Long before he won a super bowl with the Eagles of Philadelphia, new Detroit lions The Avonte Maddox corner half has grown up by dreaming of success in another sport – baseball.
Maddox, who signed a one -year agreement with the Lions Friday was a star stop in Detroit King and only took the football of his high school.
He traveled the free press through his sports Odyssey at this year Super Bowl in New Orleans.
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“I remember when I was young, I used to have my glove, it would be a new glove, I put it under my bed with a ball in it, do all the little things, all the little tips, break it, go play with my father, things like that,” said Maddox. “And then dream it, yes, I would be here to shoot a double game or hit a home run or mark the winning RBI. It was always dreams like that and I never really had dreams of playing in the Super Bowl as much. Because I have always been said:” Oh, you are too small to play football, you are too small to play football. “But I never let it touch me because I know myself and I know what I can do.
Maddox played football from Little League by growing up in Detroit, then abandoned sport to focus on baseball.
He played the stop in the secondary and the center of the center and the second goal of his travel team, and said that he aroused the interest of the Texas Rangers prints as a senior.
At King, Maddox played football as a junior at the request of one of his friends. He obtained a Pitt scholarship and planned to practice the two sports for the panthers until his dreams were destroyed by injuries.
“Baseball, I still love it,” said Maddox. “I have the impression that I would have continued to play at university if I do not say my two elbows. So, this kind of Met of me.
Maddox said that football coach Paul Chryst gave him the OK to play the two sports in the second year, but he decided to wait a year after Chryst’s departure for Wisconsin.
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Pat Narduzzi replaced Chryst and told Maddox that he could play baseball as a junior, but when Maddox dislocated his left and right elbows in consecutive years, he decided that the risk was not worth it.
Maddox said he had never imagined himself as a NFL player until one of his Pitt coaches told him as a junior that he could have a future in sport.
“My trainer came and said,” Well, your project rank would now be like the seventh round to the free agent. And I was a bit like: “Oh.
A four -year starter in Pitt, Maddox did not have to wait so long in the 2018 draft, when the Eagles of Philadelphia took him to the fourth round with the 125th overall choice.
He started nine games and had two interceptions as a recruit and was a key cog in the secondary of Eagles for most of the last seven seasons.
Last year, he played in the 17 games, mainly as a n ° 4 of the team. He made three starts, made five pass ruptures and diverted another pass in the victory of the Eagles over the Chiefs of Kansas City.
“My dream has always been to play in the World Series,” said Maddox. “I think things happen for a reason and I had the opportunity to play again in the Super Bowl and not being in the World Series, I consider it the same thing. I mean, it’s the highest level, so it’s just fun. It’s a week full of pleasure and excitement and nervousness and all that, but once we went out on the football field, it’s just another game. ”
Maddox told New Orleans that he had been fortunate to be drafted by a winning organization in the Eagles – Philadelphia won the Super Bowl two months before being drafted, and played in another two years ago – and playing with teammates that he has considered his brothers for so long.
But he also said that he had a penchant for Detroit who never left, and that the Lions were a team for which he always rooted from afar.
“The n ° 1 of Philadelphia, but Detroit is definitely n ° 2,” said Maddox in February. “I am always rooted for them and I hoped that we would play and that we would have had the chance to play them, I can go home and see my family. But that worked in our favor, we have to play at home for the NFC championship, but I still encourage them. ”
Dave Birkett will sign copies of his book, “Detroit lions: An illustrated chronology, “at 7 p.m., March 24, at the Birmingham Public Library.
Order your copy here.
Contact it to [email protected]. Follow him Bluesky,, X And Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: The new Lions of Detroit CB Avonte Maddox have almost become pro in another sport
