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Tony Grimes (CB North Carolina, transfer to Texas A&M)

I respect his decision

I struggle to respect any admonition to respect a person or their decision(s). I respect that which deserves respect. Telling me to do so doesn't help your case.

I decline to respect your decision that you decline to respect Tony Grimes's admonition that you respect his decision.

I respect your decision

I both decisively and respectfully agree.

To all of this:
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In light of Quinn Ewers enrolling early (skipping last year of high school) this article may have interest:

The education of Tony Grimes: How a would-be high school senior found a fit at UNC

IN NORMAL TIMES, Tony Grimes exudes a boisterous, outgoing personality. His dad, Deon Glover, operates a fleet of ferry boats that shuttle passengers between Portsmouth and Norfolk, Virginia, and Grimes and his twin brother, Tino, grew up working customer service, taking tickets and chatting up customers. Grimes' dad knows everyone, and by extension, Grimes did, too.

Even as a kid, Grimes was unmistakably confident, working on defensive back drills against NFL players when he was a sophomore in high school, talking smack the whole way. His Twitter handle, created when he was 15, is @757EliteDB. He's from "the 757" -- Virginia Beach, home to Michael Vick, Allen Iverson, Dre Bly and a host of other immense talents -- and Grimes, even at 15, was the elite defensive back.

But last fall, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, hardly represented normal times. After the state announced it was scrapping the high school football season due to the virus, Grimes, a five-star prospect, decided he would skip his senior year to enroll early at North Carolina. He trained all summer, took online classes to complete his degree, and in a flash, he was in uncharted waters.

Critics figured Grimes, who turned 18 in April 2020, wasn't mature enough to make the leap to college so suddenly. Heck, even at North Carolina, where Grimes represented the apex of coach Mack Brown's recruiting success, it seemed a far-fetched plan. While Ohio State's Quinn Ewers hopes to make the same jump this season, partly to cash in on new name, image and likeness rules, Grimes' decision to skip his senior season was virtually unheard of.

"I didn't want to take him," Brown said. "I thought it was too much pressure on him. I didn't want him missing his senior year. I didn't like any of it."

Try telling that to @757EliteDB.

A few weeks before departing for UNC, he pulled a prank on his parents, convincing them he had been arrested for shoplifting by using a Google voice app to mimic a collect call from jail. The punchline, in Grimes' mind, came when Glover shouted to his wife, Cynthia, "He's not ready! He's not ready!" It was a fitting satire of all the doubters, Grimes thought.

Then Deon and Cynthia dropped their boy off at North Carolina on a muggy August morning in 2020, and suddenly it didn't seem so funny anymore. Grimes lay in bed in his dorm on his first night in Chapel Hill, alone for perhaps the first time in his life, and the enormity of his decision hit him.

By year's end, Grimes was dominating at the Orange Bowl -- "not my complete swag, but I had swag," he said. At the start, the hotshot from "the 757" was just an overwhelmed freshman on a rebuilding team in a town where he knew no one, amid a global pandemic. Before he could regain the bravado that had made him a high school phenom, he'd need to face down a reality far more difficult than he'd imagined.

"I'm here by myself," he thought. "I can't go anywhere. My parents left. I have to wake up in the morning and go to practice. This all happened ... fast."
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continued

Entire article: https://www.espn.com/college-footba...y-grimes-how-high-school-senior-found-fit-unc
 
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