This should help!
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Chargers rookie Rashawn Slater’s football love affair: ‘The sacrifices only made it grow fonder’By Daniel Popper
August 2, 2021
Reggie Slater wanted his two oldest sons to love basketball the way he did.
He had devoted his life to the game, going from undersized and undrafted to an eight-year NBA veteran. He played all over the world: Spain, Turkey, Italy. He had even spent two seasons playing in the now-defunct Continental Basketball League. He loved the game, and it loved him back. This was his calling, his passion. And he was determined to pass it on to his oldest sons R.J. and Rashawn.
The boys, though, gravitated to the gridiron. There was mystery in football. Reggie had never played. Kids needed their parents to sign a permission slip to start football when Reggie was growing up in the ’80s, and his mom refused. “She thought I was going to get broke up too easy,” Reggie recalls. So she directed him to the gym.
R.J. and Rashawn’s conscious minds were made up. They loved football. Still, Reggie was undeterred. He decided to try and coax their subconscious minds instead.
Late at night, after R.J. and Rashawn had gone to bed, Reggie would check on his sons. He quietly opened the door to the bedroom and made sure they were still sleeping. Then he tiptoed his 6-foot-7 basketball frame across the floor, leaned his head down and whispered “basketball” in their ears.
“It never worked,” Reggie said, laughing.
R.J., two years older than Rashawn, led the way, as big brothers do. Football was different. It was his own path. And he loved the physicality football offered. Rashawn felt the same pull. “Sibling admiration,” Reggie says.
In the Slaters’ hometown of Sugar Land, Texas, a new sports love affair was blossoming — foreign for Reggie, but undeniably magnetic for R.J. and Rashawn.
On paper, Rashawn Slater was destined for the basketball court. He had all the resources a kid could ask for — namely, the right athletic genes and an experienced father who was a willing and avid teacher.
But the heart is a fickle beast. Quick feet, natural strength and a 6-foot-5 build can be passed down from father to son. But desires? Those are generated and cultivated by the individual.
Rashawn desired, craved to be on the football field, to achieve greatness there.
And thus started his journey to the Los Angeles Chargers.
Rashawn entered into that unknown, onto that blank page, and willed himself to this point — to the highest levels of the sport he loves — through determination, through 6 a.m. wakeup calls at 15 years old, through three-hour workouts in the Houston summer sun, through late-night film sessions.
“He just had a drive at a very young age,” R.J. said. “He knew what he wanted, and he was going to work for it despite what anybody says.”
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Rashawn Slater’s athletic career started with a wide array of activities. Soccer. Baseball. Yes, basketball. Even taekwondo.
Reggie owned a gym in the Houston area. One section of the gym was a martial arts studio, and Rashawn took lessons there starting in middle school. He also competed. More like dominated.
“He was in matches and people were trying to bow out because he was a big kid and he was knocking the shit out of everybody,” Reggie said. “People didn’t even want to fight against him, man.”
No weight classes in sixth grade.
“He kicked the guy and it was something out of a Marvel movie,” Reggie said. “He’d get up, whoop somebody’s ass, and then sit down for two or three hours. The matches weren’t long. I can tell you that.”
On Saturdays, Reggie would beckon R.J. and Rashawn to the family’s outdoor basketball hoop. In the driveway, Reggie would run his sons through drills — dribbling with both hands, layups, footwork, mid-range jumpers.
When they were done, R.J. and Rashawn would scamper inside to the couch and turn on college football.
Reggie might not have been able to foster a love of basketball. But there was still plenty to impart. So Reggie would sit down beside his sons and tell stories from his career and life — not necessarily to draw them back to basketball, but to instill his pillars and values: work ethic, professionalism, drive, determination, focus, loyalty.
These stories and discussions were filled with pet idioms. Writers are taught to avoid cliches. Reggie basked in them, lived by them, parented by them. Sometimes, cliches are cliches for a reason.
“He’s just always been in our ear,” Rashawn said. “We didn’t know it at the time, but all that stuff he was telling us, it was kind of shaping us under our skin.”
The people that do well are the people that do what others aren’t willing to do.
Talk is cheap. Actions are way louder.
You can sit and point fingers, or you can just get better.
Control the situation; don’t let the situation control you.
Enjoy what you can enjoy while you can, but once the job’s at hand, it’s time to go to work.
These are the lessons Reggie learned in his playing days, from veterans such as Buck Williams, Kevin Willis and Charles Oakley.
Reggie would field calls from former teammates while in the car. They would reminisce and cycle through what-ifs from their careers. Rashawn would be in the passenger seat, listening intently, internalizing these valuable nuggets.
“Here’s the recipe,” Reggie said. “It’s up to you to put it all together.”
That recipe applies to football, just as it applies to basketball.
That is because it applies to life.
“As we worked, we saw it happen,” R.J. said. “It just became real and it became what we did.”
