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[Portrait] Tee Higgins is living her childhood dreams | Touchdown Actu (NFL Actu)

Tamaurice «Tee» Higgins

Born January 18, 1999 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee
1m93 for 98 kilos
Receiver, Cincinnati Bengals, 1st year

Chad and AJ

Tee Higgins is the new OchoCinco of the Bengals: after request, he obtains permission from Chad Johnson to wear the number 85. Chad Johnson aka Chad OchoCinco is more than 10,000 yards in reception and 66 touchdowns with the Bengals between 2001 and 2010 Tee Higgins is proud of it because he knows what this number means to the fans. Fan? He is himself. Although growing up in Tennessee, his favorite NFL team was none other than the Cincinnati Bengals. Why ? Because AJ Green.

Receiver AJ Green has been his childhood idol ever since he hit college lawns with the University of Georgia. In high school, Tee Higgins was trying to replicate this catcher’s game with a morphotype he could project onto. So when the latter was selected by Cincinnati, the Bengals became his NFL team, the ones he watched games on Sunday. Aged 17, in his final year at Oak Ridge High School, he posted this tweet which today takes on a whole new dimension.

(“I will meet AJ Green one day”)

Life is good sometimes. With the first choice of the second round, Tee Higgins leaves the Clemson tigers for other felines a little further north, to play alongside his idol. Since then, two dates in particular were ticked on his agenda: that of September 13 with his NFL debut and that of November 1 for the confrontation against the Tennessee Titans.

Peyton et Tee

Tee Higgins grew up in Tennessee. A state with the Titans in the NFL and especially with the Volunteers of the University of Tennessee. A football team playing in SEC conference in front of an average 87,800 spectators. UT for the fans, it is also the college of Peyton Manning between 1994 and 1997. At that time, the replacement for the position of quarterback was a certain Tamaurice “Tee” Martin and it is after him that his parents named the new Bengals player. A Tee Martin who in 1998, succeeding a Peyton Manning who left for the NFL, led the football program to a perfect 13-0 record and a university title won in the final against Florida State.

Tamaurice Tee Higgins therefore grew up in Oak Ridge, 250 kilometers east of Nashville but only 30 miles from Knoxville, seat of the University of Tennessee. Oak Ridge, not really the most open-minded corner of the world. Until 1954, only white students were admitted to the high school that Tee Higgins would later attend. So inevitably, the African-American population of this village of 30,000 inhabitants still lives in these neighborhoods where their parents had been ordered to stay. Tee Higgins remembers this not the easiest neighborhood in which to grow up.

“I was six or seven years old and with some friends we heard an argument so we approached. One of the two men started shooting the other. It was impressive to see the man fall, to see the blood. I also remember running faster than I ever did. », Tee Higgins for The Players Tribune

A neighborhood plagued by drugs and the crimes surrounding its sale.

KeKe and Camillia

In this context, Tee Higgins tries to stay out of trouble through sport. Basketball especially. It was his sport of choice and after his 3rd year of high school, he was named a finalist for the title of best player in the state with 15 points and six rebounds on average. Following in the footsteps of his big sister KeKe (11 years older) who in his time obtained a scholarship because of her skills in this sport. Sport, this so often the only way out for kids living in this kind of environment. Especially since the drugs were not only present outside.

At six, you only realize part of the world. He swears by his mother, Camillia. Fall 2005, this child is first of all very happy because we come to pick him up from school: he will not have lessons today, great! The rest is only tears because his mother is in the hospital after receiving two bullets in her body. It wasn’t until much later that Tee Higgins realized that that day, the assailant was none other than his mother’s drug dealer. A mother addicted to crack cocaine.

It takes months to leave hospital for everyone, her mother, with a father more often in prison than present. When she is finally there, nothing has changed. If she takes good care of her child, her second obsession is to get hold of this addictive drug. A consumption that will ultimately lead her, too, to prison. Then in a weaning clinic. Several times. It was only after yet another detoxification that Tee Higgins could finally feel surrounded by motherly love. A mother attends all of her son’s basketball games. “She’s Tee Higgins’ mother”, “yes we know” could answer the spectators ten steps around as she encouraged and congratulated her child on each action.

Football and toys

Basketball is his sport. Putting on gear, sweating in the summer and taking hits, that wasn’t his thing. Raised by his aunts during his mother’s absences, however, he had no choice: wanting to leave him off the streets, the practice of a single sport was not enough for them. So how do you persuade a ten year old boy?

“My aunt wanted me to play football but I preferred basketball. She told me that if I played soccer then she would buy me a Hot Wheels (toy car). One day before a game she told me that if I scored three touchdowns I would have three cars. I got the cars! My aunt is really the one who made me a footballer. », Tee Higgins for bengals.com

Immediately drafted by the Bengals, Tee Higgins donated to a club for underprivileged children in his native Tennessee, 5,000 dollars in miniature cars.

This is how Tee Higgins started playing football. He took a liking to it until in 2017, he became the number 2 rookie for this position (Jerry Jeudy 3rd), the 19th national player (Chase Young 7th). Of course recruited by the University of Tennessee, he engages verbally with them. But Clemson’s schedule is so enticing with receivers like DeAndre Hopkins and Sammy Watkins trained in South Carolina. He hesitated then joined the Clemson Tigers in 2017, along with another receiver, another child from Tennessee: Amari Rodgers, who is none other than Tee Martin’s son!

Trevor et Joe

He played little in his first season with only 17 receptions including two for a touchdown. Hunter Renfrow (Raiders) and Deon Cain (Steelers) receive the majority of the balls but Tee Higgins learns in a high level team, eliminated only in the semifinals of the playoffs (by Alabama). The following season is different: If Hunter Renfrow is still around, Tee Higgins is the number one option on the road. The number one option for a quarterback in his freshman year: Trevor Lawrence. With him, Tee Higgins flourishes, 59 receptions and 12 touchdowns. The first connection between the two friends took place in the second game 2018, against Texas A&M.

Later in the season, a rematch against Alabama for a university title victory. Champion! Something to make proud his mother, his sister and his aunts. These people having surrounded him with love since childhood. These same people surrounding him during his draft.

Tee Higgins now receives his assists from Joe Burrow and in five games played in 2020, he catches 16 assists: 13 give the Bengals a 1st attempt and 2 give them a touchdown. Cincinnati won’t win many games in 2020 but they’ve found a playing partner for their quarterback.

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