Most mothers think their sons are special, but after giving birth to a 10-pound, seven-ounce baby, Anjanette Reed knew her son was.
Jarran Reed was the second biggest baby born in Craven County, North Carolina that year, prompting Anjanette to send Jarran's father home to get bigger clothes than the ones available at the hospital. Buying bigger became a trend in the Reed household, with Anjanette having to get "super-duper toys" to withstand little Jarran's strength.
From the moment he was born, Jarran was different than the average child.
He never crawled.
Jarran completely skipped that step of the growing up process, deciding at seven-and-a-half months old it was time to start walking.
"I knew then something would come from that," Anjanette says. "I believe that was the beginning of what we have now in him being an athlete."
Flash forward 22 years and Jarran could be the best player on the best defense in America. His path to this point has been anything but ordinary, though.
**
If it hadn't been for a breakout performance in the East-West All-Star game his senior year, Jarran Reed would be playing football at Division-II Fayetteville State.
Reed, coming out of Goldsboro High School in North Carolina, didn't receive recruiting attention as a linebacker in the class of 2011 and was resigned to going Division-II. He changed his mind after he played well in the all-star game and instead headed to Hargrave Military College in hopes of getting attention from bigger schools.
That decision was the start of a long, twisting journey that would have knocked out most who attempted it. If Anjanette hadn't made it very clear to her son he wouldn't be quitting, he might never have arrived in Tuscaloosa years later.
"She'll never let me quit anything," Jarran says. "To this day, that's the mentality I've got. Anything I start, I'm going to finish it."
He made the switch to the defensive line at Hargrave and flourished. The recruiting attention picked up, but he didn't qualify after a year of prepping at Hargrave and had to go to a junior college.
Reed decided on East Mississippi Community College sight unseen. Located in Scooba, Miss., East Mississippi is known for two things: Books and football. The nearest Walmart is 35 miles away in Meridian and you have to look hard to find anything to do. Even after growing up in rural North Carolina, the Mississippi junior college was a wake-up call for him.
"Honestly, it was only two gas stations in Scooba, and that was it," he says. "I know when I first got on the road to get into Scooba, and I saw sand and rock and I saw a man on a horse. I thought where in the world am I going?"
The only thing he could do was make the most of it and focus on improving his grades and football skills. He made a few trips backs to Goldsboro and told his mom "I'm not sure how much more I can take of this," debating if it was time to give up on football. His only solace was he planned on spending a single year in Scooba after already prepping at Hargrave.
It didn't take long for ACC and SEC schools to notice the growing defensive lineman at one of the nation's top junior colleges. Coaches said Reed was "King Kong when he wants to be" and the scholarship offers started rolling in. He picked North Carolina out of the bunch and planned on returning home to play for his home school. He flipped his commitment to Ole Miss in Dec. 2012, though, and then changed his mind again and signed with Florida in Feb. 2013.
His journey found its final stop; he'd move to Gainesville that summer and play SEC football that fall. Or so he thought.
Turns out he didn't have enough credits to leave junior college after a year and had to return to Scooba. Jarran, on the verge of realizing his dream, took the news hard.
"I was really upset about it," he says. "After that happened, Florida really wasn't in contact with me like that. Of course, who wants to go back to two gas stations and a highway in a school?
"But I just had to do it."
**
Junior college football is a last resort for most, a final chance to get life back on track and realize potential. The accommodations are meager and the benefits limited, truly testing how badly a player wants to pursue the dream.
Jordan Lesley, the defensive coordinator at East Mississippi, has spent nearly a decade in the junior college ranks. He's seen plenty of talented young players come undone after suffering a few setbacks trying to qualify. Reed surviving a year of prep school and two years of junior college is the exception not the rule.
"The majority of those kids you never hear from again," Lesley says. "Whether it's they don't graduate from junior college and have to go to a smaller college or whatever it may be. They aren't able to fight through the adversity."
Jarran buckled down, returned to the school and struck up a friendship with D.J. Pettway, who arrived that year from Alabama. Pettway got kicked off Alabama's team for his involvement in a robbery of another student, but all he could do was talk about how great the school was to his new teammate. Alabama was already recruiting Reed, and he was intrigued, but Pettway's explanation of daily life in Tuscaloosa helped sell him on the Crimson Tide.