These idioms were the street lamps illuminating Rashawn’s path.
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The boys both attended Clements High School in Sugar Land, their local public school. Clements played in the fierce and competitive Fort Bend district, part of the top flight of Texas high school football reserved for the largest schools. Clements was the district punching bag. They went 3-27 in Rashawn’s four seasons.
Rashawn had opportunities to play for private schools.
But he refused. Don’t point fingers. Get better.
Still, garnering recruiting recognition was like hiking through mud. R.J. was a quality high school football player and had interest from Ivy League schools. He ultimately decided to enroll and play at the Air Force Academy.
Rashawn watched his brother’s recruiting process and had an epiphany. He needed to get better — much better — if he wanted to reach his goal of playing at a high-profile Division I program.
“It definitely helped Rashawn,” R.J. said, “because he kind of realized some of my shortfalls.”
“In Rashawn’s eye, if his brother was that good, and he wasn’t highly recruited, what is it that I need to do?” Reggie said.
Reggie owned that gym, Slater’s Sports Zone in Fort Bend, Texas. And there, local trainer Alonzo Ford was renting out space to work with Houston high school athletes. Ford worked in tandem with Antoine Murphy, a former Baylor offensive lineman and NFL camp body who specializes in offensive and defensive line development.
One day, Ford saw Rashawn playing basketball with his dad. He was big — very big — and light on his feet.
Ford approached Reggie in the parking lot.
“Man, you got to bring your son to me,” he remembered saying.
“He saw a prime specimen ready to be molded,” Reggie said.
Then the work began.
Ford headed the strength and conditioning. Murphy oversaw the football-specific training. Together, they helped Rashawn groom into a Division I prospect.
Murphy, in particular, was essential in teaching Rashawn the details of the position that laid the groundwork for the pinpoint and polished technique that made him a first-round pick.
“At an early point, I realized that you put yourself ahead by the way you work, but you also put yourself ahead by the way you execute technique,” Rashawn said. “Everyone is strong, everyone is fast. But do you have great technique? That’s when it started to build.”
Ford pushed Rashawn physically, concocting exercises and workouts to test his pupil’s genetic gifts. He put 500 pounds on the workout sled. He had Rashawn put one leg in a suspended loop and then jump with the other leg onto a 24-inch box.
“It’s fun training those type of athletes where you don’t really have a limit,” Ford said.
Murphy remembers meeting Rashawn for the first time.
“Big glasses,” he said. “So he looked kind of like a Poindexter kind of guy.”
But then Murphy saw him move.
“He could run like the wind and he could run all day,” Murphy said.
The glasses were misleading. Rashawn can come across as quiet and unassuming. He even says that during the pre-draft process, teams accused him of being “too nice.”
Rashawn’s response? “You’ve never watched the film.”
“I kind of have the ability to flip a switch like that,” he said.
Murphy saw it firsthand during those years of training. If Rashawn was getting ready to “lock in,” he would take off his glasses and hand them to Murphy.
“That’s how he gets if you beat him or if you do something that he feels like got a little dirty on him,” Murphy said. “When he hands you those glasses and he’s sweating profusely, that’s when you know, uh oh, it’s on now.”
“He’d go Clark Kent on them boys,” R.J. said.
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Rashawn lived in the trenches as a high school player. He played every snap of the game as an offensive and defensive lineman. He had 10 sacks as a senior defensive end, earning All-District honors for offensive and defensive line.
Rashawn trained at both spots with Murphy.
“He would just beat guys,” Murphy said. “I had guys that were getting recruited by every school in America, and he would just beat them consistently and beat them easily and kind of put their mindset in the dumps. He would just do it easily, run back to me just laughing. ‘Ha, ha, ha.’ Just giggling.
“He’s approachable. He’s well-spoken. He’s sweet,” Murphy said. “But I’m telling you, if you make him mad, or when it’s time to turn the lights on and he’s focused, he turns into the Hulk.”
Ford and Murphy trained a group of local high school players, including Will Farrar and Dakota Crawford, two offensive linemen at Travis High School, and Dennis Osagiede, a defensive lineman at Ridge Point. All three went on to play college football.
The group saw Rashawn flipping that switch every day.
“If you look at him, yeah, he’s a big guy,” Osagiede said. “But his demeanor isn’t like, oh, he’s a ****ing crusher. Nah. You just got to get in that ring with him. Ya feel me? You got to get on that field with him, and then you’ll see.”
“That dude is a whole different animal when you piss him off,” Crawford said.
The weeks during the football season were long and arduous. On top of his high school responsibilities, Rashawn was spending four days a week either training or studying with Ford and Murphy.
“That’s all I’ve known him as — a hard-working silent assassin,” Ford said.
Murphy developed Rashawn’s hand placement and usage by working him out on a boxing heavy bag. He regularly would go over to the family’s house to watch film with Rashawn upstairs. There, his football IQ took center stage.
