The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Rodgers carving own niche in a football family
WEST HAVEN — Damon Rodgers was in a Philadelphia mall earlier this summer hanging out with his older brother Richard, a tight end for the Eagles.
A few fans, mostly middle-aged men, recognized Richard, an offseason acquisition by the Eagles who’d spent the previous four years in Green Bay. As is usually the case whenever they go out in public, Damon was far more identifiable to strangers on the street.
While a good football player in his own right Damon, a junior wide receiver at the University of New Haven, has been a social media star since high school. His Instagram boasts 317,000 followers. Another 68,000 follow his Twitter account.
Damon says he can’t really explain his popularity. At 16 he posted a video
of himself “acting goofy” to a small group of friends. The more photos and videos he posted, the more his friends tagged their friends, who’d tag other friends.
His following exploded. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have the blue eyes and chiseled look of a male model. Damon’s fan base is almost entirely from a specific demographic.
“The people that recognize my brother and me are very different,” Damon said. “Guys come up to him to say they’ve had him on their fantasy team or to talk football. The ones who recognize me are girls. So that’s something we always joke about, how he only gets recognized by guys and I only get recognized by girls.”
Outside of the Northeast-10 Conference, relatively few are aware of Damon’s athletic ability. But he’s only just begun to carve his own niche in the Rodgers’ impressive football family.
His uncle, Gill Byrd, spent 10 seasons with the San Diego Chargers. Jairus Byrd, his cousin, was a three-time Pro Bowl safety with the Bills. His brotherin-law, Maurice Harris, is a currently a receiver with the Redskins.
But Damon’s main football influence is his father, Richard Sr., a longtime college coach now in his seventh season coaching the defensive backs for the Carolina Panthers. Richard’s career often forced him to uproot his family for new jobs. The Rodgers’ moved from California to Oregon to New Mexico to Massachusetts, where Richard was defensive coordinator at Holy Cross until joining Carolina head coach Ron Rivera, a college teammate at Cal, on the staff of the Panthers.
The hours and travel schedule of a football coach are relentless. But Richard Sr. always made time for his children.
“He taught me everything about playing safety,” said Damon, who played defensive back until two shoulder surgeries after his freshman season at New Haven forced a move to receiver. “He’d spend hours working with me even after his practice, in college or the NFL. Any time I wanted to go up on the field, he’d go with me or my brother, and that was that.”
Spectacular game-winning touchdowns are also a Rodgers’ family specialty.
Richard Rodgers Sr. played a significant role in Cal’s miraculous “The Band is on the Field!” win over Stanford in 1982. He’d made the call to teammates in the huddle to do anything necessary to keep the ensuing kickoff alive, and wound up making two of the five lateral passes on the infamous play, which ended with a touchdown through a sea of Stanford band members prematurely celebrating on the field.
“My dad didn’t brag or talk about it much, so I didn’t see it until I was 10 or 11,” Damon said. “Someone he worked with brought it up and we were like ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ They said to my dad, ‘You haven’t shown them the play?’ So they made us sit down and watch it. We were in awe the first time. The footage, the announcers, it was all old school. We’ve watched it quite a bit since.”
Richard Rodgers Jr. has said that play was on his mind on Dec. 3, 2015, when a facemask penalty gave the Packers a final play with no time on the clock during a game against the Lions. Richard Rodgers caught a 61-yard Hail Mary from Aaron Rodgers in a 27-23 Packer win quickly dubbed “The Miracle in Motown.”
Damon Rodgers hasn’t won a game on the final play yet, but he’s come through in the clutch. Among his four touchdowns last season was a 48-yard reception with 1 minute, 47 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter gave New Haven a 23-22 victory over Stonehill.
He finished last season, his first as a wide receiver, with 27 receptions, including four touchdowns, for 471 yards. In the season-opener at Bryant last Saturday he caught four passes for 70 yards, with a 29-yard touchdown.
Already ticketed with a major role, Rodgers and the receiving core will need to fill the void left by Devin Martin starting with Saturday’s Northeast-10 Conference opener at Pace.
Martin, who led the team in receiving yardage last season, suffered a broken foot against Bryant and is out indefinitely. Even without Martin, a group that includes Ju’an Williams, who led the team with 12 catches and 136 yards last week, Brian Coney and A.J. Greene, all transfers, could still be the deepest in the NE-10.
Rodgers, who plans to pursue the NFL after college, believes the Chargers are a complete team capable of beating anyone in the league.
“I want to win a championship because my previous seasons I wasn’t able to even contribute as much as I wanted,” Rodgers said. “Now that I’m a junior I have a chance to make an impact on the game and make plays and be counted on and have responsibility.”