She opened the door to a camera. Not the press. A family friend.
Her confusion quickly devolved into pure elation as her eyes cast down to the road, where a beaming white Jaguar with a bow on the hood rolled up to the driveway. She saw the driver, and she laughed.
“You still up to no good!” She chimed with an infectious smile.
She approached, and her son stepped out, matching her smile. The mother hugged her son at the bottom of the driveway, and they turned, staring at the prize of a lifetime, a trophy on four wheels.
In a material sense, it was just a car. A machination of metal, rubber, and glass. But for Beulah Guice and her son, Derrius, it was more. A culmination of the struggles endured in the past. A sign that the worst part was over.
It hadn’t always been so hopeful.
“It’s not just gonna take one person to bring me down. It’s gonna take more than one.”
Derrius Guice came from The Bottom. But on the night of April 26, 2018, he was at the top.
A grand stage splayed out in the foreground, with lights peppered around it, and a titanic screen behind a lonesome podium with a microphone. Twin staircases flanked the stage, and below them laid a vast concourse, looming in the shadow of the lights.
On the grounds of the concourse, Guice sat at a table with a nameplate, his mother alongside him, a wide smile on his face. That night, Guice intended to emerge from the darkness, and into the light of the stage, putting The Bottom behind him.
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The first round of the 2018 NFL Draft was set to captivate the attention of the nation, and Guice was expected to be one of the thirty-two players taken off the board that night. Evaluators swooned over his physical running style and his athletic ability, and as a pure runner, some held him in similar regard of draft darling Saquon Barkley.
As a talent, Guice was worthy as a first-round selection. But as the draft began, and the green room slowly emptied, the lights began to dull. Mayfield to the Browns. Barkley to the Giants. Fitzpatrick to the Dolphins. Payne to the Redskins. Penny to the Seahawks. Michel to the Patriots.
And as the last pick went off the board, and the face of Lamar Jackson flashed among the colors of the Baltimore Ravens on the screen above the stage, Guice learned that his name would not be called on Day One. He left the green room. He did not go back.
On Day Two, the wait continued. Guice was joined by his family at a local restaurant, away from the comforts and the confusion of the green room. The first-round talent wasn’t even the first running back off the board in Round 2. It was Nick Chubb. When the Lions traded up to pick No. 43, Guice must have thought it was for him. It wasn’t. It was for Kerryon Johnson.
And so he slid. And the rumors spread. Rumors that Guice, the exuberant 21-year old, was not as innocent as he seemed. Rumors that he had gotten into an altercation with an Eagles coach during a combine meeting, and that there was a bombshell TMZ report waiting in the wings to destroy Guice’s reputation.
But there was only one problem: By the time the Washington Redskins selected Guice at No. 59 overall, close to the end of the second round, his reputation was already destroyed.
More than two months later, Guice, to his local fanbase, has quickly restored his reputation, but nationwide, he’s still the running back who fell to the end of the second round because of his immaturity. Because of a purported video game addiction. Because of his temper. Because of his superiority complex. Because of phantom character concerns that Guice has done everything to discredit in his time with the Redskins.
There is no TMZ Report. There’s only more for Guice to prove. On the field, to prove that he was worthy of being selected in the place of Nick Chubb. In the place of Rashaad Penny. And in the place of Saquon Barkley. And off the field, to prove that he made it out of The Bottom for a reason, and that he doesn’t plan on bringing it with him.
Now on solid ground, Guice has the opportunity to prove his critics wrong.
But sometimes, to find solid ground, one must fall.
“There’s an area down in Baton Rouge they call The Bottom. Very few young men come out of The Bottom.”
A person’s destiny is predicated on choice. And while where they start isn’t up to them, it can have a profound impact on the resolution.
Derrius Guice was born into The Bottom. Born in free fall. His parents did all that they could to provide for him, but their options were limited. As Guice explained in his edition of Hyundai’s “Rolling with the Rookies” video segment, desperate measures qualified as normalcy under the circumstances.
"[Starting out the day], we’d be like ‘man, we hungry’. We’d start looking for food. Throughout the day, we’d be starving. We would take turns going into stores and stealing food."
It was not malpractice out of desire, but malpractice out of necessity. Nevertheless, from an early age, Guice saw glimpses of a way out, flashes of hope sparked by the comments of his father, who had remarked to a young Guice that he had the strength and speed to be a football player.
