Family friends to see Bledsoe play
It’s been a long time coming. OU defensive tackle Amani Bledsoe will get to play in front of friends and family when the Sooners face Kansas.
LAWRENCE, KAN. — There won’t be much fanfare Saturday when No. 4 Oklahoma takes on a Kansas team that has lost nine consecutive games.For plenty of people in Lawrence, though, the game will have plenty of importance.
Amani Bledsoe, Oklahoma’s redshirt sophomore defensive lineman and former Lawrence High star, returns to play in front of plenty of folks who have been waiting for this moment.
“He’s got that ability to kind of be a pied piper,” said Dirk Wedd, Bledsoe’s coach at Lawrence High.
“There will be a lot of his former teammates and classmates there too because he’s that dynamic a person and they all root for him and want him to be successful and this is a neat time for them to get to see him on a big stage.”Bledsoe is just a little more than a month removed from his return from a one-year suspension stemming from a positive test for performance-enhancing drugs.
He maintains — as laid out in a lawsuit Bledsoe filed against the NCAA recently — that he borrowed some protein powder from an unnamed teammate that led to the failed test.
That protein powder
was laced with a banned substance that was not on the label.
“You really don’t need to take anything, just whatever OU gives you,” Bledsoe’s mother, Elaine Cannefax, told her son after the test came back.
At the time of the suspension, Bledsoe was coming on strong, playing in the six games and steadily moving up the depth chart.
“It’s definitely added some stress, though, to the whole experience and I feel like for a young guy just getting into a Division I program, there’s a lot of stress anyway,” Cannefax said.
“It threw a little wrench into some things.” After the suspension, Bledsoe dropped out of communication with Wedd, who he generally talked to or at least texted each week.
“He went dark for awhile,” Wedd said. “He finally called and explained what went on. He was hurt and he was really mad at himself. That’s not like him and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t know all the facts to it, but he’s never cut a corner in his life. If you watch him in the weight room, it’s unbelievable the amount of effort and time he spends.”
Bledsoe has been able to maintain his focus both leading up to and since his return from suspension Oct. 7 against Iowa State.
He’s started four of the six games since his return.
“He’s a tough kid,” Sooners coach Lincoln Riley said. “I think he’s a focused kid too. So I don’t feel like that’s affecting him. I really don’t. I think he’s just finally getting to be out there and play and getting better and kind of experience all this for the first time.”
Former Kansas strength and conditioning coach Fred Roll has worked with Bledsoe in Lawrence for several years and Bledsoe regularly returns to work out with Roll.
“Instead of just throwing his hands up and quitting, he stayed focused on what he wanted to accomplish,” Roll said. “He could have gone in the wrong direction, but he didn’t. I think that says a lot about him and his character.”
It’s that, Wedd said, that helped keep people by Bledsoe’s side even before his story became public.
“There was no pouting, no feeling sorry for himself — maybe in the dorm room but not out on the field, not out on the practice field or whatever,” Wedd said.
“Not very many 18-year-old kids could have handled that setback when your whole goal is playing Division I football and then you screw it up and that’s what I’m most proud of — just how he handled it and how he came back and was ready to play the first game that he was able to.
Wedd’s grandkids have already planned their outfits for Saturday’s game. They’ll be wearing OU gear to support Bledsoe.
“They think he walks on water,” Wedd said.