Alongside the West Financial institution of the Mississippi, straight throughout the way in which from downtown New Orleans, there’s a levee that rises up beside the riverbank. On the prime, about 40 toes up a steep, grassy hill, the skyline of the French Quarter unfurls into clear view over the river.
To run up the levee and gaze upon that view of downtown was one thing of a ceremony of passage for youths within the neighborhood. However to the boys skilled by Clyde Alexander, it was sacred floor. They known as it Mecca, and each week, they got here to the identical stretch of levee subsequent to an deserted warehouse the place Mardi Gras floats had been as soon as constructed.
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Six years in the past, earlier than he was seen as a budding star at USC, Jahkeem Stewart stood on the base of that levee in Algiers on a muggy day, drenched in sweat. He was solely 12 years outdated on the time, a lot youthful than any of the opposite children Alexander was coaching. He additionally occurred to be 6-foot-4 and 360 kilos, larger than any child he’d ever seen at that age.
It didn’t require a lot creativeness to see how scouts would sooner or later declare him the uncommon line of defense prospect worthy of the phrase “generational.” Or how Stewart’s path, beginning that day on the levee, would finally lead him to USC, the place his influence as a freshman was felt as quickly as he joined the Trojans’ entrance.
However Alexander noticed sufficient expertise squandered in New Orleans to know that measurement and energy alone couldn’t guarantee a ticket out. It’s why he was skeptical when an area journey coach contacted him, raving about an enormous sixth grader he knew had the instruments to be nice. Video clips confirmed Stewart’s mixture of measurement, energy and velocity was unstoppable.
“The one thing you can’t teach on Planet Earth is size,” Alexander says. “What he has, that’s just God-given.”
What the coach couldn’t see on tape was whether or not Stewart had the remainder of what it took to succeed in his ceiling.
That’s the place the levee got here in. Alexander’s athletes would run his move speeding drills up the hill’s steep incline. That approach, once they returned to flat floor, they’d realized to “move at a different frequency.”
The levee additionally had the facility to disclose in any other case unseen intangibles. So earlier than Alexander added any new pupil to his “edge assassins” coaching program, he introduced them to the hill for a exercise. Then he’d put them by means of hell.
Years of sweat amassed in that soil as Alexander despatched native child after native child up the levee and onto a school roster. However a 12-year outdated? Might he actually sustain? “My program wasn’t exactly beginner level,” Alexander stated.
Defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart, left, stands beside his coach and mentor Clyde Alexander.
(Courtesy of Clyde Alexander)
Any doubt he might need had disappeared that first day on the levee. Regardless of how exhausting he pushed, Stewart stored going. Up and down and up and down he went. At one level, Stewart stepped away to vomit, took a sip of water then instantly returned to the drill.
“It was a telling moment of who he was,” Alexander stated. “He just wouldn’t quit.”
When the exercise was lastly over, Stewart laid on the grass, drenched in sweat, gasping for air.
“So, you coming tomorrow?” Alexander requested him.
Stewart sensed the doubt in his voice. However he got here again that subsequent day — and stored coming again after that. Over the subsequent six years, Alexander would assist mildew Stewart from a 12-year outdated big right into a line of defense prospect thought-about by some to be among the many better of his era. Alongside the way in which, the 2 of them shaped a bond a lot nearer than participant and coach.
“He’s my mentor,” Stewart says of Alexander. “He’s done everything for me ever since.”
Collectively they blazed a path for Stewart not like every other prime prospect earlier than him, buying and selling the standard climb by means of highschool soccer for an expert coaching routine that led him to go away highschool a full 12 months early regardless of having performed in simply 12 varsity soccer video games.
The choice was a rare step and wasn’t with out its dissenters in New Orleans. Throughout faculty soccer, not everybody was positive what to consider a prime prospect with scant actual sport expertise.
However now that Stewart has landed at USC, glimpses of his extraordinary expertise are already exhibiting and the identical questions are coming to thoughts that Alexander puzzled again on the levee.
Is Jahkeem Stewart prepared for all of this? And in that case, how far can his expertise take him?
“It didn’t take long for people to know a young Beyoncé could sing,” he says. “It didn’t take a lot of seeing Michael Jackson dance with the Jackson 5 to know that he would be a star.
“Some people,” Alexander says, “they just have it.”
When Stewart first began coaching with Alexander, he was accustomed to dominating on the line of defense. The issue was, to that time, he’d by no means wanted to work that tough for it. He’d all the time been larger, sooner and stronger than anybody throughout from him.
