Greg Bianco, wtop.com
Owings Mills, Md. – Each player’s journey to the NFL is unique in its own right. From being raised by a single mother and living on the streets to fighting through near life-threatening injuries in a gang hit, no single travel is transcendent.
But what if your hometown were in a foreign country where the idea of football is one that uses feet?
Ramon Harewood was born and raised in St. Michael, Barbados, a vastly different place to call home compared to Baltimore.
“It’s home. It’s an easy-going lifestyle,” Harewood said of St. Michael. “It is a slower pace of life.”
Aside from being a popular tourist destination, Barbados is home to about 275,000 people on an island about one-sixth the size of Rhode Island. For a local comparison, Baltimore and the District each have more than 600,000 residents.
Harewood isn’t the only young rising star from St. Michael. Pop singer Rihanna, a year younger than Harewood, grew up in St. Michael before her career took flight. The two don’t know each other, but on a rather small island, they were bound to run into each other.
“You’re in the same age group. You go to the same places, and you pretty much see the same people over and over,” Harewood said. “I have seen her play a couple of times.”
The now 25-year-old didn’t learn the American style of football until he attended Morehouse College, a historically black Atlanta college more renowned for educating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Spike Lee and Samuel L. Jackson than for training professional athletes.
In St. Michael, even at an early age, Harewood was a standout multi-sport athlete, including in the game of rugby.
“I won’t say playing rugby helped me, but it adds to my athletic ability,” he said.
Add volleyball to that list, too. At 6-foot-6-inches, any athlete would be a presence, but Harewood was a “front court specialist” who could block and spike near the net, traits that would certainly come in handy to play football.
The Ravens noticed his raw abilities and decided to pick the offensive lineman in the sixth round of the 2010 NFL draft. Injuries limited his playing time until this year. He has started the first five games of this season.
Now that he has had a chance to play, the hardest part he’s endured about playing football is “consistency, getting the same thing right over and over,” he said.
The best part?
“Having fun,” he said. “It’s a game, and the point of a game is to have fun.”
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