Pittman’s Pocket: “Remembering OJ Murdock” | Part One

Remembering former Titans wide receiver OJ Murdock
In 1996, Ybor City Eagles who don the grey, white, and blue jerseys had a great team. Ybor City is located on the East Side of Tampa, Florida is where this legendary story begins.
I was in the second year of playing tackle football, and the Head Coach at the time for the Ybor City Eagles was the very talented Tony Ballard. Many knew Tony as a QB Guru.
Coach Tony is what everyone called him back then, and everyone considered Coach a legend in the city of Tampa. Even during his playing days of being a highly talented quarterback out of college and being a young head coach at the time he was well-known in the city.
He had significant players at that time such as LeBron Marshall, Jimmy Sapp (Warren Sapp’s cousin), Mario Lawrence, Isaiah Harris, Jermaine Lewis the Daron Rose “Ricci O” Richard Owens, Cornelius Harrell, and the one and only that woke us all up later on that year 1996 “OJ”.
Coach Tony used to test us every day on mental, physical, and even philosophical endurance. As youth between the ages of 6-8, we were considered very tough.
OJ used to leave everybody and conditioning drills from running dummy bags over to 100-yard sprints.
The only person that could keep up with him was Joe Jackson, known as bow-legged Joe.
Ybor City dominated the FYFC league, including Plant City Dolphins, the West Tampa Spartans, the North Tampa Rams, and the Colts. Our home field was located in Ybor City Boys & Girls Club, in Cuscadian Park.
We will now fast forward to my Freshman year in High School, I remember it like yesterday. I just got accepted into Middleton High School after graduating from an alternative school.
Yes, I used to get in a whole lot of trouble growing up, but I was able to turn things around near the end of my high school career. I wanted to play college football, so I got it together.
I graduated and went to college, but before that happened, I remembered we were at a pep rally in the gym hosted by Middleton principal Henry “Shake” Washington. That was when a light skin kid raised his hands from the graduating class of 2005. Some people knew him, mostly the girls, and at the time they rap music being played by our janitor/DJ Earl.
Out of the crowd came OJ. aka “Juice” was in the middle of the basketball court with Principal Washington and told the class of 03, 04, 05, and 06 that he was excited to be at Middleton after just leaving Hillsborough High School.
He wanted to make a historical run while being at Middleton, which was finally reopening after being closed back in the 1960s due to segregation.
Middleton was a black high school along with Blake High School in Tampa. At that time they were the only two high schools in the ’60s that were predominantly black. Both of them had been reopened over the time frame of the early 2000s.
The pep rally contest was who could dunk from the free throw line, and that is a big task, but OJ said he could do it.
Everybody started cheering and the crowd was anticipating what was going to happen. You could hear people mumbling, and that was when it happened. OJ literally took the basketball and ran with the ball so explosive to the free throw line, and literally just glided to the basketball hoop and dunk it like an NBA basketball player.
He was in the 10th grade; I was like what the heck now! I know he can run, and I know he can play football, but I had no clue that he could dunk like that. He ripped his hand a bit and was bleeding, so I told him to put some paper towels on his hand.
OJ was amazing! We knew that OJ alongside Mario Lawrence, Richard Owens, Cornelius Harrell, and Isaiah Harris had an opportunity to make a championship run again, just like 1996!
Worked as a Scout and volunteer for the East n West Shriners game in 2016-2017.
Also attended the Hula bowl and Tropical Bowl games. 2022
Also was a independent Agent and Scout at the CGS bowl game in 2021.
Worked All star games like the EPS All-Americans game in 2017.