The little Giant with big dreams
HE WEARS a smile they cannot knock off his face, no matter how big they are, no matter how hard they try. His name is Donte Deayon, nickname Neon, given to him by his mother, a Deion Sanders fan, and he stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 160 pounds, so, of course, his favorite movie growing up was “Little Giants.”
“I used to watch it probably four times a day,” he said. “At one point, my mom, she hid the movie from me so I couldn’t watch, because that’s all I watched.”
Deayon laughs. He is a slot cornerback living the dream, a dream that grew much bigger than he did out of the mean streets of Rialto, Calif., approximately 75 miles outside Los Angeles.
“You push me, I’ll push you,” Deayon says. “You talk trash, I’m gonna talk trash. And every time you line up, I’m gonna be right there, and you’re gonna have to do it for four quarters, because I’m gonna be there for four quarters, trying to make plays.”
It is a mentality hatched in a place tormented by gang violence, where gunshots too often rang out in the night. The smile leaves him only when he has to talk about an environment like this.
“Not a lot of people really come out of Rialto, like make it where they’re playing football ... Ryan Clady, he’s from Rialto,” Deayon said of the Jets left tackle. “I actually lost two of my friends ... actually three. Two of ’em got murdered, and then one died for another reason.
“It’s been tough, but you gotta keep your faith, stay strong. I’m connected with God, and I know He has a plan for me. That’s why I’m pushing as hard as I am. I want to set the standard and be an example for kids in Rialto, to go out there and know that you don’t have to be in the street life to make it out.
“You can follow your dreams, you can pursue your dreams out of Rialto.”
He was always the big underdog.
“I got three older brothers. I got picked on, but it made me tougher growing up,” Deayon said. “Even out here, yeah, I’m the smallest one, but who says I can’t have the most picks or the most tackles or why can’t I do this or that? I go out there and put my socks and cleats on just like everybody else, so when we line up inside them lines, it’s go time.”
He had 17 career interceptions at Boise State, where he was a secondarymate of the Giants’ thirdround draft pick, ballhawk free safety Darian Thompson. When asked for a selfscouting report, he said: “You gotta know where he’s at on the field at all times. Period.”
A knee injury marred his senior season, and left him an undrafted free agent.
“It just built an even bigger chip on my shoulder,” Deayon said. “I feel like I’ve been getting this all my life. No matter what you do, it’s always gonna be a knock, so that’s why I go even harder and that’s why I try to put up stats that you can’t take away from me.”
He has a big mouth that is up for a any challenge: “I get everything: ‘ You can’t guard me,’ ‘You’re too small,’ Little this, little that. But at the end of the day, I’m always right there, so I trash talk just as well,” Deayon said.
The belittling isn’t a big bother to him.
“OK. Now I gotta go out there and prove you wrong. And it’s not necessarily proving other people wrong, it’s just reaching my full potential,” Deayon said.
He went to the end zone during practice Monday after he broke on an inside route for a pick-6 off Ryan Nassib.
“I was gonna do my touchdown dance, but I know we’re at practice, so I just ran all the way through the end zone,” Deayon said.
Deayon said he wasn’t sure which receiver he was covering who bobbled the pass, but it wasn’t Odell Beckham Jr.
“I actually covered him a couple of times,” Deayon said. “One he caught a quick out, I had one play with him in the end zone where I broke it up, and then it’s one play is like a zone coverage and they didn’t throw it. So it’s been good going up against him, he’s a great receiver. When the ball’s in the air, he wants it.” No one wants it more than Donte Deayon. Ask him if he thinks he has a realistic chance to make it, and Little Giant tells you: “Yes, sir.”