By Allen Cameron
Calgary Herald

The voice picking up at the other end was not the one Romby Bryant expected to hear.

Just 10 years old and visiting his grandma around the corner in the Musgrave neighbourhood of Oklahoma City, Bryant had phoned home to talk to his daddy, Leroy.

The two had a close relationship, despite Leroy’s frequent brushes with the law. Far closer than the one little Romby had with his mother, LaRhonda, who’d also spent time behind bars.

Leroy didn’t answer the phone. Instead, the man identified himself as a police officer, and started interrogating the youngster.

A few minutes later, Bryant and his uncle drove to the house. There, he saw the police arresting his daddy for what would turn out to be the last time.

“He saw the police take his daddy,” says his grandmother, Edwina Romby (which explains how the Calgary Stampeder wide receive came by that unique first name). “He saw them throw him down and put their foot on his head.”

Two decades later, Leroy Bryant remains behind bars, at the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite, Okla., serving a life term for various drug offences.

And Romby? He’s a star receiver in the Canadian Football League, aiming every day to be the parent for his 18-month-old daughter Shiloh that he never had himself.

Once Leroy Bryant was locked up for good, Romby Bryant lived with various family members, who all strived to keep him on the straight and narrow. Most of his time was spent either with his uncle’s family or at the home of his maternal grandmother, Edwina. Leroy’s mother, Clara, also helped raise him.

Bryant had choices to make as a youngster: follow the path of his parents to a downward-spiralling life of drugs, crime and jail, or try to make something of his life, despite the shaky beginnings.

“Romby could have gone a different way; he definitely could have,” says Edwina Romby. “He saw so much negative stuff in his life. That affected Romby for a long time, but after his daddy was sent to the penitentiary, we worked with him and his attitude changed.

“Romby still has a temper, and he really didn’t like the police for what they did. But after we started talking to him about different things, I think Romby started to realize that what his parents were doing was not the right thing to do.

“It comes down to choices, and I think that once Romby realized that there were some people who cared about him, who loved him, then he started doing much better in life.”

In Bryant’s mind, though, there’s nothing exceptional about the path he took, nor the challenges he faced (“Everybody’s got a story to tell,” he says), but he also acknowledges that were it not for his extended family, there’s no way to know how things would have turned out.

“I know people who have both of their parents and their life is going in the wrong direction,” says Bryant. “It’s all about who you’ve got with you and how strong-minded you are. I just never got into that life. I mean, I got in trouble just like any young kid – boys will be boys – but I never got into it. I have friends who are like that. But me? I’ve always been myself.”

Bryant’s public persona is largely a mystery. He does not relish speaking to the media, not even a tiny bit. At the end of practices, when Stamps director of media relations Mitch Bayliss brings a whiteboard onto the field with numbers denoting which players have been requested by media types, Bryant generally tries to sneak a peek. When he’s free and clear, he’s practically sprinting off the field to the locker-room, avoiding eye contact with the reporters on hand.

It’s not personal; he’s shy and when he does talk, he’s extremely careful with his words.

“You probably know; I’m just not a talkative person,” he says. “I don’t have a lot to say. And some of the questions? I just don’t know where they’re going.”

In the safe environment of the locker-room, though, Bryant is a different person.

“He’s a joker, you know?” says fellow receiver Arjei Franklin, who along with Bryant was traded to the Stampeders a year ago. “He’s fun to be around and he’s a great teammate – definitely the kind of teammate who’s going to look out for you, both on and off the field. What you see isn’t the real Romby. Always cracking jokes, easy to get along with – a good guy­.”

Football has been his life for nearly 20 years. After completing his collegiate career, Bryant was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Arizona Cardinals in 2004, but never played a game.

In 2005, he hooked up with the Atlanta Falcons, suiting up in three games and making eight catches, and then spent two years on and off the Baltimore Ravens’ practice roster, never actually playing a game.

Finally, he headed north, signing with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers prior to the 2008 CFL season, and then moving to Calgary last season.