Practically every school in the SEC wanted Reed -- "Jarran Reeds just aren't floating around everywhere," Lesley says -- but he decided his future would be best at Alabama. Nick Saban later gave the go-ahead for Pettway to return to the team after a year of purgatory and the two dominant junior college defensive linemen were headed to college together.
"We've been brothers since the first day I met him at East Mississippi," D.J. Pettway says. "We roll together. I'm glad we are here together. I love playing with him; we spend dang near every day together."
It took two stops, two states and three years for Reed to rejoin his original recruiting class at a Division I school, but he had done it. The kid from Goldsboro, North Carolina would suit up for the Alabama Crimson Tide.
"I think it was divine intervention," his mother says. "This whole process for him has been divinely intervened and made especially for him."
**
Even at an Alabama program stocked with five-star talent, Jarran Reed quickly made an impact.
It can be difficult for junior college players to make a successful transition to a major Power 5 school in their first year, but the 6-foot-4, 315-pound junior worked his way on the first-team defensive line by the end of spring.
He was well on his way to a great first season before a bad decision threatened to derail his tenure at Alabama before it ever really began. Reed was arrested and charged with a DUI in July 2014, drawing a public rebuke from Saban for his decision. It was a "childish mistake," Reed says, and he was suspended for the start of fall practice. He had to work hard to regain the trust of Saban and his teammates, but he proved up to the task.
He started 13 games for the Tide last year, recording the most tackles by an Alabama defensive lineman since 2007. It was a good first year for Reed at Alabama and with it came the temptations to leave early for the NFL Draft. NFL scouts liked Reed's versatility, and he liked the idea of trying to capitalize on his season rather than risk injury returning to Tuscaloosa.
Anjanette Reed made it very clear to her son he'd benefit in multiple ways by returning for his senior season and getting his degree, telling him NFL stands for "Not For Long." She was a driving force through Jarran's roundabout path to Alabama and the whole time she stressed the need for him to get his education.
She thought she lost the battle.
"It was at the very last moment that I found out he wasn't going to go," she says.
It's proven to be a fortuitous decision for both Reed and Alabama. He's been the anchor of Alabama's stout defensive line and has dominated opposing teams. In one play in a win against Georgia, Reed took on the center with one hand and tackled star running back Nick Chubb with the other. When Heisman Trophy favorite Leonard Fournette managed only 31 yards against the Tide, Reed was a big reason.
"He's one of the very few guys that I watch as a former offensive lineman and think to myself 'I'm really glad I don't have to play against that guy,'" says Cole Cubelic, a former Auburn center and current college football analyst.
The 6-foot-4, 310-pound defensive lineman has put it all together and is playing the best football of his life. He's second on the team in both tackles (44) and quarterback hurries (8). He plays like a guy who has had nothing and doesn't want to experience it again.
"He sees the guy in front of him as somebody trying to take what he's earned," says Lesley, his former coach. "That's the way he plays."
NFL scouts have taken notice. Reed now projects as a first-round draft pick and could be one of three Alabama players taken in the first round. ESPN's Todd McShay put him in his top 10 prospects for 2016 draft. In five years he's gone from planning to play in Division-II to one of the best senior prospects in America.
"He's built like a vending machine," says Dane Brugler, an NFL Draft analyst for CBSSports.com. "He's an immovable object at the point of attack. It's hard for blockers to move him from his spot and he holds his ground in the run game. He's like a tree stump."
Anjanette gets emotional just thinking about her son getting drafted in the first round given what it's taken to get to this point. She pushed and prodded him-- she'd tell him before high school games to put "some grass on their ass" -- and inspired Jarran to be his best. Those that know Jarran say making his mother proud has always been the bigger goal than making it to the NFL. She's the difference between being remembered as what could have been versus becoming one of Alabama's best players.
Says Lesley "He loves her more than anything."
The long, less traveled road to Alabama wasn't Jarran's preference, but his mother can't imagine it happening any other way.
"He had to go the way he's gone to make him the type of person he is now," she says. "Sometimes when things are given to you, you don't appreciate them quite as much. The fact he's had to work for everything he has done to get to where he's at, he's appreciated that road he's had to travel."
Inside Jarran Reed's long, winding journey to stardom at Alabama
