![]() ![]() On Monday afternoon, a single line of text came across the waiver wire on an otherwise uneventful NFL offseason day. The Seahawks signed a 23-year-old wide receiver from LSU. The news went uncelebrated save in a small pocket of Louisiana where folks did not see this coming, and by the man who made it happen through persistence and blind faith. Behold, a life-changing 72 hours for Cyril Grayson. The first thing to know about Grayson is that he never actually played receiver at LSU or any other college. He was an All-America sprinter for the Tigers who had worked out with the LSU football team for a spell, and he lobbied hard for a chance to participate in the Tigers’ pro day—multiple phone calls, emails and unannounced visits to the facility. At first the football staffers were uninterested, Grayson says, then they relented. Grayson had been training for months for the opportunity, working on football-specific drills. He dumped what was left of his $6,300 track-and-field scholarship stipend—after rent and food—into his training. A longtime mentor donated training services. ![]() (Grayson vows to pay him back.) A kinesiology major, Grayson had put off looking into physical therapy masters programs before May graduation. He convinced himself his life would change on April 5. He told his roommate they would celebrate in advance with dinner at Roux 61 Seafood and Grill in Baton Rouge. “We talked for a while,” Grayson says. “He got a lot of info on me my family, my background. Welcome, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem is a catholic school in encino california educating children from PK to 8th Grade. ![]() Have you ever been in trouble? What do your parents do? Stuff like that. Then he said, what are you doing at 6 pm? Come eat with me at Roux 61.” The place he’d been planning to go to anyway? Grayson saw it as serendipity. “I was like, look at God, man,” he says.
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September 2019
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