Now at the age of 30, Bryant is beginning to realize that he needs to start preparing for real life. He’s talked to an academic adviser at the University of Tulsa, where he attended school, about completing his degree in communications – he’s just a few credits short.

“I always live in the present, so that’s why I’ve been thinking about it lately, about what I want to do when I’m done with football,” he says. “I mean, I’ve never really stuck to anything. I’ve never really done anything but football. It worries me. That’s all I know, football.”

Despite his criminal history, Leroy Bryant was a good dad, says Romby. Leroy was a pretty good baller himself, apparently, and instilled a love of sports in his son.

“Oh, we have a good relationship,” says Romby. “He was a good dad, when he was out. He’s a good dad now. I mean, I didn’t go on the same path he went. So obviously something that he taught me stuck. Those were the choices he made; I made my own choices.”

His mother, on the other hand, is less of a presence in his life. She has straightened out her life, somewhat, but Edwina Romby wishes her daughter and her grandson were closer.

“Romby is really quiet and low-key, and I think the relationship he has with his mother has caused that,” she says. “He still has a resentment inside of him. I’m constantly talking to him about it, but there’s still something there in him. He has so much in hurt in him. And I don’t think he’s released it yet. I talk to him about it and I pray about it, because I would like for them to get closer. I keep telling him that my time is limited. I want them to have a good relationship; I’ll be 76 in January, and I would like for them to be closer so that he will have somebody.”

Asked about his grandmother’s comment, Bryant considers it, and shrugs.

“I guess. If you want to look at it like that,” he says, finally. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t want to talk to her. It’s just that I’m used to her not being around. I talked to her in the off-season; she comes over to my grandma’s house, and if I’m there, I’ll talk to her, but I’m not going out of my way to do it.”

You want to see Romby Bryant melt? Ask him about his daughter.

“Oh, boy. It’s just love,” says Fra
nklin. “I see it – every morning, he’s looking at a picture of his daughter. He lives for her, that’s for sure.”

Bryant and Shiloh’s mother aren’t together, but the two are friendly, and are co-parenting Shiloh. And when Bryant’s home in Oklahoma City, every spare moment is spent with Shiloh.

“She’s talking a little. Daddy, momma, thank you, you’re welcome,” says Bryant with a smile. “She can’t say ‘I love you’ yet. She’ll try to say it, and you know what she’s trying to say. She can count a little. The other day, she counted up to five, but she skipped four.”

“You should see him,” adds Edwina Romby. “When he comes home from Canada, the first thing he does is to go and get her. He keeps her with him all the time he’s here, right up until it’s time to leave. Oh, that’s his heart. In the off-season, he brings the baby to church with him. He takes her to noonday prayer, he plays with the baby, he buys her educational toys, he takes her to the park – oh, that’s his heart.”

It doesn’t take a shrink to see what’s going on here, of course. Deprived of his own parents for most of his life, Romby Bryant is making up for lost time with his own daughter. And both father and daughter are reaping the benefits.

“She’s softened me up a little bit,” admits Bryant. “I want to be around her, because my parents were never around. I just try to do what I’m supposed to do.”

Twenty years after watching his father taken down by the police, Bryant appears to have found some peace with his life. His professional career is going along nicely – he’s one of the best deep threats in the CFL, and was leading the Stamps with seven touchdowns going into today’s game against the Montreal Alouettes – and his personal life revolves around being the best possible parent to Shiloh.

“Fortunate? I guess I’ve been through a lot,” he concedes. “Maybe I don’t know how serious it really was because I never looked at it like that. People tell me, ‘You’ve been through a lot.’ And I’m like, ‘I guess so. But everybody has a story to tell.’ “

For Edwina Romby, though, her grandson isn’t just another story. He’s an honest-to-God miracle.

“I believe he made up his mind that he didn’t want to end up like his parents, No. 1,” she says. “Now, everybody wants success, everybody wants to make a lot of money. I think his goal at first was to be a big star. Now, I think he’s concentrating on doing the best for his child and being the best person he can be.”