Touching Cloth

A jersey, a tragedy, and a memory bond coach, grieving mother

It’s hard to explain the significance of a jersey to an athlete.

If you NEED an explanation, it’s always going to be hard for you to understand; and if you understand nobody will ever have to explain.

The best way to say it is that a numbered piece of cloth doesn’t mean a whole lot until it’s yours.

Or until it belongs to one of yours. And because it does, it conjures a wealth of memories. And it’s even more precious when memories are all you have left.

A PROMISE KEPT

Nakeisha Hart’s fingers fly over the jersey in front of her. She’s touching the stitches, the seams, the embroidered numbers, almost like she’s reading Braille, and letting the fabric tell her its story.

It’s Labor Day morning in Spartanburg, and she hasn’t seen this jersey in eight years. She knows it from memory. Some stitches are unraveling from the numbers, “52” in Boiling Springs red jumping off the white material on the front. There are eye-black stains on one shoulder, likely from a teammate’s embrace. Maybe from tears. There were enough to go around, mostly happy, some sad. There’s a small rip in one of the cropped sleeves, right around where they’d go over a shoulder pad. That’s probably the result of a desperate offensive lineman trying to grab and hold. Lord knows they had trouble blocking the former owner cleanly.

That would be Hart’s son, Rodney Hart-Owens. He wore 52 for those 2016 Boiling Springs Bulldogs. He was, in many ways, the heartbeat of the defense that led the team to the school’s only state championship appearance.

He’s why a coach, a writer, and a grieving mother are gathered around a small table looking at a jersey.

That coach, former Boiling Springs and Woodmont and current Blacksburg strength, conditioning, and performance coach Joey Hawkins, made Hart a promise. He’d get her one of Rodney’s jerseys. Neither knew how special the gear he’d come up with would be.

Neither did Bulldogs’ coach Matt Reel, in his third year in the program. Reel remembered Hawkins’ request, and when new jerseys were ordered for the program and the filtering-down process of updating jerseys through the program was complete, he snagged a 52 and got word to Hawkins.

“I’ll be to get it tomorrow,” Hawkins remembers replying.

What he got was beyond what he imagined.

“Matt Reel deserves a very special thank you, beyond what I can even express,” Hawkins said. “He said he’d get me a jersey. Well, he didn’t know it, but he got me the one Rodney wore in the state championship game.”

The first-ever 5A state championship. A game in which Boiling Springs came agonizingly close to the school’s first-ever state football title.

A game in which Hart-Owens last wore that red-and-white 52. His last high school game in the sport he loved, about seven years before he was killed.

But we’ll get to that.

HUNTING GREATNESS

Lots of programs across the state can debate the greatest football season in school history. That debate is dead at Boiling Springs. It’s 2016, and if you don’t accept that, you don’t know the program. Two wins over Gaffney. Two over Spartanburg, including a double-overtime thriller in the Upper State championship game. The first 5A Upper State title in the state. The school’s first (and to this point only) state championship game appearance.

And the Bulldogs were DIFFERENT. Talent, and swagger, and confidence, and unity.

Anybody who’s met Hawkins for more than about 10 minutes can see his fingerprints all over that squad. It’s something that brings a megawatt smile to his face as he remembers a long-ago nickname.

“They were the DPG,” he said with a laugh. “The Dawg Pound Gangstas. I was just fortunate that they called me the CEO of the DPG. It was just so fun watching these guys in the locker room. IT was a magical time from the tie it started to the time it ended. Being the first ever 5A region champ, Upper State champ, beating my alma mater Spartanburg twice, beating Gaffney twice. Things like that don’t just happen. The things they did together were magic. I told them at the time that in 2015 we chased greatness. In 2016, we hunted it.”

That the Bulldogs were channeling some of Hawkins’ brash game-day personality was evident once region play started. A tough loss to Dorman was followed by thumping Byrnes, and a spot at the top of the standings hinged on the final two region weeks, with Gaffney coming to town.

Pre-game, Hawkins was playfully mocking the Indians’ traditional “War Chop” gesture. He was told by someone close by that might be unwise.

“You don’t know these Dogs behind me,” he said. “These Dogs will hunt.”

“HE WAS A FOOTBALL PLAYER…”

At the center of that hunt was Rodney Hart-Owens. He was, in all honesty, most likely better suited to play linebacker. But the Bulldogs needed him at nose guard, over the ball. So that’s where he lined up. And in that state championship year, he turned in a season for the ages, particularly from that interior position. He notched 45 total tackles, including 26 solo stops. He had 19 tackles for loss. He recorded nine sacks, and 10 more QB hurries. He was, by all accounts, a complete menace on the football field, in the best possible way. It was modeled after one of the most intense players to ever lace cleats.

“Ray Lewis was his guy,” Hawkins explained. “He wanted to play LB so bad, but we needed him at nose. He brought a Ray Lewis intensity and hunger to playing nose. At a basketball game, the father of the QB at Spartanburg at the time came to me and said he’d never seen a guy that hungry to get after the quarterback. That was Rodney. He was just a football player.”

Hawkins’ approach to performance coaching revolves around four pillars. He said Hart-Owens embodied them all.

“He gave relentless pursuit and effort,” Hawkins said. “When I say ‘Get Your Fours Up’, that’s discipline, commitment, toughness, and effort. He had it all.

Nakeisha said that drive to play football might not have ALWAYS been there, but it appeared not long after Rodney stepped on a field.

