What do you do when your dream has been shattered and everything you’ve worked for is taken away?
What do you do when you’re partly to blame for what’s happened to you?
You grow intellectually, you mature, you accept responsibility and hope for another chance.
Cheyenne O’Grady will get another chance at football this spring after he was selected last week in the 34th round of the USFL draft by the Tampa Bay Bandits.
“This is a life-changing opportunity,” O’Grady said. “I get to play football again.”
O’Grady appeared headed to the NFL while starring on the football field at Arkansas, where he was a go-to receiver at tight end for the Razorbacks. O’Grady was having a productive senior year when it was announced after seven games he was no longer a member of the team.
No longer a Razorback.
Chad Morris, the Arkansas coach at the time, said he and O’Grady had mutually agreed the star tight end would leave the team. But Arkansas fans weren’t buying it, especially with O’Grady’s production on the field.
“It wasn’t by mutual agreement,” O’Grady said. “I woke up late for a workout and I was late for a practice. He told me to meet with him on the Sunday after the Alabama game and he kicked me off the team.”
There may have been other issues with O’Grady, but who amongst us didn’t do something stupid or irresponsible when they were young? I majored in ignorance and irresponsibility long before I settled on journalism in college. Besides, what does it matter now? It doesn’t.
Even after his departure, O’Grady was still hopeful of being selected in the NFL draft in 2020. He had the size, speed, hands, and credentials with 87 catches for 967 yards and 12 touchdowns in nearly 3 1/2 years with the Razorbacks.
He hoped to be drafted like Dre Greenlaw, his former high school teammate at Fayetteville who is now a star in the NFL after being selected in the fifth round by the San Francisco 49ers. But getting kicked off a team, especially as a senior, sticks to an athlete like glue, the super strong Gorilla kind.
O’Grady was not selected, but his dream of a future in the NFL was renewed when he signed as a free agent with the Cincinnati Bengals. He suited up for two preseason games and played in one before he was released by the Bengals before the start of the 2021 season.
“I got to see Tom Brady when we played Tampa Bay,” O’Grady said. “Then, I got in the next game when we played Washington and Kamren Curl, my former teammate at Arkansas. It was great.”
Since then, O’Grady has been mostly forgotten as an athlete. Time moves on and the now 25-year-old worked at a handful of jobs outside of sports, including at Lowe’s and a company that installs gutters. But that desire to excel again on the athletic field never fully left him.
“It’s been a roller coaster ride, for sure,” said O’Grady, who said he has stayed in shape and even reduced his body fat while awaiting another chance in organized football.
He’ll get that opportunity in the United States Football League, where eight teams will play a 10-game schedule beginning in April. Rosters will consist of 38 players and top two teams in each division will face each other in the semifinals, followed a week later by the championship game.
Players on the active roster will be paid an average of $45,000 and all the USFL regular-season games will be played at a centralized location in Birmingham, Ala. O’Grady will be catching passes for Tampa Bay from Jordan Ta’amu, the former Ole Miss quarterback who was selected No. 2 overall in the USFL draft.
Professional football leagues have sprung up before in the spring and melted away like a late February snow. But where there is opportunity, there is hope.
“I’m a walking testimony of never giving up,” said O’Grady, who hopes to play eventually in the NFL. “Resiliency at its finest.”
O’Grady will test that resiliency again when he reports to Birmingham on March 21 to play for the Bandits, a mascot noted for taking things away. But in this instance, for C.J., the name represents something else.
It represents another opportunity, which could be his last in football.