Omar Speights’ journey to LSU

BY TYLER HARDEN @ttjharden8

Despite being new to LSU, Omar Speights’ experience playing college football at Oregon State automatically places him in a leadership role. His journey to Baton Rouge, however, was not a typical one.

Speights was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Unlike many college football players, he didn’t grow up playing football. His career took off in the eighth grade and his recruitment started to pick up in his early high school years.

announced he would be starting against Louisiana-Lafayette.

Ten hours later, he stepped up to the mound, took a deep breath and threw his first competitive pitch in over 400 days. Ball.

Coleman’s time back on the mound might not have been perfect and was certainly limited,

“I was born and raised in Philly. I was raised by my mom, me and my brother and my sister,” Speights said. “I didn’t play football too much growing up. I didn’t start playing football until about eighth grade. And once I got to eighth grade then everything just took off from there.”

Speights moved to Oregon during his last year of high school, a place that couldn’t have been more different than Philadelphia.

Speights finished his high school career at Crescent Valley High School in Corvallis, Oregon. As a recruit, he was a three-star see RETURN, page 10 see TRANSFER, page 10