When USC plays host to San Jose State on Saturday, star wide receiver Drake London takes his next steps in his likely progression to the NFL.
. Yet long before he emerged as one of the nation’s best receivers, a freakish, 6-foot-5 supernova with a physics-defying catch radius who single-handedly could influence the Pac-12 title race, the journey started with a pull-up bar.He was too young to lift weights, Dwan decided, so they started simply. Just push-ups and the pull-up bar. Some days they headed to nearby Moorpark College to run the hills or around cones. Eventually, they brought a parachute or sled for Drake to pull as he ran.
London’s rise from there isn’t so much meteoric as methodical, checking every box patiently along the way. Bit by bit, he gets stronger, faster. Dwan and his wife, Cindi, taught their kids never to skip steps or cut corners, so when Drake wants new football gear, he has to earn it with touchdowns. Later, when touchdowns prove too easy to come by, his parents pivot to rewarding his grades.
He excels, rarely complaining. While others tell him to choose, warning that he can’t commit to both, the doubts only fuel his decision. Just two schools offer him the opportunity to play basketball and football, Virginia and USC, and he chooses the Trojans, determined to balance his pursuit of both sports while keeping close to his family.
At the time, Dwan confesses, Drake was better at basketball. But his ceiling on the football field was too tantalizing to ignore, a fact that would become clear almost immediately at USC, where he stands out in fall camp as a freshman.It takes until midway through the 2019 season for London to make his mark, but on a game-winning drive at Colorado, he reels in a critical 19-yard catch that keeps the drive moving, and from there, his trajectory skyrockets.
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