Nov. 17, 2000
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Jim Montgomery appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
For Odell James at Baylor, it was supposed to be one of those turn-it-around careers, touchdowns and victories and championships and cheers and banners and rings and trophies and all the fine things of football.
Didn't happen.
What did happen, five years ago in a high school game now obscured by the mists of time, was one of the not-so-fine things football can bring.
"A defensive player kind of rolled up on my leg," James remembered. "Tore a ligament."
He finished the game and the season. The knee seemed fine. Recruiting interest was high on the Houston area quarterback.
"PRETTY MUCH everybody," James said. "Florida. Nebraska, just about every Division I-A school was out to get me. It was pretty hectic. They used to call late at night and that bothered my mother, or I'd be over at a friend's house and I don't know how they got the number but they'd call over there, too."
The choice of Baylor led through a University of Texas delegate.
"One day at school I was in a room with one of the Texas recruiters," James related. "I asked him what had made the turnaround at Texas for them to come back and win the Southwest Conference and he answered right back: 'James Brown. He changed our program around.'
"Well, I've always been a competitor and I was on an underdog (high school) team, so I thought I'd try to make the underdog be the best. I knew there were some great athletes at Baylor, like Jerod Douglas and Pearce Pegross and Kalief Muhammad, those guys, so I thought, 'What if I went to Baylor and helped change their program around?' I was looking for a challenge."
No one knew, really, that the knee damage not only was still there but much worse than suspected.
"MY KNEE STARTED swelling in two-a-days," James said. "I had an MRI. There were two other torn ligaments and a torn cartilage. I had to have major reconstructive surgery."
"Odell came here with what, quite honestly, were unrealistic expectations," said head coach Kevin Steele, whose own arrival at Baylor came three years after James' but who makes it a point to know his players' histories and personalities as well as their abilities.
"A lot was placed on a young man's shoulders, and nothing ever seemed to go his way."
The one brief shining moment came in the second game of the 1998 season against North Carolina State. With James in a major role, the Bears beat the Wolfpack, 33-30.
Baylor, however, would win only once more that season and James would lose the starting quarterback's job then and again in 1999. As Steele noted, fate seldom favored Odell James.
Midway through 1999, upon request, James moved on defense. One dream might have vanished, but he was still the happy warrior.
"Odell's adapted to defense very well," Steele beamed. "He tackles well, he covers well, he blitzes well. I said at the beginning of this season, if anyone deserves to stay in this program it's Odell James."
Another shining moment came against Oklahoma a week ago. An attempted Sooner shovel pass hit a blitzing James in the chest. He was in the OU end zone in a seeming instant with Baylor's only score of the day, providing both James and Steele with one of those rare glimpses of merit rewarded.
"Odell's worked exceptionally hard, and he's been one of the better senior leaders, front and center," Steele said. "He's always courteous to the younger guys. If there's a younger guy who's having problems and is maybe a little bit distracted or feeling pressure, Odell can sit down with him and talk to him because he's experienced about everything there is."
Such instances are exactly what James has in mind for life after football. His Baylor Stadium days ended against Oklahoma State, but not the message he brings.
"I've always throught about going places and talking to young people, church groups, and trying to direct them in the right directions," he said. "I've asked the Lord if it's meant for me to give testimony and work for Him. I come from people who don't always make it in life. I'm a prime example that if you believe in the Lord and work hard, He will help pull you through."
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Jim Montgomery appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
