Dozier’s change of heart pays off big time
One day after spring football began during his freshman year, Cedric Dozier made a life-altering decision. A few days later, he made another.
Dozier quit Lakes High’s football team, telling coach Dave Miller he was going to focus on playing basketball. Hoops, he figured, would get him a college scholarship.
“I knew that I had to make it, got to make it,” Dozier said. “I was so worried and thought I had to go hard at one thing.”
Dozier chose basketball, a sport he had played since he was a 2-year-old. Football, something he’d been playing for only two years, was out. He broke the news to Miller.
“He came out for the first day of spring ball and told me he was going to focus on basketball,” Miller recalled. “I said, ‘Well, I’ll support your decision, but I think it’s the wrong decision. Take some time and think about it.’ ”
Teammates and family also urged Dozier to give football another chance.
“Oh, I definitely tried to talk him into coming back to football,” senior lineman Zach Banner said. “ ‘Ced’ was set on basketball, he was. He loved it a lot, he wasn’t really thinking about playing football.”
Dozier mulled over his decision for a few days and finally chose to return to the football team.
“I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made,” he said. “Who knows what would have happened?”
Here’s what has happened: Dozier blossomed into an electrifying player, earning an invitation to the prestigious U.S. Army All-American Bowl and a scholarship offer to play football at the University of California-Berkeley.
Tonight, Dozier and the second-ranked Lancers (9-0) will play host to Nathan Hale (5-4) at 7:30 p.m. at Harry E. Lang Stadium in a Class 3A state play-in game.
After Dozier received his All-American Bowl jersey at an assembly at Lakes, the receiver/quarterback/cornerback revealed just how grateful he was to be on a path to athletic success and a college education.
“Growing up in a small town in Alabama,” he told those in attendance, “dreams don’t come true often. Today, they do.”
Born and raised in Roanoke, Ala., a city of about 7,000 near the Georgia state line, Dozier moved to the South Sound in seventh grade to live with cousins Quentin and Gerard Thomas. Dozier considers them brothers. He was raised by their mother, Barbara Thomas, who is Dozier’s great-aunt.
“We all grew up together, ate at the same table, went through the same things,” Dozier said.
Dozier left Alabama to live with the Thomases – Gerard served in the Navy and Quentin was awarded a Purple Heart in the Army – to escape what could have become a bad situation.
“I moved here because it’s so hard to make it out of Alabama,” he said. “I’m not saying you can’t, but there’s a lot of stuff going on. Young kids growing up too fast, whether it’s getting pregnant, gang-banging, you name it. It’s just hard. It’s an old country town. You get sucked up real fast. It’s very easy to get in the wrong crowd.”
Dozier embraced sports when he moved to Washington, continuing to play basketball and turning out for football practice for the first time in seventh grade. He was a member of the varsity football team as a freshman – a rare feat at talent-rich Lakes – but that didn’t stop him from thinking basketball was his ticket to college.
Dozier knows he made the wrong decision to walk out on his teammates and football for those few days three years ago.
“Yeah, I actually did quit,” Dozier said, shaking his head, “and that kills me because I’m not a quitter.”
His teammates have long since forgiven him for briefly leaving the team and Dozier has paid them back with his team-first attitude.
After taking nearly every meaningful snap at quarterback during his sophomore and junior seasons at Lakes, Dozier is splitting time at quarterback this fall with David Wood, in addition to playing receiver and cornerback.
“He’s unselfish, a big team guy,” Miller said. “He’ll do anything we ask.”
Dozier began to attract attention from college coaches.
Cal was the second of eight NCAA Division I schools to offer Dozier a scholarship. In October, he gave an oral commitment to play for the Golden Bears. Part of that decision was rooted in Cal’s Haas School of Business, which was rated the third-best undergraduate business school in the country by U.S. News & World Report in 2011.
Dozier said he’ll do whatever it takes to become a professional football player, but if that fails, he’ll have a degree from an elite university.
“If you shoot for the stars and fall to the moon,” he said, “those are good odds to me.”
Those aren’t the words of a quitter.
Doug Pacey: 253-597-8271
doug.pacey@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/preps Twitter: @DougPaceyTNT
