How Dee Alford’s valiant approach led him to the NFL

Alford’s journey to this happy moment was not a straight line. In the midst of Alford’s junior year at Spalding County High School, then-football coach Nick Davis came to one of his classes and took him aside to see if he would be interested in joining the football team.

That interaction, according to Jackson, came after hearing about him at school.

Alford focused solely on basketball, the only sport he played during his freshman three years of high school, but speaking with Davis would prove to be a turning point for the Griffin native.

“He didn’t feel like he was big enough for basketball,” Jackson said. “Even though he was good at basketball, he didn’t feel like he was the right size and he doesn’t feel like he was the right size for football, but you know, he was just talented at it.”

However, Alford was no stranger to football. It was the first sport he played as a youngster, so the game was already familiar to him.

“He was like 6-7 years old, playing with the big boys out there,” Jackson said. “One of the parents out there said, ‘You have to register this boy, man, you have to register him,’ and when he said that to me, I went to register him for the parks and recreational activities and he went from there . He always had the ability to do great things.”

Alford started playing football with the Spalding County Falcons at Griffin at the age of seven and played football until his freshman year of high school when he turned to the hardwood.

“I was a basketball player, so obviously I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to play basketball,'” Alford said. “Coach Nick Davis, he spoke to me and I went out my senior year and just took off.”

Alford’s football IQ was, of course, high. In his lone football season with Spalding, he quickly became one of the Jaguars’ standout players, leading the region with seven interceptions, one of which he returned for a record-breaking 103 yards. He was also named the 4A All-Region Georgia Southwest Bowl Game Team MVP. Considering he only played high school football for a year, no letters flooded his mailbox. But that wasn’t his focus. An opportunity was the only thing he needed to showcase his playmaking skills at the collegiate level.

Jerry Odom, who was an assistant head coach at Jacksonville University at the time, traveled to Griffin for a high school game to watch a player he was recruiting from Griffin High School. But he quickly began paying attention to the 5-foot-11, 155-pound defenseman who was playing for Spalding.

“I watch this other player and he was okay, but then this other kid just keeps showing up,” Odom said. “He just piqued my interest and I tried to reach out and find Dee on Twitter. And then I called his coach and found out he’s a freshman and a basketball guy.”

Odom was a big fan of basketball players, especially point guards, mostly because they had great footwork and were fast. The two maintained a relationship over time and Odom began recruiting Alford to play at Jacksonville University. At the end of the Jacksonville season that year, Odom received the call that he would be the next head coach at Tusculum University, Tennessee’s premier university.

“I got the opportunity to come up here as head coach,” said Odom. “While I was doing it I’ve been scrambling to scout for players here and didn’t know anything about our financial situation in terms of scholarships or anything but I knew there were four or five people on my list and Dee was one of them was.”

Odom called Alford after he moved to Tusculum.

“He wanted me to follow him and I did. I just wanted to go where they wanted me most,” Alford said.

Initially, Odom didn’t have a scholarship to Alford at Tusculum, so he joined the team as a henchman.

“I just told him if you come and play, you do what I think you will do, I’ll take care of you asap,” Odom said. “It worked out somehow.”

Despite playing in a smaller Division II institution, Alford’s faith never wavered. He maintained a steadfast attitude throughout the process.

“Obviously, to go to a D-II, you just have to work hard,” he said. “It’s a small school so you definitely want to stand out and only going to a Division II school made me play with a chip on my shoulder. It made me want to be better. Better than the Power 5, better than the D-IAA, those kind of guys. It just helped me to play physically, to play fast, and it’s just a mindset thing.

Alford received a scholarship two months into his freshman campaign. Over the next three seasons, he became one of Tusculum’s most celebrated players in school history. He finished his collegiate career with 140 tackles, set a school record for 40 career passes defended, 10 interceptions (third in school history), 195 interception return yards, 50 career punt returns, and 547 punt return yards, both of which ranked third. most in Tusculum football history.

“What struck me most about him was how much he wanted to learn,” Odom said. “Anything I could teach him or anything we tried conceptually. On the defensive side of the ball we were in a lot of different coverages and he really wanted to learn all about that and I think that was the first thing that really struck me about him.”