Marshall University Athletics
BOGACZYK: Hewitt Finds a Home with Herd
12/17/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By JACK BOGACZYK
HERDZONE.COM COLUMNIST
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – The reservoir of resilience that helped Marshall inside linebacker Neville Hewitt bounce back from neck surgery 10 months ago must run really deep.
It’s been tapped before, again and again, by a young man and football player who is both a survivor and the 2014 Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year.
Surgery on Feb. 25 to fix a herniated disc, pinched nerve and bone spurs? Missing spring practice and being limited in the August preseason as he recovered? Just more hurdles.
It’s appropriate that the 6-foot-2, 219-pound senior is the Herd’s leading tackler.
At the 2014 Marshall Football Banquet last Saturday, Hewitt was voted by teammates as the team’s Defensive MVP and one of the season captains. When Hewitt – one of 19 MU seniors -- got up to speak at the affair, he stunned a crowd of about 300 onlookers.
"I talked about switching (from jersey No. 43) to No. 6," Hewitt said earlier this week. "I said the reason I wanted 6 last summer was that’s the number of years my mom has been in prison. It was back around my sophomore year in high school."
Hewitt said his mother, Deon Jones, is in a rural Georgia prison for drug trafficking.
How much longer will she be there?
"I don’t know; I never asked," Hewitt said. "Did you ever hear somebody say, ‘There are some things you’re better off not knowing?’ That’s how this is for me. I never asked."
Hewitt, who came to Marshall last season after two junior college seasons at Georgia Military College, just finished a 3.0 academic semester in business management, is on track to graduate in May. How he got to this point from struggles in Conyers, Ga., is a stunning story.
"A lot of people have had adversity in their lives and Neville is one guy who has had plenty of it," said an admiring Herd Coach Doc Holliday. "It’s amazing what the guy has accomplished. The type of kid he is, he’s just a wonderful kid and I’m so proud of him and the way he’s been able to overcome those obstacles.
"He deserves everything he gets – and more."
Hewitt’s teammates appreciate his cheerful work ethic and resourcefulness. Those traits are rooted in how he grew up.
For all intents and purposes -- from the time he couldn’t land a football grant-in-aid because of academic shortcomings while playing strong safety at Rockdale County High School – Hewitt was homeless.
He said he speaks with his father – another Neville Hewitt – "a little bit." The elder Hewitt lives in Maryland. And once his mother was incarcerated, Hewitt said he was living with her then-boyfriend.
"My mom, she left me and my younger brother with the guy she was dating then," Hewitt said. "My senior year of high school, it was crazy. Close to signing day, I wasn’t qualified, so I called a few schools.
"South Carolina, that was my first offer, (assistant) Coach (Lorenzo) Ward said they were full. Georgia State, I liked them, they said they’d signed their last safety. Middle Tennessee, they said they signed two safeties when they really only wanted one.
"I still remember … It was Jan. 22, 2011. I had dreads. But a coach I knew at Middle Tennessee told me, ‘Sometimes, you’ve got to do things you don’t want to do to get to where you want to go. I was in my room crying. I had offers from Buffalo and Western Kentucky, too, but I didn’t call them because I didn’t want to go there."
So, Hewitt went the junior-college route. He still had big dreams. He chose Georgia Military College – "No more dreads," he said, smiling – and found structure he wanted and needed. He also saw the junior college as "a pipeline for UGa and other SEC schools."
Marshall assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Todd Hartley was a Georgia graduate assistant then. "I’d see Neville and knew he was a player," Hartley said earlier this week, "but there was no way he was going there, not then."
That when what little support Hewitt had evaporated, he said.
"When I signed with Georgia Military, my mom’s ex-boyfriend I’d been living with, he wanted me to go to a bigger school I guess to get some kind of benefits," Hewitt said. "It was crazy. What happened was then he stopped coming to the house. There would be nights where the water was off, or the lights would be off.
