i shot the auburn coach as a tech like man you may need to check this kid out you know he's going to be special travis williams was the the linebacker coach and i think he was recruiting this area uh kevin steele gus malzahn all those guys in which i knew because they were there when i played at auburn tris antonio he does a good job coaching and training those guys so he called and told me i said okay let me dig deep and just look at it look at this kid at the time uh williamson they wasn't winning a lot of games they only had 19 people on the whole football team we just didn't know like we didn't know if we wanted to take them um but again his coaches was telling me like coach you know he's fast he's strong he bench press 330. you know he power cleans just like we i just knew he was like crazy strong crazy fast and the competitor um but he didn't go to all these camps see that's another thing too he didn't go to all these camps and you know you go to these camps to get these rankings so he didn't do a lot of that either so um but yeah yeah that's that i think i'm glad he wasn't ready to hide to be honest i went into arbor camp that was the first camp i ever went to and i went again cedric jackson that's what jeff's nephew i'm like i i didn't know that much about jackson i'm like who is this dude i bought running the faux three out there so i'm like oh my goodness who is this and it was my first time playing cornerback two at the count so it was getting a little hard so me and him went one-on-ones the whole game and later on like arvin 18 like i can actually keep up with one of the top players and stuff they say they were looking for a fast guy they said coach still he said why would he regard ronald wood to recruit a fast cornerback when there's one right in my state so that's why he said he wanted me bad when we went down there just the visiting day or got a chance to tour the campus and everything he was already set he was like mama i'm ready this this is it for me this this where i want to be i didn't go when he went to go visit urban because it was like i think it was like my birthday week and my mom was like i don't want your birthday to be all around roger so you just stay here and we go that was a bad idea because it looked like they had fun and i wanted to have fun too so we looking back they came back for all kind of cookies snacks they said they had so much fun i'm just like you could took me with you no you could do it with you like they didn't offer me at that moment though they ain't offered me so i was just still at land like my whole career rise my whole scene just my whole senior just playing when that senior year was over like around spring i was just chilling and my high school coach antonio said i ever want to offer you that that to my excitement like i was excited i know exactly where i was at i was right on the side by the track i was just so excited then i thought i talked to my family and stuff but like i want to go to the top i want to go against the best talked with people i had decommitted from south and like like that i commit to arbor and i ain't look back at no other school they were just talking for a while and then he was like coach i want to come to auburn and i was like oh my whole family was an alabama fan no matter what it was alabama all day every day and then when roger went to auburn it was like okay we're still an alabama fan but we're going to support roger right here at this college for four years so today i'll be introducing our student athlete first to my right roger mcquarrie signed with aubry university and then i have jamal hicklebot signed with the university of south alabama both of them in football thank you [Applause] of course we wanted to play college football together because like we like we're best of friends so but we just head down two different paths you know and uh told him to go do great he told me to go do great so by now i feel that type of way about i was happy for him i would have a day he got like a big school like arvin i always wanted him to graduate high school because i never did i always wanted him to go to college get him an education to have something always to fall back on regardless of whether or not football worked that for him basketball worked that for him it didn't even matter his education was the most important thing to me so for him to actually have a full ride scholarship to arvin to be able to move to the next level oh i was loving i was i was proud i was i words just can't express how i was feeling my peoples died everybody supported me friends with that everybody was happy my first time seeing a lot of cameras it was a lot of cameras and stuff and i felt like it was really big like to show people that like coming out of williamson like kids kids can still have big offers like it don't always got to be low schools and everything like there's really a lot of talent in my neighborhood i'm one of six and my grandson than signing going to college he really i mean he really amazed me i knew he had it in him but just to see it was it was fantastic it was just so motivating i mean it was i loved it words cannot say the feeling someone in our family broke the cycle talking a little trash on the field yeah we get it trashing the state with litter that's terrible keep it clean keep alabama beautiful [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Auburn Tigers on AL.com

Views: 5,634

Keywords: Auburn, Tigers, War Eagle, WDE, Auburn Tigers, Alabama, SEC, SEC Football, nfl draft, 2022, cornerback, williamson, mobile, alabama, south alabama, travis williams, new england, patriots, gus malzahn, kevin steele, documentary, tennessee, titans, antonio coleman, recruiting, boys and girls club, inspirational, lions, interview, cincinnati, bengals, buffalo, bills, kansas city, chiefs, prospect, defensive back, tampa bay, bucs, buccaneers

Id: t__gZrLvsdY

Length: 22min 14sec (1334 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 11 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/ieatcookydough]

We have been blessed with such great lockdown corners the last handful of years. Carlton, noah (in a way) and Roger. Even though we lost, the 21 Iron Bowl showed why Roger is one of the best corners in all college football