One wall in Gerold Dickens’ home office is devoted to business. His computer, on a desk to the left, sits ready to pull up game film; on the right-hand side is a huge white board, covered from end to end in names and schools and other information.
The other walls help tell the story of how Dickens — and his business — came to be.
They are lined with picture frames: some paintings of Dickens in high school and as a member of the New England Patriots, newspaper clippings, old photos and an NFL contract. That contract, more than anything else, is what Dickens uses to show local athletes they can go far if they’re willing to put in the effort. Dickens, one of the driving forces behind Next Level Sports Academe, draws from his football experiences to fuel his work.
“I know what it takes to play in (the NFL),” Dickens says. “I know how to get there. I had an opportunity to play with Hall of Famers. The experience, I wouldn’t trade anything for it.”
As far as his passion is concerned, though, Dickens claims his college and high school days were much more fun. That’s what he loves to talk about most. As exciting as things are today, he can still relate to his playing days in the 1980s.
‘THE ONLY SHOW IN TOWN’
A defensive end in high school, Dickens enjoyed a three-year career with the Plant City Raiders that saw the team form rivalries with powerhouses such as Plant and Lakeland.
“It was very exciting,” Dickens says. “It was the only show in town. Everybody went to the same school. ‘Friday Night Lights’ was true Friday night lights in Plant City, where everybody was centered on going to the games. The whole town would shut down because everybody was at the game.”
In addition to Plant and Lakeland, there were rivalries with Hillsborough, Blake and Kathleen high schools.
“And Brandon — that was a huge rivalry,” Dickens says. “We used to play them at Tampa Stadium. That’s one of the big memories I have. It was an annual game, and we would play games at Tampa Stadium, called the Old Sombrero.
“And then the Plant City-Plant game was also a big major rivalry. The first time, Plant City was undefeated and Plant was undefeated, and they all met at Tampa Stadium for its first high school game ever. It drew a big crowd, so, the next year, they invited the teams back. It was real, real big back then.”
The high school game back then was mostly run-oriented, which suited Dickens, a solid run-stopper. Playing the passing game was uncommon, though many teams eventually started experimenting. The Raiders had some talented teams, but, according to Dickens, not many colleges knew about it. By attending a camp, and with some help from friends Andy Knotts and “life coach” Mark Poppell, he was able to draw coach Charley Pell’s eye and land a scholarship to the University of Florida.
THE GLORY DAYS
Dickens will say the Florida years were probably the best of his life, and he’s got the enthusiasm to tell those stories for hours. Along with the pictures and clippings hanging from the walls, he has multiple scrapbooks and game tapes to dive into at any time.
“Well, I’ve got some of it here,” he says. “I have a lot more, but my wife’s got it in storage.”
He’s got pictures and clippings of virtually everything he did as a Gator — riding in the back of a hay-lined truck as a senior, walking off a bus with sunglasses and headphones on and flying through the air to make tackles. There is also his first letter from an NFL team — the Dallas Cowboys.
It wasn’t all play, though. Pell, a Bear Bryant disciple, was tough, and he instilled a work ethic in Dickens that has stuck.
“We used to have 26 periods,” Dickens says. “I’ll never forget that. His favorite words were, ‘Tell Mr. Haywood we’ll be coming in late.’ Mr. Haywood was the dining guy at the cafeteria. So, if we heard that, that meant we weren’t going to be coming in for a while. We’d start all 26 periods over.
“It was the mentality of putting in hard work that got you the end results, which was Florida’s first SEC championship in 1984. We won it again in 1985. We were ranked No. 1. We had several guys get drafted in the first round.”
That includes Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith, who was a freshman when Dickens was a senior. That year, Smith broke Herschel Walker’s NCAA records and led the Gators to the 1987 Aloha Bowl, where they faced UCLA.
“We had just come off probation, so we had two years we weren’t allowed to go to a bowl game,” Dickens says. “We had won the SEC, the whole nine yards. Emmitt came in and had an excellent first year, which got us into the bowl game. We got to go to Hawaii and play against Troy Aikman. Little did we know, he was going to be a first-round draft pick for the Dallas Cowboys and, little did we know, Emmitt was going to wind up being on his team. They were a part of the ‘triplets.’ All that, and I played against Michael Irvin in Miami, so I played against and with all of the ‘triplets.”
The Aloha Bowl also offered Dickens’ favorite football memory, despite the 20-16 loss at the end.
Normally, Dickens would focus on stopping the run. He was the guy who, after drawing a skull and crossbones on his elbow wrap, would go out to make the big tackle. He didn’t drop back into coverage too often but, this time, it was worth it: He picked off Aikman.
“It came in on an inside throw,” Dickens says. “I had dropped into coverage. The wide receiver was coming in toward the middle. I just kind of flipped my hips and came inside with him, and (Aikman) just launched it. I picked it off right in there. I was like laid out to intercept that ball. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my career, doing that.”
NO REGRETS
After the Gators, Dickens entered NFL free agency and signed with New England, where he played sparingly for two years. He then spent a season with the up-and-coming World League of American Football, for which he played for the Orlando Thunder. He left to return to the Winter Strawberry Capital and work in both law enforcement and coaching.
Although he wishes his timing would have been better — Dickens entered the NFL after the infamous 1987 players’ strike — he has no regrets. His pro career proved to be a valuable learning experience, which he still draws from today when working with his Next Level athletes.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better football career,” he says.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MAKE IT?
“The way the draft process went back then, it was better after the third round — if you didn’t get picked — to go into free agency,” Gerold Dickens says. “Some teams would just draft you to keep other teams from drafting you, and they really didn’t need you. Free agency gave you a chance to pick and choose where you wanted to go.
Dickens ended up with the Patriots; he landed on a roster with names such as Andre Tippett, Doug Flutie, Irving Fryar, Steve Grogan and Craig James. He was primarily used in special teams.
His rookie contract was for $75,000, plus incentives. Thanks to the 2011 CBA ratifications, rookies can sign for as little as $420,000 (base salary) in 2014 — more than five times as much money.
He didn’t get the playing time he had dreamed of, but he got the experience he now knows he needed.
“Just being there and seeing the USFL had just closed down and just coming off that strike and here comes the World Football League — everything was in a pioneer stage,” Dickens says. “My timing … let’s just say it wasn’t a good time. But I learned a lot from it.”