Charlotte-area natives relish return home for Duke’s Mayo Bowl: ‘A full-circle moment’
Quentin Reddish remembers seeing college football players strut around Charlotte flaunting Belk gift cards.
“I was just talking to my dad about it,” the Virginia Tech safety said with a smile after climbing into a race car and taking hot laps at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “I was in the SouthPark Mall, maybe six years ago. I forget which team was playing, but I just saw them all walk in with a bunch of Belk gift cards.
“I was like: ‘I want to be one of those people one day.’ And now I’m in the same situation that they were.”
A recent graduate of Independence High School, the Charlotte native played in 11 of the Hokies’ 12 regular-season games this season as a true freshman.
Reddish, who turns 19 this month, is expected to make the first start of his collegiate career in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl on Friday at Bank of America Stadium, after starter Mose Phillips III entered the transfer portal.
“As soon as they posted it, (Independence coach D.J. McFadden) was calling me,” Reddish said. “He was saying he needed some tickets from me. Literally, as soon as they made it official. It’s really been great for me, just knowing I could put on for my city again.”
Suiting up in Charlotte and now starting in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl
The Patriots’ former captain has plenty of experience being a leader.
Reddish, who became one of seven true freshmen since 2002 to don the retired No. 25 jersey for Virginia Tech, has impressed on both defense and special teams this season. He switched from primarily playing the field safety position to being more of a boundary safety roughly two weeks into training camp.
His younger brother, Joseph, announced he is transferring to the Hokies following his sophomore season at Wingate University. They are among eight Reddish family members — their parents have four sons and two daughters — who will be in the stands Friday.
“You’ve just got to mature fast,” Reddish said. “And I’m used to it. Coming from high school, being a senior, being a captain over there, it definitely helps. Because I was always somebody who was going to serve myself and make everybody around me better.”
A homecoming for this former Dutch Fork and Charlotte star
The Carolinas are where Minnesota wide receiver Elijah Spencer found his love for football.
Spencer, an Irmo, S.C., native who previously played for the Charlotte 49ers, went to an Atlanta Falcons game with his dad as a little kid. Julio Jones broke a single-game record, but it wasn’t just the star wide receiver’s prowess during the game that impressed a young Spencer.
A wide receiver himself, Spencer could sense it was all work for Jones. While he was far from the field, Spencer watched him closely from the stands. Pregame warm-ups really were all business for a largely emotionless Jones — he barely even noticed him crack a smile.
Spencer played T-ball, soccer and basketball growing up — whichever ball his granddad had lying around in the backyard — and eventually became a top high jumper among South Carolina track and field athletes while in high school at Dutch Fork.
But football was the one he always liked most, and now he’s playing in the bowl game near his hometown.
“It’s like a full-circle moment for me,” Spencer said. “You don’t really see many guys from the Carolinas play in the Big Ten. That was one of my big things going to play in the Big Ten: I wanted to do something different. I wanted to create a legacy at a school that doesn’t have a lot of notoriety.
“To be able to go up north and do our work, and then come back down south and show everybody the work that I’ve been doing, how I’ve matured as a person and a player, is going to be incredible.”
‘It gives me a bit of an edge’
Spencer has followed the Duke’s Mayo Bowl closely since North Carolina and South Carolina met four years ago.
The majority of his sports life started revolving around football when he entered middle school, but the Niners’ former Conference USA freshman of the year continued to shine in different sports. He played basketball just as much as football then, and then took up track once he arrived in high school.
It’s been spiritual returning to the Carolinas this week, Spencer said. Right after checking into his hotel room upon landing in Charlotte, he hit his favorite local food spot — Lulu’s Maryland Style Chicken & Seafood — and has more places lined up to return to for the rest of the week, including American Deli.
“We’re traveling down here with a little Minnesota pride, but you know I’m stepping in some familiar territory,” Spencer said. “So I have two cups of pride — my Carolina pride and my new Minnesota pride — and I think it gives me a bit of an edge. Familiar turf, I’ve got a whole bunch of family and friends coming to the game, and for the majority of them, it’ll be their first time seeing me play since I was at Charlotte.
“There are a lot of things that go into it. But at the end of the day, I can look up at the sky and see stars. The same view that I saw just a couple of years ago.”
