Tijan Redmon's career as a Duke football player has been almost tumultuous as the program has been over the past few years.
After joining the Blue Devils in 1991 and seeing playing time in seven contests, Redmon, a senior from West Palm Beach, Fla., had to take a medical redshirt his sophomore year after tearing his intestine in fall practice.
In 1993, however, Redmon made a positive impact as the team's third leading rusher, gaining 240 yards on 58 carries in the Blue Devils' 3-8 campaign.
After the '93 season, Fred Goldsmith took over flailing program, and the rest of the 1994 football season is history. Yet Redmon's career did not follow the same path that the team did last season. He started one game as the A-back, but after suffering through a stretch of mediocre games, Redmon found himself playing mostly on special teams.
"I did disappear [from the lineup] for a while last year," Redmon said. "Coach Goldsmith and I had a talk about it. The bottom line is, I did drop some passes and I did go through a funk where my mind just wasn't in it."
After receiving extensive time on the offensive side of the ball, Redmon thought that playing on special teams was a step down.
"At first I was kind of reluctant to [play on special teams]," Redmon said. "The reason why I think I excelled because I was kind of upset with where I was.
"My teammates joked with me and called me the Jamaican football player because I had seven, eight jobs. I was the kick returner, kick blocker on the punt team--wherever.
"At first I looked at it as a demotion. As time went on, I thought that maybe this is the best way I can contribute to the team. I've learned in my life that sometimes you have to decrease in order to increase."
It turned out that Redmon became a valuable member of Duke's special teams. This season, he has averaged 24.1 yards per kickoff return, which is good enough to rank him 25th in the nation.
"I was joking with the [television] guys that it's taken me four-and-a-half years to get an interview," Redmon said at a football press conference during fall break. "It all comes from special teams. The more I look at it, it's definitely been a blessing in disguise."
That blessing in disguise did not come without a lot of soul-searching on Redmon's part, though.
"[Last year], my mind really wasn't in the game," Redmon said. "I was raised in church, but my faith started to waiver and I really wasn't following God. Spiritually it wasn't the best for me--the nightlife, the party life--I knew that wasn't me.
"That's not even my style, but I was looking for an outlet because things weren't going the way I wanted them to go. But nevertheless, I know that I'm a child of God and my life is not my own, it's His."
The summer of 1995 provided Redmon with the chance to re-evaluate his goals and getting back in the right frame of mind to play football.
"After working hard over the summer... [I worked on] just basically getting my confidence back," Redmon said. "I attribute that to spending the entire summer just rehabbing myself on a spiritual level. It's all about confidence. Anybody can catch the ball if they think they can. I lacked that confidence last year. I think I have it this year."
Goldsmith has certainly approved of Redmon's performance this season. Sometimes the senior's play has been one of the few highlights for the 3-6 Blue Devils.
"You can't do more than what a T.J. Redmon is doing," Goldsmith said following the Oct. 7 Georgia Tech loss. "He's also the left end on our punt team and I've never had one with better footwork who could block as well."
Despite the initial reluctance to settle for special teams play, Redmon has come to enjoy the role he plays for the Blue Devils this season.
"I've come to realize and accept my role," he said. "I'm a role player--not everybody can block. My coaches think I'm one of the best blockers so I go in there and block. It does a lot for me to know when I throw a block and I look upfield and Laymarr [Marshall] or Charles London's running down the field... I get personal satisfaction from that. I know my role, and it's very limited, but I just try to do it very well."
Redmon also holds something in common with renowned teammate Ray Farmer--he is a two-sport star at Duke. He has achieved additional success as a decathlete for the men's track team. In May, Redmon earned All-East honors at the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America meet, setting a personal best of 6,516 points.
"[6,516] is not bad on four hours a week of practice," Redmon said. "If I were given the chance to do track solely, without having to take the level of classes I've taken... and football practice and kind of splitting time between [track and football], I know I could raise my score about 500 points."
In between training for two sports, Redmon has also made the most out the academic aspect of his football scholarship. Despite nearly finishing all the required courses for a sociology major after about two years of college, he decided to add public policy as a second major.
"I started out with sociology and I was pretty much finished with that [after two years]," Redmon said. "But then I decided to add public policy--not one of the easiest [majors]. I could have taken it easy my last two years of school, but I've better prepared myself."
Although the senior plans to use his background in public policy to empower him in the job search for the corporate world, Redmon has not completely ruled out the possibility of trying out for an NFL team.
"I really haven't heard of anybody drafting any special teams gurus, but I'm still going to give it a shot," he said. "It's a long shot, but it's been a longtime dream of mine and I'm just going to go for it."
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