Darryl recently graduated from Eastmoor Academy in Columbus (Archie's HS). He lost his father, who was slated to testify in a drug case, in a shooting last December.
Although offered a
scholarship chance to play football at Cornell, he accepted an academic schollie in engineering at tOSU. He played center and DT in HS, but will probably try fullback when he walks on at tOSU this fall.
Dispatch
Quote:
Mike Harden commentary: Football, family, faith beat teen's grief
Darryl Wood didn't have to wait until he was handed his high-school diploma from Eastmoor Academy to recognize the hardest good-bye of his senior year.
Yesterday morning, in a coffee shop on S. High Street, Wood remembered a Tuesday in December when he called to his father, after whom he is named.
"All right, Dad. I'm going to school. I'll see you later. Love you," he said.
Not long after that, a gunman was standing over Wood's father on the front lawn of the family's Argyle Drive home, pumping bullets into him.
The 43-year-old Wood had been indicted in a drug-trafficking case and was about to testify against a pair of co-defendants when he was killed.
"I'm not saying I would have gone off the deep end," the younger Wood said of losing his namesake father, "but my family is what kept me focused."
He believes that they played no small part in his being able to finish high school with a 3.6 grade-point average and notch a full ride to study engineering at Ohio State University.
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