WASHINGTON, D.C. -- His mailbox wasn’t flooded with letters.
College football coaches weren’t lining up at his front door, ready to roll out the red carpet and coax him to ink his name on a four-year commitment.
Antoine Bethea, an eventual three-time Pro Bowler player in the NFL, had no offers. Not one.
At the time, however, that wasn’t much of a surprise. Few Division I college football programs were in the market for a 5-foot-10, 170-pound middle linebacker. That’s the position a slender Bethea called home at Newport News High School in Newport News, Va.
“When recruiters were coming in, they’d say, ‘This guy isn’t a college linebacker,’” Bethea said.
The dual-sport athlete had no shortage of natural ability despite his undersized frame. Bethea was a tackling machine on the football field, heralded for his on-field instincts.
But that’s not how Rayford Petty first noticed Bethea. Petty, the defensive coordinator for Norfolk State University at the time, happened to be attending a Newport News basketball game when he began scouting Bethea.
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