‘Home of Larry Dean’: Linebacker uses football career to provide hope to hometown youth

If you’re driving into the Georgia city of Tifton, odds are you’ll see one of the four signs that spell out: “Home of Larry Dean.”

For the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ linebacker, it isn’t so much a celebration of his career, but a beacon of hope for those living there.

“It makes me proud. It makes me happy. Anybody that comes through the city, you see the sign and you can relate Larry Dean to Tifton. I feel like, after me, everyone started getting looks so it’s like you brought the spotlight to this avenue,” the 33-year-old said.

“For me, it’s just the fact the kids could be on their way to school and see a sign – there’s actually four of them. Whichever way you enter or leave the city, you can see it and be motivated about it.”

He said the city has a lot of impoverished areas and that can seem hopeless for kids growing up in them. The fact he has gone on to have the career he has had with his upbringing surprised his teammates while with the NFL’s Minnseota Vikings so much that it led to the creation of his nickname – Champ.

“I was just taking them around and giving them a tour of the city and showing them some of the spots and some of the places we used to frequent and live at and whatnot. In the midst of all that, they were like, ‘You made it out from here?’ It was unheard of to make it out of those types of circumstances,” Dean said.

Dean and his two siblings moved around a lot with his mom, Charity Reed, sometimes not even knowing where they would stay next.

“With my mom, we lived in shelters growing up – sometimes we were homeless,” Dean said. “You’re ashamed, you hear other kids getting picked on about certain situations and you feel like if you speak up about it, you’re going to be picked on or you might be an outcast.

“You ask yourself a lot of questions and you want to know what is really going on, why is this happening, why is there a note on the door, and a couple of days later you’re leaving.”

Like many children, Dean was confused and frustrated about his situation and placed the blame on his mom.

“When I was younger, I was upset with her about it about why we were in certain situations and whatnot. As I get older, I understand the odds she was up against: At the time, she was raising three small children and was a convicted felon,” Dean said.

“She had done some federal prison time and (it was amazing for her) to have the strength and courage enough to still face the world and still have three kids and have us tagging along and telling us what the real world would be like if we didn’t do x, y, z.”

Now that Dean has had a career that has taken him to both the NFL and CFL, he hopes to serve as an inspiration to everyone in the city. That’s why he has made it a priority to return and help out when he can.

“We didn’t have anyone that we could reach out and touch that we could say was a professional athlete that came back – someone that you could reach out and touch and say, ‘I know him. He said

“What’s up?” to me. He shook my hand. He came to my school. He held this camp for me’ …,” Dean said.

“A lot of times when people make it out, they run away from the city and never look back. They become snobbish, ‘bougie,’ whatever you want to call it — but I’m down to earth,” Dean said.

Football was always the road Dean wanted to go on, with the linebacker saying his dad, Larry Dean Sr., played a big role in that.

“I believe in affirmations. I didn’t understand until I got older what that truly was but I’ve been doing it since I was (young). I always had a football, my dad was always buying me jerseys and planting those seeds that, ‘This could be you. Kids could be buying your jerseys,’ ” Dean said.

Dean turned a successful high school football stint into a college career at Valdosta State with the Blazers. He was highly accomplished at that level, including being named the Gulf South Conference defensive player of the year in his senior season.

Dean wasn’t drafted to the NFL but did sign a contract with Minnesota in 2011. He appeared in 48 games over three seasons with the Vikings, recording 34 tackles.

Dean’s career eventually led to him signing with the Buffalo Bills in 2014.

“It was a blessing. You dream about something and then to obtain it and have that stamp – I’m so humble, but it was something I wanted to do and I did it, to play at the highest level and be a part of the one percentile and to have that blessing to afford the opportunity to play three years with the Vikings and one with the Bills,” Dean said.

In 2015, he signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but suffered an injury during organized team activities.

“(I) tried to battle back but sometimes as players, we are our own gifts and curses. I wasn’t fully prepared but I went out there anyway and I wasn’t putting good things on tape,” Dean said.

And when the final cuts came, Dean found himself on the unemployment line.

“I’m sitting there in 2015 just working out and waiting to get a tryout with a team and nothing was coming my way so my agents at the time had reached out to me and said, ‘You know what? Nothing is going to get you in football shape like playing football,’ ” Dean said.

The next opportunity came from Canada, with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats gaining his services.

It didn’t take Dean long to make an impact in the CFL, with him playing all 18 games in his first season, recording 78 tackles.

He then had back-to-back East Division all-star seasons in 2017 and ’18, recording 201 tackles over the two seasons.

In 2019, he signed with the then-Edmonton Eskimos, recording 86 tackles, and was Edmonton’s nominee for most outstanding defensive player.

“It’s been a blessing. I’ve been fortunate to frequent some very good coaches and team chemistry. Everybody buys in and I haven’t been to one organization where the team wasn’t put first,” Dean said.

But like many others in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted his life when the CFL season was cancelled.

Dean views it as a blessing in disguise, as he was able to attend family events he has had to miss over the years.

“(I) spent a lot of time with family. I got to catch up with things I’m not normally around for – birthdays, holidays, a couple of my nephews graduated,” Dean said. “That was the silver lining.”

He was ready to return to football in 2021, this time as a member of the Roughriders.

But Dean would once again face some adversity in his life. A day before training camp, Dean was one of four members of the team who suffered a torn Achilles tendon while working out.

“We were just doing a drill – an everyday, normal drill – and it just went on me,” Dean said.

That forced him to watch the season from the sidelines as the Riders once again lost in the West Division final – 21-17 to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

But Dean is now back, healthy, and will start his first game since 2019 on Saturday at weak-side linebacker with an injury to Micah Teitz.

The Riders take on the Tiger-Cats at Mosaic Stadium. Kickoff for the game is set for 5 p.m. The Green Zone pre-game show begins at 3 p.m.

“I don’t think words can describe it but it’s a great feeling. Last year I sat right there on the sideline in that little box. It’s going to be incredible,” Dean said.

While Dean has been one of the CFL’s top linebackers in recent seasons, his greatest accomplishment is being a role model for people going through tough times.

“I can’t be afraid to speak about it now knowing that it could help another little kid somewhere in a similar situation and I’ve learned and matured a great deal, especially over this last year with the journey I’ve been on,” Dean said.