Skip to content
Eagles
Link copied to clipboard

Jaelen Strong's Philly roots run deep

The Arizona State receiver might be available for the Eagles in the first round.

Arizona State wide receiver Jaelen Strong speaks to the media at the 2015 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. (Trevor Ruszkowski/USA TODAY Sports)
Arizona State wide receiver Jaelen Strong speaks to the media at the 2015 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. (Trevor Ruszkowski/USA TODAY Sports)Read more

JAELEN STRONG could see his father every day at West Catholic High; John Rankin's school athletic hall of fame plaque hung just outside the gym.

That was just about all of his dad Strong could access, though, outside of his memories, and the reminiscences of his father's many friends. Rankin, a Philadelphia police detective who was Drexel's No. 2 all-time leading scorer in basketball and a member of that school's hall of fame as well, passed away at age 36, after a 2-year fight with leukemia, in April 2003, when Jaelen was 9.

"That was the first I ever knew of cancer," Strong recalled the other day.

"In 28 years of policing . . . [Rankin] was the best investigator I ever came across," Michael Chitwood Jr. recalled yesterday. Chitwood, now police chief in Daytona Beach, Fla., worked with Rankin in the Philly Special Investigations Unit. "He was compassionate. He had dogged determination. He knew everybody - there wasn't anybody in West Philly he didn't know, or they didn't know him. I don't care if they were good guys or bad guys, they would come to him for advice. He would reach into his pocket to help people out.

"Even when John was sick, and it was obvious that he wasn't going to beat leukemia, he still managed to come to work every day and give 100 percent. All he worried about was his kids. He loved his children and he loved his job."

Strong remembers his dad - who didn't live with him and his siblings in Mount Airy - once spending all day building him a backyard basketball court. But most of his memories are of his dad's demeanor.

"I'm a jokester; I joke around a lot. He used to joke around a lot," Strong said. "He was always looking to have fun. I never really saw him mad. He got mad one time - I didn't do my homework in school. That was the only time I saw him upset."

Strong grew into adolescence with a solid family structure - he still had his mother, Alexis Strong, siblings and grandparents - but he was angry, he said. While he didn't really get into trouble as a young teen, he didn't apply himself in school.

"His issues were in the classroom. He kept everything inside, locked in the hurt and anger and frustration," West Catholic football coach Brian Fluck recalled.

Strong worked through those issues; Fluck remembers a big turnaround between Strong's sophomore and junior years, achieved with "a combination of a lot of support from myself and a couple people in the school, and friends and family members, [Jaelen] himself maturing a little bit . . . he changed his mindset."

Strong is now a 6-2, 217-pound Arizona State wide receiver projected as a first- or second-round prospect in this week's NFL draft, often mocked to the Eagles at 20th overall. He said that ultimately, he came to realize something:

"I had to move on eventually. You've gotta move on. You can't just get caught up in a circumstance, because a lot of people have way worse circumstances than me."

That realization came too late to salvage his high school academic career - Jaelen had to spend 2 years in junior college at California's Pierce College before moving on to Arizona State.

"When I got to Pierce, that was my last shot. That was all I had left," Strong said. "I told myself in training camp, if I didn't take that seriously, I wouldn't [have an athletic future]. I would be on the streets trying to find a job, or trying to get into school . . . I had to buckle down and get it going."

Junior college - even there he spent a year academically ineligible, desperately making up course work - "made me who I was. I appreciated the experience, because of what it did to me," Strong said.

By the time Strong got to Arizona State, Sun Devils wide-receivers coach DelVaughn Alexander saw a "softspoken guy" - an attribute Strong feels he shared with his father - who was "a true competitor," who easily grasped concepts. "I just love his poise on game day," Alexander said.

Back in Philly, Fluck was amazed at how much bigger and stronger the Arizona State Strong was than the kid he'd sent off to junior college, the one he felt brought to mind the phrase "untapped potential."

"He's a kid who's going to work to get better," said Fluck, who has remained in regular contact with Strong during the draft process. "He's really become a student of the game."

Strong is something of a polarizing prospect, in a draft that features more than a few of those.

In an echo of his father, who was a strong rebounder, Strong has powerful hands and is excellent at bringing down contested balls, utilizing the 42-inch vertical leap that placed second among wide receivers at the NFL Scouting Combine. But scouts say he lacks the speed to separate - when he ran a 4.44 40 at the combine, some observers said that was faster than Strong played - and his route-running skills are considered crude, perhaps because he only had 2 years at Arizona State.

A wrist fracture suffered Nov. 1 has been of interest to teams - one report claimed he would eventually need surgery - but Strong said his wrist is fine and he will be able to take part in spring work for whichever team drafts him.

Jayson Braddock, a Houston-based radio personality and draft analyst, yesterday listed Strong atop his list of overrated prospects. Mike Mayock, the NFL Network's top draft analyst, has compared Strong to Cardinals star Larry Fitzgerald. Alexander compared him to the wideout Alexander once backed up at USC, Keyshawn Johnson, though Alexander hastened to add that Strong "is a lot more softspoken. But his intentions are the same; he wants to go out and dominate a game."

Alexander said he thinks the rough spots will eventually get buffed out of Strong's game.

"He was only here three semesters - two training camps and one offseason," Alexander said. "With the transition [from junior college] you've got to get him acclimated on campus, in the classroom, the weight room; there's so many things you have to get him focused on. But [route-running, getting in and out of breaks] is something we've talked about a lot, and I know is his focus, that he's really got to improve on."

When he hasn't been taking visits to eight NFL teams, Strong said his predraft focus has been on "attention to detail - being more of a technician on the field."

Asked about his visit with the Eagles, Strong said: "Chip Kelly's a great guy. They're serious - they want to win a championship. I see that all throughout the building, in the way they go about things. They're definitely a championship-caliber team."

Of course, he'd like to play in his hometown, though Strong acknowledges that because of a childhood love of Deion Sanders, he grew up a Cowboys fan.

Despite that cultural glitch, Strong proudly proclaims Philadelphia as part of his makeup, maybe part of what he feels he inherited from his father.

"You come from Philly, you just got dog in you, you know what I mean?" he said. "There's just that hunger . . . I feel like I'm getting ready to set the country on fire."

Chitwood hasn't seen Strong play, but he wouldn't doubt that.

"If he's got his father's heart, he's going to be a success, no matter where he goes," Chitwood said. "Because his father didn't know what it was to lose or give up."