“He’s a scholar,” Murphy said. “He doesn’t want to be surprised during the game.”
This eventually led Rashawn to create an idiom of his own.
“He says he feels most confident when he’s most prepared,” Reggie said. “I’ve heard him say that. I’m like, ‘Damn, that’s a great quote! I wish I had told you guys that.’”
The sessions with Ford and Murphy went year-round, including three times a week in the spring. Miles and miles of running, followed by footwork in the sand volleyball courts at the local park.
Inside, timed sprints on the basketball courts. Speed, conditioning, agility and technique work.
Osagiede, Farrar and Crawford became numb to Rashawn’s superhuman workout feats.
“He is so explosive, it’s ridiculous,” Crawford said.
The summer Houston heat was stifling. And Rashawn, well …
“That dude is the sweatiest person I’ve ever seen,” Crawford said.
“I’d come home, and he had his laundry hamper that was filled with soaking wet, sweaty clothes, because sometimes he’d work out twice a day,” Reggie said. “I knew that they were doing something positive there.”
Murphy would bring film cutups of NFL offensive linemen — Tyron Smith, Jason Peters, Andrew Whitworth — and watch with his players before and after their training sessions.
“I can remember waking up early on Saturdays at 6 a.m. and it would be me, Rashawn, Coach Ford and Coach Murphy just working,” Farrar said.
The workouts were ultra-competitive.
“When we went through one-on-ones, I knew I had to come with my shit if I wanted to win the rep or even like faze him,” Osagiede said.
Osagiede trained with Rashawn for three years.
“I can count on my hand how many times I beat him in reps,” he said.
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Fueling all this was Rashawn’s inquisitive mind and unquenchable thirst for greatness.
“He took care of business at a young age,” Ford said.
Reggie remembers when a Northwestern recruiter came to the house to visit with Rashawn.
Typically those visits are simply sales pitches. Not with Rashawn.
“They were going over techniques,” Reggie said. “They went into the living room and moved some furniture and started talking about how do I become a better, more skilled NCAA player. It was very unusual. I’m sitting there eating brisket and biscuits. And these guys are in stances, talking about pad level.”
Once Rashawn committed to Northwestern, he “never wavered,” according to Murphy. After his standout senior season on both sides of the ball, bigger programs came calling. But they stood no chance.
“He made his mind up and gave his word,” Murphy said. “It’s over.”
There, the foundation that Murphy and Ford laid allowed Rashawn to blossom. He started for three years, first at right tackle and then at left tackle, before opting out of the 2020 season. He spent the fall working in Dallas with offensive line coach Duke Manyweather to prepare for the draft.
Rashawn never forgot the programs that passed on him.
“I’ve been an underdog my whole life,” Rashawn said. “It’s not leaving, because that’s just part of who I am now.”
His commitment only strengthened in college. The Slaters — including Reggie’s wife, Katie, the couple’s daughter Aliyh and youngest son Rylan — went on a cruise after Rashawn had finished his freshman season and started 12 games at right tackle.
The family lounged in pool chairs, sipped on piña coladas and ate at the buffet. Relaxed. But there was often one seat left empty.
Off on the cruise deck, not far away, Rashawn was doing pass protection sets.
Cruise-goers, including his own family members, looked on, befuddled and bewildered.
“Obviously, he got made fun of,” R.J. said. “The pass pro set looks kind of goofy sometimes. But that man did not shy away from busting it out anywhere, because he was going to hone his craft regardless of where he was. If it was a vacation or not, he was going to get better.”
This was deeper than early wake-up calls or exhausting workouts. This was a lifestyle, a love affair.
A calling.
“That extra level that a lot of people don’t get to,” R.J. said.
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Moments after the Chargers selected Rashawn with the 13th pick in April’s draft, the baby-faced offensive tackle was asked on the ESPN broadcast for his message to his new quarterback Justin Herbert.
“I got your back,” replied Rashawn, the franchise’s new cornerstone left tackle.
For most, this was merely a generic stock answer. Player-speak. A cliche.
But, to the Slaters, cliches are cliches for a reason. They are not throwaway sayings. They are defining, essential principles.
They are how you create your own destiny.
Ford was watching the draft from a barbershop while his son got a haircut.
“That put chills through my body,” Ford said, “because he’s been a man of his word for so long. … I hope this quarterback understands he means that. No one is going to touch that guy. I’m putting my life on the line for this one.”
Basketball is in Rashawn’s blood. Football is in his heart.
A different game. A familiar devotion.
“He still has a love for the game that I feel like a lot of people lose once you get to the level of sacrifice he’s taken,” R.J. said. “But I feel like the sacrifices only made it grow fonder for him.”
theathletic.com/2738830/2021/08/02/too-nice-chargers-rookie-rashawn-slater-has-a-different-side-hes-ready-to-unleash-he-turns-into-the-hulk/