"It was just me and my younger brother, and he went to live in Florida with my grandmother. I played basketball at my high school, too. I’d take a shower in the morning because there might not be water at night. I couldn’t do anything else, two meals a day, breakfast and lunch at school. Some of my friends figured out what was going on and their parents had me over."
One of those was Grady Jarrett, who this season was an all-ACC first team defensive tackle at Clemson. "Those guys are like this, very close," Hartley said, interlocking his index fingers. "Grady’s family was great to Neville."
When Hartley was hired by Holliday at Marshall, the young assistant had kept tabs on Hewitt, and Hewitt said MU was "my first offer in my sophomore year" at Georgia Military.
"Doc and I went to Conyers for a home visit with Neville," Hartley said. "There was no one there, just Neville, and some other kids sitting around."
This time, Hewitt wanted to go through the recruiting process he’d missed previously. This time, he had some stability at a junior college known for its football.
"I told Coach Hartley that I wanted to visit everybody, wanted to see the schools," Hewitt said. "I visited Arkansas, Colorado State, Appalachian State. I had a visit scheduled with Auburn, but they kept moving the date around and I didn’t feel comfortable with that.
"That night before I committed here (Jan. 23, 2013) all I could think about was Marshall. A coach once told me, ‘When you know where you want to go, you’re going to know.’ I couldn’t sleep, but I knew. Coach Holliday and Coach Hartley told me they needed me here."
Hewitt’s grandmother, Carmen Witter of Stone Mountain, Ga., co-signed his National Letter of Intent. When he goes "home" these days, "I go there, but I’ll be all over the place," Hewitt said.
He also was voted by Herd teammates as one of six season co-captains who will serve in that role for next week’s Boca Raton Bowl. He was chosen as a game captain by the coaching staff six times this season.
Holliday said he kind of marvels that Hewitt has great leadership skills when a good number of his formative years were spent without much guidance.
"It’s amazing. We’ve all heard Rakeem’s (Cato) story and a lot of stories throughout the team, but Neville’s kind of been under-the-radar. I’ve said he’s the most underrated player in college football. And we on the team understood what he had overcome, but the story wasn’t out there. But what he’s done is a tremendous story.
"I never brought it up because he hadn’t until the banquet. It was up to him. It is a tremendous story, the kind of story that will bring tears to your eyes when you talk about it."
Getting back into the flow following surgery, Hewitt had 22 tackles through five games, in reduced playing time. But once teammate Evan McKelvey was lost in Week 5 to a knee injury and surgery, Hewitt has been a force. He’s reached double figures in tackles in four of eight games, averaging 11.5.
Veteran Herd defensive coordinator Chuck Heater, on repeated occasions earlier this season, called Hewitt, "the best player no one knows about."
Hewitt is unfailingly positive. He smiles easily. He hasn’t asked anybody to feel sorry for him. And when asked how gratifying it was to be recognized by C-USA coaches as the league’s Defensive Player of the Year, Hewitt took a moment to answer.
"It hit me a few days ago," he said. "And it was like, ‘Wow, I came a long way.’ I kind of teared up a little bit, but then I got over it."
The source of his motivation isn’t difficult to discern.
"I think about my mom every day," he said. "What happened, it’s motivated me every day. When I was growing up, she always taught me, ‘Do everything the best you can do it, to the best of your ability.’ I remember the first time she told me to clean the bathroom. I was about 12 years old.
"She put the little (toilet brush holder) behind the toilet and I cleaned the bathroom, and I saw that thing, but I didn’t move it. She didn’t think I cleaned the bathroom, and I did, but I didn’t move that thing. And she told me I was supposed to move it. I didn’t finish the job. And that’s stuck with me for long time."
Hewitt said when he graduates, he isn’t certain how he wants to use his degree, but "I do know I want to do something with kids, something that involves mentoring."
It’s a subject with which he’s had plenty of points of reference.
