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Friday Flakes: Respect for J.J. Redick After His Appearance on Bussin’ With The Boys

Miami Heat v Philadelphia 76ers - Game Three Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

If I made a top 5 list of athletes I hated then it’s very likely J.J. Redick would be close to the top of that list.

To be clear, “hate” in the context of sports generally means that I just wanted him to lose every time he stepped on the court. If Duke would lose every game in a season then I would find that season to be one of the greatest of all time.

Yes, my bedroom walls were painted with North Carolina blue and my favorite player growing up was Jerry Stackhouse.

With that said, J.J. Redick was on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast this week. Former Husker Will Compton is one of the hosts, along with Taylor Lewan who played for Michigan. There was a long conversation about the mental struggles J.J. Redick went through while at Duke.

I really suggest listening to the episode but the part that stuck with me is that things got so bad for J.J. Redick his sophomore year that he got up to 225 pounds. His playing weight was 190, if I remember correctly. There were nights he would drink 25 beers even though there was a game the next day.

He was hiding from the coaching staff and he was hiding from his parents. Was living with one set of clothes and bumming off of people.

There was an intervention of sorts and things turned around for him. Much respect.

That took me back to watching him play for Duke and it is somewhat mind blowing to think that THAT player I watched just kill people had the struggles he did and was on the verge of quitting basketball.

When judging some of these college athletes, we really don’t know what they are going through at that time. Maybe that’s why they are struggling.

Or maybe in the case of Taylor Lewan, he struggled during a high profile Michigan football game because he was worried that his girlfriend was going to break up with him.

I suggest checking it out.

SPORTS! SPORTS! SPORTS! SPORTS!

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“STICK TO SPORTS!” Nah.

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