“They ran the triple option at East,” says Senior, who coaches track at East and football at West. “Tough for recruiting.”
When Junior went to Kentucky, where he was on a top 20 relay team, and then later to Tech, the thought was that maybe someone in the programs would eventually let him play both. But with money so tight in track and Junior racking up the accolades, track didn’t want to risk losing his scholarship if he got hurt in football. Neither did he.
So when Junior came home last summer from training in Colorado after his college career, his father could see the football bug never left.
“He wanted to catch the football,” Rodney Sr. says. “I said, ‘Hey, we’re a DB family.’ But we’re also a family of athletes. I’m not the kind of father who wants my son to do what I did. So I began working out with him. I’m telling you, he’s tough. I stopped trying to cover him. That speed is something I’ve never seen.”
It just so happened that they don’t run the triple option at East anymore because Heath Sr.’s old Bengals quarterback is the head coach.
(That day in 2001 Jon Kitna engineered a win over the defending Super Bowl champion Ravens at Paycor, Heath defended two passes and recovered a fumble.)
Kitna’s son, Jalen, just home from Alabama-Birmingham, needed people to throw to and to get ready for the UAB pro day. Rod needed just to play. Not only did the sons of Kitna and Heath hook up to practice, they became close and Jalen wanted to take Rod with him to Alabama. Even Jon Kitna was telling Senior that his son should give the game a second chance because of that speed.
“They wouldn’t let him run (the 40), but they let him run routes,” Senior says. “It was his first time he was in front of scouts. The videos got posted and he was flying down there. Their GM was impressed.”
Impressed enough that he reached out to Bengals assistant general manager Trey Brown. Of course, they would invite a guy who ran a 9.9 and 10.1s consistently. It would help that Jalen would be throwing to him, along with the obligatory St. X quarterback, this year Indiana of Pennsylvania’s prolific Matthew Rueve.
Things were happening just as fast as young Heath. Andrew Johnson, the Bengals scout who runs the local day, set it up Thursday. By 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Heath was explaining to reporters how it felt after playing football on his dad’s old stomping grounds.
Born the spring after what turned out to his dad’s career-ending hamstring injury, he turns 24 next month. His dad was always his favorite Bengal, but when brought him down to some games as a kid, he loved A.J. Green.
Weaned on stories of his father playing against Hall of Fame receivers such as Jerry Rice and Marvin Harrison, he knew what an opportunity looked like.
“I showed them I’m coachable. I can catch. Plus I can run,” Heath Jr. said. “The receivers coach kept telling me and the other receiver we were doing a good job.
“It’s all about an opportunity. God opened the door and I walked through.”
Heath Jr. took time to thank Troy Walters, that receivers coach. Heath Sr. thanked the stars for a son that just wanted a chance.
“We’ll see what happens next,” said Rodney Heath Jr. at the end of a longshot day.
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