At the time, it was a simple, healthy father-son exchange. But when Guice’s father was shot dead in a Denny’s, and when that death resonated, something clicked in Guice’s mind, and he became the football player that his father always saw.
He spent hours on end at the football field beside the freeway, sometimes even entire days beneath the expanse of the open sky, shuffling his feet in the crab grass as his friend tossed him a football. Maybe, on one occasion, he imagined a play inside his head. In the empty field ahead, a behemoth line of blockers, staving off a relentless defensive attack. And he would charge through the gap. Decisive. No mercy. Strength and speed. Anger.
And when he blew by the invisible front, maybe he juked the linebacker out of his shoes with a jump cut, kicking up dirt and sod from the ground below. Maybe he spun around the cornerback in pursuit. They wrapped their arms around his ankles, but he kept stepping forward. He kept his legs moving. Soon, they were gone. One man to beat, in open space. He could make him miss, but he still had a bit of anger left. He lowered his shoulder. Pads clapping, sweat spewing, and the defender was on his back. Guice was in the end zone. The roar of the crowd hit a thunderous apex, and the boy from Baton Rouge looked back.
The noise was gone. There was no opposing team. Just his friends, now dots in the distance. The sky was darkening. Far beyond the field, at the edge of the adjacent block, the street lights were glowing. An eruption of laughter broke out somewhere amongst the buildings, as the night life began to rise. The stars hovered above, seemingly unattainable. It was time to go home.
But Guice didn’t want to go home. He wanted to play football.
When he reached high school, Derrius Guice enrolled at Baton Rouge Catholic High School, with the intent of making a name for himself on a bigger stage.
The transition between communities bore a heavy weight on Guice. His background rendered him the subject of intense scrutiny from his class mates. Still with limited resources, and a disconnect at his new place of education, Guice chose to speak with his play, rather than his words.
On the field, Guice was the loudest there was. As a high school senior, Guice stood at a punishing 5-foot-11, 215. He was stronger than everyone else. He was faster than everyone else. And his anger never left him.
Guice’s success, over time, garnered the attention of various premier football programs across the country, and by the end of his senior season, Guice, a four-star prospect, had scholarship offers from Texas, Alabama, and LSU, among others.
The boy from Baton Rouge decided to stay close to home, and after playing in limited action as a true freshman, he erupted onto the college football scene in 2016, rushing for 1,387 yards and 15 touchdowns on 183 carries, in relief of an injured Leonard Fournette. Injuries held Guice back in his first year as the full-time starter, but he still ran for over 1,250 yards and ten touchdowns, logging an average yards per carry of 5.3.
Guice’s stats alone were attractive to evaluators, but even more coveted was the way he played the game. Guice left nothing on the field when he got the ball. He was relentless, showing not only a willingness to make contact, but a hunger for it. Guice showed the evaluators a complete running back with the best kind of mentality. It came as no surprise that, on the eve of draft day, he was one of the best running backs in the draft.
But despite his efforts, Guice was not afforded the same recognition as his positional counterparts on April 26. The Bottom came back to haunt him.
After being slighted in the NFL Draft, Derrius Guice has everything to prove with the Redskins.
The fact that Derrius Guice willed himself out of The Bottom says enough about his character, and the evidence on tape dispels any doubt on whether or not he should be considered one of the best running backs in this rookie class. But there are many who are not convinced about Guice. Both the character, and the player.
It doesn’t matter. It’s going to take more than one person to bring him down.
Guice has spent his entire life proving people wrong and defying the odds. This won’t be any different. The Jaguar gifted to his mother is proof that he was able to make it where so many others couldn’t, and that soon, The Bottom will be behind him for good.
Guice’s status on the Redskins is proof that some saw past the veil of controversy lowered on draft night, and saw Guice for who he was: A kid living out the years he never had. It’s proof that he belongs in the NFL; after all, the destination is a resolution of the ensuing struggle.
Now, with solid ground beneath his feet, and a steady paycheck on the way, Guice hopes to evict his mother from poverty. And perhaps, he can be an example to those who are in the situation he once was. An example that they can make it, and they can follow in his foot steps.
Next: Redskins: When man, city, and purpose all meet
But first, Guice has to prove himself. After the draft, he has all the motivation he needs.