Steelers' fourth-round pick knows about perseverance
By Jourdon LaBarber / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nothing has come easy for Martavis Bryant.
Growing up without a father in Calhoun Falls, S.C., was hard for Bryant and his mother, Roberta. So was discovering that he was going to be a father as an 18-year-old senior at T.L. Hanna High School.
It wasn’t easy for him to accept that a missing math credit, from his freshman year of high school, caused him to miss the birth of his first daughter, Brooke. When she was born Sept. 9, 2010, Bryant was making up that credit — which he thought would transfer from Calhoun Falls High School to T.L. Hanna upon the former’s closure — at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va., in hopes of becoming academically eligible to play at Clemson.
Even adapting to Clemson wasn’t easy, even if it was because of his self-described hardheadedness. He was academically suspended for the 2012 Chick-fil-A Bowl as a sophomore; that December he fathered his second daughter, London.
“It was a lot of downs, a lot of ups, but more downs than ups,” Bryant said. “Just staying faithful and knowing that the man upstairs has the greater power to lead you to anything. I just had faith in God and never really gave up on myself.”
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/s...#ixzz34Eo6PWRK
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