“I put him in football at about four years old,” she said with a smile. “I thought it might harden him up a little bit. He was terrified at first. ‘Mom, I don’t know if I like football’. And from that time until he was 22-23 years old, I couldn’t pull him off the field.”

CHASING HIS DREAM

Rodney played collegiately at South Carolina State. He moved on to McPherson College in Kansas and Midland University in Nebraska and continued to play at every stop. Where he played didn’t matter as much as the fact that he was playing, which went back to something Hawkins had told him when he was still in high school.

“I just let him know that it doesn’t matter where you show out from,” he said. “Rodney was going to be seen just by being Rodney. Playing the way he did wherever he was playing, that’s something that was going to turn into everybody knowing his name.”

It goes back to those qualities Hawkins preaches. Commitment. Desire.

“He was going to continue to play football until there was no football left to be played,” Hawkins said. “He truly loved the essence of the game. I’ve seen kids go off and go to school to play, it didn’t work out, and they set it aside. Rodney was playing. He was going to find a way. Rodney was going to play.”

He was also doing well in his classes, majoring in Communications. Nakeisha thinks he was destined to be a panelist on some type of sports programming.

“Oh, he was opinionated,” she laughed. “He wanted to make his point, even if he was wrong. Hear me out. See it from my perspective. You were going to hear what he was going to say, even if you walked away from him while he was saying it. He wanted his voice to be heard. I think he would have been great.

And so, needing a couple credits and a couple thousand dollars to get them, Rodney went to work at All My Sons Moving Company in Omaha.

“Rodney needed another $4,000,” Nakeisha explained. “I had maxed out on Parent Plus Loans, so being Rodney, he found another way. He went and got a job to knock that out. He had to take extra credits, classes he’d already taken but that didn’t transfer. We talked it over and split some things and he went to work.”

A job moving heavy things around, all the better to build the frame of a defensive lineman. Rodney sometimes wore ankle weights while working, something even his supervisor noticed.

“Who moves furniture with ankle weights on?” Nakeisha asked. “But he was getting ready.”

On June 8, 2023, tragedy ended Rodney’s chase. He was killed by a co-worker, a man who had repeatedly brought a firearm to work; who had been fired for that reason and subsequently re-hired; who left the building where they were working, retrieved a gun, and shot Rodney multiple times. He plead guilty this summer, and in August was sentenced to a minimum of 77 years in prison. Hawkins, who said he treasures passing milestones with those he’s coached, had one he hopes never to duplicate.

“I’ve been to a bunch of weddings,” he said. “I’ve seen some guys having children. And this summer, she (Nakeisha) asked me to write a victim’s impact statement for sentencing. I had to put into writing all the things I know she’s going to miss.”

“He had one credit left to graduate, and the other two were for paperwork,” she said. “He was going to graduate, and then figure football out. To see him be that close and have it taken away…”.

“WE WERE A FAMILY”

High school football builds bonds in a bunch of ways. Winning, losing, adversity, triumph, all play a part into what makes it special. The 2016 Boiling Springs Bulldogs captured that completely.

“Our high school team was a family,” Hawkins said. “Truly. Love was involved. There is a passionate love that I had a group of young men who came together and didn’t care who got the shine. You could see it every time they were on the field. It was just a group of kids who bought in.”

They stayed bought-in, particularly for each other. Najee Thompson was a shining star, a state track champion and a standout in all three phases of football. He went on to Georgia Southern University, and then to the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings.

In the immediate aftermath of news about Rodney’s murder circulating, Hawkins got a text message. It was Najee.

“Find out if this is OUR Rodney.”

It was, and teammates rallied. Nakeisha said Thompson, LaTrez Pinckney, Mikail Coleman, and Will Brown were among the first, but that she remained stunned by just how many reached out to her.

“I kept in touch with Coach Hawk periodically, but Rodney was in touch with his coaches and his teammates, and they never forgot who I was, even through all of this. Seeing how they found some way to communicate with me, it’s unreal. The calls, the beautiful memorial gifts, the things that were sent to my home – I know they were family.”

Hawkins said it’s exactly what he expects from the group.

“Here’s guys who haven’t been together since 2016, but we’re still together,” he said. “There’s a special love amongst this group that I’ll never forget. I’m blessed to have them more than I can ever explain.”

“THAT 52 WAS EVERYTHING”

When Hawkins pulled the game-worn, tattered No. 52 out of his backpack, it took Nakeisha’s breath. She remembered exactly what it had meant on the field. But she remembered so much more than that.

She’s asked what Rodney’s mood was on Fridays when he pulled the jersey on to go to school. The answer is accompanied by a playful roll of her eyes.

“You mean the night before? It meant everything. I don’t care what type of day he was having, whatever. I used to fuss a lot, and this situation has made me rethink some of that and regret some of that. I took some of those moments for granted. I’d fuss about his room not being cleaned. About not turning in an assignment. I’d love to take it back, but I can’t. Putting on this jersey and dancing through my house would send me to the edge. But it was his drive. He didn’t see anything else. He wasn’t in trouble, he had made it to Friday, and he was going to that game. It didn’t matter if an assignment was late, if that room wasn’t clean. That 52 was everything.”

Hawkins said that’s the essence of Rodney.

“I don’t care what level you play at, THIS is the level where you know each other and you truly care about each other,” he said. “What it means to put a jersey on at the high school level and play with your brothers is unbelievable. And when Rodney put this on, he became a superhero.”