Alexander doesn’t mince phrases. “Jahkeem was extremely lazy,” he stated. “He didn’t know how to work.”
However he’d be taught rapidly with Alexander, coaching alongside a lot older, extra mature gamers. Principally as a result of he had no different selection. On the levee, there have been no lodging made for the youngest amongst them. If something, Myron Inexperienced says, it was in all probability the other in Stewart’s case.
“He was a big baby at first,” stated Inexperienced, a 6-foot-5, 305-pound defensive deal with who was seven years older than Stewart and enjoying junior faculty ball on the time.
Defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart, left, stands beside his coach and mentor Clyde Alexander after the Below Armour All-America Recreation at Tenting World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.
(Courtesy of Clyde Alexander)
“We had to rough him up, toughen him up. Every drill, we tried to beat him.”
By the point Stewart reached the eighth grade, when Alexander first unleashed him on the camp circuit, the tables had clearly turned. Stewart’s physique was reworked. He was two inches taller and 60 kilos lighter. And he’d spent the previous 12 months studying the sport at a degree far past his friends. He had move rush strikes at his disposal and a primary step that was deadly at his measurement.
In order that summer season, a dozen or so of Alexander’s “edge assassins” packed right into a rented sprinter van packed right into a rented sprinter van for a touring camp tour. They known as themselves the “Jump Ball Boys”. And wherever they went, Stewart appeared to show heads. Inexperienced remembers one journey, to Oxford, Miss., when Stewart “took over the whole camp.”
“He was 13 going against seniors,” Inexperienced says, “and he destroyed everyone.”
Throughout one other camp, Alabama coach Nick Saban stopped the whole proceedings to make sure he may watch Stewart’s one-on-one pass-rush reps. He ended up providing Stewart a scholarship afterward.
“After Nick Saban gave him the stamp, I didn’t really need to hear anything else,” Alexander says.
Defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart, left; then-Alabama coach Nick Saban, middle; and coach Clyde Alexander pose for a photograph throughout a go to to the Alabama campus.
(Clyde Alexander)
Had Saban not retired, Alexander wonders if Stewart would possibly’ve ended up at Alabama. However earlier than he’d even enrolled in highschool, Stewart had his selection of virtually each main program in faculty soccer. Most recruiting websites already thought-about him to be the highest prospect in his class.
He was all set to enroll that subsequent fall at IMG Academy, the prep soccer manufacturing unit in Florida, when Hurricane Ida tore by means of his household’s residence that August, altering his course. As an alternative of leaving for Florida, he moved in full-time with Alexander and selected to enroll at St. Augustine Excessive, the place Alexander was an assistant.
However switch guidelines barred him from enjoying varsity soccer as a freshman. So St. Augustine did the one factor it may do to get Stewart sport expertise: It performed him on junior varsity.
The outcomes had been predictably ridiculous — and, in a couple of circumstances, borderline harmful.
“He looked like a literal man amongst boys, like someone had let a wild animal loose,” Alexander says. “The offense literally couldn’t run a play.”
Most weeks they needed to sit Stewart by halftime.
“Whenever I went out there, these little kids were getting hurt,” Stewart says. “I’m looking at their mommas, and their mommas are looking at me, like, ‘You’re a freshman!?’
When he was finally cleared to play varsity the next season, the results weren’t all that different. As a sophomore at St. Augustine, Stewart piled up 85 tackles and 20 sacks. They had to limit his reps during the week so St. Augustine could practice its offense.
To that point, Alexander said they never discussed Stewart skipping his senior year and reclassifying to the class of 2025. It was exceedingly rare that defensive linemen opted for that route, given the physical maturity required of the position.
But it was impossible to ignore how easy it looked for him as a sophomore. Alexander had always gone to great lengths to keep raising the bar for Stewart — whatever it took to keep him from getting complacent. So when Stewart came to him curious about reclassifying, he knew he couldn’t hold him back.
“If I didn’t think he was ready, I would’ve shut that down,” Alexander stated. “But you’re playing in the hardest division in the state and you literally just ran through it like a hot knife through butter.”
St. Augustine wasn’t as supportive. Alexander says he believes that the varsity intentionally dragged its toes, making it as tough as attainable for Stewart to go away early.
The scenario acquired ugly. Then lastly in August, after the season had already began, Stewart’s bid to reclassify was formally denied by the varsity.
So he left St. Augustine. Coaches from a few of the nation’s finest soccer packages burned up Alexander’s cellphone, providing Stewart spots on their very own rosters.
