Chris Hays:
Mainland’s Jenkins doesn’t let height stop him.
TALLAHASSEE — There are two things a person realizes when watching Brian Jenkins Jr. on the football field. The first is that he’s short. Being 5-foot-6, 150 pounds tends to stand out while competing on a field full of much larger human beings.
The second, however, is not so much a given. Not for most short football players, that is. But when watching Jenkins play football, it immediately becomes obvious that he demands respect. Respect from coaches, respect from his fellow receivers and respect of defenders trying to stop him.
As he ran circles around people at FSU’s Jimbo
Fisher Football Camp last week, the respect of his peers started to become even more a part of Jenkins than his height.
One after another, DBs lined up to try and stop the Daytona Beach Mainland receiver. Most returned to the sideline with heads shaking. They were dismayed by what he could do, but certainly not embarrassed by what he did.
To be beaten by Jenkins is not a shameful offense. If you stop him, you have accomplished something. It rarely happens. If he beats you, well, he’s beaten everyone else, so you are no different than the rest.
“I felt like it was a pretty great week, productive week. I came out here and showcased my talents and did what I can do,” Jenkins said.
The performance aside, however, Jenkins isn’t expecting FSU coaches to come offering a scholarship to play for the Seminoles. He’s heard it all before. He’s too short. He knows it.
His answer to coaches who tell him he’s too little?
“You can measure my height, but you can’t measure my heart,” Jenkins said.
But it does weigh on the speedy receiver with the shifty moves and swivel hips.
“It gets tiring,” Jenkins said of hearing about his lack of height. “You can’t get down on yourself about it. You see your friends getting offers and other players getting offers and you kind of wonder like, ‘When is your time gonna come?’ … But I just listen to my coaches, stay patient and that’s just how I go about it.”
He’s also received sound advice from his father.
Brian Jenkins Sr. knows a little bit about the predicament. He, too, was an undersized receiver coming out of Fort Lauderdale Dillard High in 1990 when a coach decided to take a chance on him and he signed with Cincinnati.
“I believe in reality and I tell him, ‘You’ve got to have a specialty and for you, it’s speed and tenacity,’ ” said Brian Jenkins Sr., the former head football coach at Bethune-Cookman and now the head coach at Alabama State. “At some point someone is going to say, ‘Hey. This kid can play. Let’s take him.’
“I just keep telling him to worry about the things you can control, and the things that you can’t control, don’t put any thought into them because at the end of the day, things are going to work in your favor. You just have to believe that.”
His dad isn’t the only one instilling positive vibes.
“His mother [Octavia] has done a phenomenal job keeping his spirit and his faith up,” Brian Jenkins Sr. said of his son. “Me and my son, we’re best friends ... we’re buddies. But him and his mom, they are inseparable. She’s done a tremendous job of keeping him focused, as well.”
It’s no fun for dad to watch his son go through the same things that he had to endure during the recruiting process.
“As a father, it’s tough to watch your kid, who has worked hard and you know he can play, but because of your genes or genetics you’ve kind of stunted him from being recruited,” Brian Jenkins Sr. said. “So you see him go through the emotional phase and it hurts.
“As a coach, I would recruit him because he has all of the skills and the intangibles to play. He knows football. He’s been in the lab, as me and him call it, since he was 3 years old. … He’s learned the game and can play, but his size is what’s been holding him back.”
To know Brian Jenkins Jr., however, is also to know that he will overcome his height deficiency. Those who tell him he can’t do something are the ones who drive him. The athlete also known as B.J. is determined and, to a point, stubborn. He carries himself with swagger, but it’s not because he’s better than the next guy, although he probably is. It’s because he has to have swagger.
If you want to make it big, you have to think big and act big and play big.
His dad will have a scholarship waiting for him at Alabama State, but that’s not good enough for the younger Jenkins.
“I understand what other coaches are thinking, but I will tell you this … he’s a tremendous ballplayer and I’m not just saying that because he’s my son,” Brian Jenkins Sr. said.
And if you don’t think he can do something, just try him. Numerous opponents have tried.
“When I hit a certain mode, my teammates call it ‘Juice Mode,’ ” Brian Jenkins Jr. said. “… And when I can make a guy miss or a couple of guys miss, it feels pretty good.”
It’s also very fun to watch.