Ramon Richards rewrites the norm
Ramon Richards crossed the graduation stage at Oklahoma State a couple weeks ago, but as is often the case with him, he did it his way.
When hereached OSU President Burns Hargis in the middle of the stage, the Cowboy safety unzipped his black gown to reveal a red velvet robe. If Santa had a smoking jacket, it would’ve looked like what Richards was rocking.
He always has been known for doing things differently.
He plays the secondary with reckless abandon even though it can get him into trouble. He sports dreads that he regularly dyes and changes colors. Once upon a time, he did in an internet video series where he answered questions and dropped knowledge that was fun and smart and totally endearing.
But as Richards prepares for his OSU finale in the Camping World Bowl,there is no doubt
about his biggest break from the norm.
He made it as a major-college football player from the San Antonio Independent School District. Those inner-city schools simply don’t produce Division-I football players. Before Richards’ senior season at Brackenridge High School, the San Antonio ExpressNews reported that only 10 Division-I football players had come from the district since 2000.
Since Richards, there haven’t been any.
At Brackenridge, they are the Eagles. Richards is a rare bird. “When I made it,” he said earlier this season, “I didn’t realize how big a deal it was.”
Now, he knows — and he hopes one day to help other kids in San Antonio make it, too.
••• Ramon Richardshad a childhood that sadly isnot that different from most kids on the south side of San Antonio.
Parents worked multiple jobs, but money was tight. Payments would get behind, and the electricity or the watermight get cut off. There were evictionsand times spent living with family or friends. Hope can run short. But Ramon Richards always had it. He wanted to be the best. Wanted to be the kid who got the most ribbons at the academic assembly. Wanted to be the one who got the highest score on the AP test. Didn’t mean it always happened, but he always had goals.
That didn’t change when he started playing football at Brackenridge.
The school has a storied football history. Back in 1963, a Brackenridge team powered by eventual Super Bowl champ Warren McVea faced San Antonio Lee in a playoff game. It was a showdown of affluent kids from Lee and working-class kids from Brackenridge. It came only a few days after President Kennedy was assassinated.
Historians of high school football in Texas consider it one of the greatest games ever. Lee won 55-48. Brackenridge has two state football titles to its credit, second only to Converse Judson among teams in San Antonio. But Brackenridge’s titles came in 1947 and 1962, and in recent years, successes have been few.
The same could be said of San Antonio ISD. While the district schools produced the eventual Pro Bowlers such as Tommy Nobis, Gary Green and Kyle Rote,such talent has been rare in recent decades.
“A lot of guys on that side of San Antonio, they don’t think it’s possible to do anything,” Richards said. “You go into selling things that can get you taken to jail. Then again, that’s what a lot of guys were raised around. That’s what you see. That’s all you know.”
But Richards always had designs on something different.
He often could be found on Sundays overseeing extra football workouts at Brackenridge. A quarterback, he directed passing drills and seven-on-seven games.
When he was a junior, he led Brackenridge into a first-round playoff game against San Antonio Alamo Heights. Much like that Brackenridge-Lee game back in ‘63, this was a matchup of a team from an affluent, old-money part of the city and one from a lower-middle class area.
Richards rushed for 218 yards, passed for 167 yards and came up with a victory-sealing interception.
Brackenridge 25, Alamo Heights 24.
Locals consider it the most shocking upset in recent history.
A few months later, OSU offered Richards a scholarship. Even though he had football offers from Harvard and Yale, there are no athletic scholarships in the Ivy League. The Cowboys pledged a
full ride— and Richards accepted.
It was big news in San Antonio.
“Not only for myself,” Richards said, “but for the city.”
Even though Richards has become one of OSU’s most popular players over the past few years, his popularity in Stillwater almost pales to his fame in San Antonio. Last December, when the Cowboys were in San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl, his teammates started ditching Richards when they were navigating around downtown.
“We can’t walk with him,” they said. “People keep stopping him.”
Richards is popular there.
To folks there, he is hope.
•••
One day, Ramon Richards would like to bring more than hope to his hometown— he has designs on a program that would bring youth sports to kids who can’t afford it. Uniforms would be provided. Fees would be waived.
There’d be no barriers to play.
There’d also be a path to something different.
“I just want ... kids to come over and get away from the negative,” Richards said. “I want to get them out of that environment and put them in an environment where they can find other hobbies.”
Richards, who received his degree earlier this month in health education and promotion, doesn’t know when he’ll be in a position to set his plans into action. But he knows San Antonioand the need. Knows, too, that he can help.
Thing is, by making it, he already has made a difference.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook. com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/ jennicarlson_ok or view her personality page at newsok.com/jennicarlson.