Stewart selected to remain in New Orleans, enrolling at Edna Karr Excessive, Alexander’s alma mater in Algiers. He nonetheless hoped that he would possibly play that season.
When the ultimate phrase got here down, Alexander introduced Stewart to the highest of the levee. They sat collectively on a bench overlooking the Mississippi — and each of them cried.
The Louisiana Excessive Faculty Athletic Affiliation had dominated him ineligible for a second time as a consequence of its switch guidelines. His highschool profession was over. It could be one other 12 months earlier than he suited up once more for a soccer sport.
However after every week or so, Alexander got here to him with a plan. They’d double down on coaching. If he couldn’t play a closing highschool season, they’d spend that point making ready like he was already a professional.
So whereas Edna Karr’s staff practiced, Stewart labored on his personal within the weight room. A nutritionist crafted him a food plan plan. A motion specialist labored on his physique mechanics. He noticed the identical chiropractor as NFL stars Joe Burrow and JaMarr Chase, and he even acquired obsessive about hyperbaric chambers — finally shopping for one for his residence at USC together with his title, picture and likeness endorsement cash.
USC defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart recovers a fumble throughout the Trojans’ loss to Illinois at Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
(Justin Casterline / Getty Photos)
To refine his craft, along with classes with Alexander, Stewart started learning and coaching with BT Jordan, the pass-rush coach who works with NFL stars Maxx Crosby and Micah Parsons, amongst many others.
Jordan doesn’t sometimes practice highschool gamers. However he knew the primary day with Stewart that he was working with one thing particular — and never due to his freakish measurables. Throughout one session, he watched Stewart supply move rush strategies to an eight-year NFL veteran … who truly took his recommendation.
“I ain’t never seen a high school kid that smart,” Jordan stated. “It was shocking to me.”
So far as Jordan is worried, he had nothing left to be taught from dominating highschool offensive linemen. In truth, he thinks sitting out his final season “was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to [Stewart].”
Eric Henderson felt the identical. A local of New Orleans and a former highschool teammate of Alexander, he’d been following Stewart’s rise since nicely earlier than he was employed because the Trojans’ line of defense coach. When he was contemplating leaving the Rams employees to affix USC in early 2024, he known as Alexander with a request.
“Hey look,” Henderson advised him, “if I come [to USC], I’m gonna need the young fella.”
Simply earlier than the official announcement, he known as Alexander once more. “When can you get up here with him?” Henderson requested.
They’d encountered coaches all through the recruiting course of who fawned over Stewart and his potential. However Alexander knew Stewart wanted somebody who demanded extra from him, like Alexander all the time had.
There have been different causes to signal with USC, too. Amongst them a major NIL deal, in addition to an opportunity to construct a model in L.A. like that of his position mannequin, Shaquille O’Neal. However their belief in Henderson tipped the scales.
“Greatness doesn’t come from being comfortable and he’s as tough on Jahkeem as anyone,” Alexander stated of Henderson.
Glimpses of that greatness have been on show ever since. Teammates have marveled at his pass-rush abilities. Coaches have raved about his soccer IQ.
USC defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart and teammates react after making a play towards Michigan State on Sept. 20 on the Coliseum.
(Luke Hales / Getty Photos)
“When I go to heaven, I’m going to ask God why he didn’t build me like that?” joked line of defense coach Shaun Nua.
Added Henderson, “I mean, the things we’ve seen from this kid already, you’re like, ‘What the hell?’”
Final month, towards Michigan State, Stewart burst into the backfield so rapidly throughout one play that the operating again had simply acquired the handoff as he leveled him. It reminded Alexander of Stewart’s junior varsity days.
And to assume, Alexander says, he nonetheless has a lot larger to climb from right here. He thinks again to the primary time he met Stewart, as a 360-pound sixth-grader, earlier than he’d seen Stewart run the levee.
That evening, over dinner, Stewart advised him he deliberate to win a Heisman Trophy, a feat no defensive lineman has ever completed. After that, he stated, he deliberate to make the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame.
Maybe, on the time, all of it sounded a bit far-fetched for a 12-year outdated. “But,” Alexander says, “the thought never even crossed my mind to tell him that’s not possible.”
He’s seen no purpose, within the six years since, to begin considering any totally different. Not when Stewart simply retains climbing, outpacing any affordable expectations alongside the way in which.
“It might sound crazy, since technically he’s still supposed to be in high school,” Alexander continues.
“But some kids, they’re just special, man.”
