Mitchell making impact after waiting his turn
Teradja Mitchell might have been destined to become a Big Ten linebacker.
He was a big kid growing up in the Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia, heavy enough to join Pop Warner league teams with boys who were several years older.
Despite the age gap, Mitchell got along. He relished contact and had a nose for the ball. With affection, his father nicknamed him “my hitter.”
“He could hold his own with the bigger guys,” Terry Mitchell said of his son.
But his arrival at Ohio State in 2018 lacked the same sudden impact. He confronted a logjam of linebackers on the depth chart and waited three seasons for a prominent role with the Buckeyes, toiling as a backup until this fall.
Such a career arc is rare in an era of widespread transfers, a top-50 recruit staying until his senior season before breaking into the starting lineup.
The patience has paid off, though. Through five weeks, Mitchell is the team’s second-leading tackler, and as a team captain he has been a steady presence for a young defense in transition, looking to bounce back from a rare early-season loss for the Buckeyes.
“He’s playing with a great attitude,” coach Ryan Day said, “and he can make even more plays.”
His fellow linebackers from the 2018 recruiting class all left Ohio State in recent weeks. Dallas Gant entered the transfer portal, then K’vaughan Pope was dismissed from the team following an emotional outburst on the sideline during a Sept. 25 win over Akron.
Mitchell said he never considered transferring at any point during the past few years.
“It’s never really crossed my mind,” Mitchell said. “It’s been put in my ear before, but I never really got to that mindset. My mindset was to stick this thing out.”
He’s long sought to emulate the work ethic of Terry, who held the same job for four decades, working as a motor equipment operator for the city of Virginia Beach, until his recent retirement.
This longevity impressed Mitchell and led him to value similar dedication. He persevered.
“I’ve never seen my dad quit anything,” Mitchell said. “When he starts something, he finishes. That’s my approach to everything in life. You start something, you’ve got to finish it. It’s going to get tough, but you’ve got to be relentless and keep going.”
Terry said he brought up the idea of transferring only once last year. He only meant to check on his son and gauge his interest in the possibility. No pressure. It was a brief conversation.
“I said, ‘Teradja, what do you think?’ ” Terry said. “And then he said, ‘Dad, I ain’t thought about it.’ I said, ‘Well then, we’re not going to talk about it. We’ll just hang in there and your time is going to come.’ ”
While veteran linebackers were a roadblock to the field, Mitchell found they also created a good learning environment.
Baron Browning, Tuf Borland, Justin Hilliard, Malik Harrison and Pete Werner helped prepare him for his role, passing along the finer points of the position, especially in 2019 as they transitioned position coaches from Bill Davis to Al Washington.
“Those guys kind of took me under their wing and taught me the ropes and made me better,” Mitchell said.
He had other reasons to stay at Ohio State, including classes. His fashion and retail studies major remained a draw, along with the networking opportunities that emerged amid Columbus’ growing fashion industry.
Mitchell traces his interest in clothing to when he was in middle school and sought to be among the best dressed in his class.
Little compared to sneakers. When he was in high school, he and his friends camped out overnight at a mall waiting for the release of a new pair of Air Jordans.
As college athletes became permitted in July to make money from the use of their name, image and likeness, Mitchell launched his own clothing line called Above The Realm, designing streetwear that includes shirts and hoodies.
In the first month, he sold about 100 to family members and close friends before partnering with Moby Dick Unlimited, a branding and design company based in Whitehall, to assist with sales.
He plans to add a sweatsuit to the collection this winter. The hope is to keep growing the brand. The fashion world offers another possible career path, a post-football opportunity.
“I haven’t been one-track-minded,” Mitchell said. “Usually growing up, that’s all people think — football, football, football is the only way out. Obviously, all my efforts are toward football, but at the end of the day, football ends and you have to make sure you’re set for life.”
Football is still sort of a first love, the sport he began playing when he was about 5, following in the footsteps of others in his family.
Terry was a high school linebacker. T.J., an older brother, was a quarterback at Hampton and West Virginia after he had been a record-setting passer at Landstown, a prep powerhouse where he threw the ball to future Florida star and NFL wide receiver Percy Harvin.
It was then, in the mid-2000s, when the Mitchell family first met Urban Meyer. Before Meyer came through Virginia Beach to recruit Teradja, he visited to see Harvin.
As he grew up watching T.J. play, the budding linebacker also saw competition.
“He always looked at the things T.J. had done and tried to do it better,” Terry said. “He always measured himself to T.J. They were real competitive.”
Terry looks back on one Thanksgiving when Teradja was in high school at Bishop Sullivan.
After eating dinner, they went out in the street to race, looking to see which one of them was the fastest. They would sprint from one end of the block to the other. They called it pole to pole. It was about 100 yards.
All four brothers lined up and took off. No one outran Teradja. He felt vindicated and made sure to let them know.
“‘I told you,’ that’s all he kept saying,” Terry said. “‘I told you.’ He was so pumped up.”
Even then over a little stretch of pavement, Teradja Mitchell had bided his time and prevailed.
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Contact him at jkaufman@dispatch.com or on Twitter @joeyrkaufman.