Mandatory Credit: Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports Copyright © 2006 Greg M. Cooper
Life after football isn’t always glamorous, especially with those who don’t finish as winners. Some retire with family, become an analyst or in some cases, head to jail. As fans we never know what it means to be an athlete. We don’t see the dedication, the preparation, blood, sweat and tears; at times we even take their journey for granted never realizing this is all who some become. This was the case for Reche Caldwell.
If you can recall, WR Reche Caldwell at one point was Tom Brady’s main target in 2006. Caldwell rose to Patriot’s fame after Deion Branch was dealt to Seattle and soon after, Caldwell was leading the Patriots receiving core. But during the AFC Championship with two missed greatly placed Brady throws, Caldwell dropped both, and sadly, cost the Patriots not only two touchdowns, but their chance to the Super Bowl. Now any rational person would say that no game comes down to one person or catch; football is a team sport for a reason. But if you’re a fan, sometimes common sense isn’t that common and you’re blindly lead by a loss blaming a person and ultimately a helping hand in destruction.
While Caldwell varied from team to team after that season, it seemed to him no one else trusted him or his athleticism and it caused him to spiral back home to familiar territory. As ESPN’s David Fleming stated, Caldwell was still royalty in West Tampa. No one cared about the missed catches or his ill-fated NFL career, but just him, home-grown hero, Reche. But with being the hometown hero comes consequences and Caldwell soon learned that hanging out with old friends in the old neighborhood would result in some poorly, ill-advised and even dumb criminal mistakes.
You know you’re not a great criminal when your mother says,
“Good lord that boy was a bad criminal,” says his mom, “and thank Jesus for that.”
That can pretty much sum up the dumb things Caldwell did. From the year of 2013-2014, Caldwell resulted in illegal activities. He initially started gambling, which, when he was arrested, he was eating a sandwich and initially ignored the crashing of the cops. Upon being caught, he was released on bail. Sadly, he didn’t stop there. Caldwell started hanging at clubs and was asked about Molly, which sparked his interest to sell. So, he did like any smart person would and googled the drug Molly. Yup. You read that right, Reche Caldwell googled “Molly” and how to obtain the drug which resulted in him getting arrested.
Caldwell says that on May 8 he simply opened up Google, typed in MDMA-Molly-China and watched as dozens of websites popped up offering to sell the drug and ship it right to his front door. (Challenged on this, Caldwell says, “You got your phone on you? Try it. It’s easy.” He is, in fact, correct.) Caldwell did the math: An investment of less than $2,000 could net as much as $180,000 on the street. Three taps of the mouse, a trip to Western Union and “the stuff was on its way,” he says. “So easy and out in the open, I kinda did it just to see if it was a scam.”
Sigh, but did you try it though? Yea, I did too, it is kind of easy. But naturally, you would think common sense would kick in and say “Nah, this is too good to be true”, right? Not Caldwell. As you can see, he did the deed anyway and it resulted in him spending 27 months in jail. Now with his release looming, Caldwell is looking forward to a life outside of crime and seeing his daughter graduate,
“I’m not gonna blame football or concussions like everybody else for my mistakes,” he says. “I don’t blame my education or my hometown or my family. I have a great family. I had a great childhood. I grew up in a great place. This is about losing my way, being around bad people and making bad choices, and that’s all on me.”
And that’s what we hope people realize when they go to jail; accepting responsibility and ultimately changing their life around. We all make stupid mistakes. Life is full of them. Caldwell’s mom said it best, let’s be thankful that he was a dumb criminal; it would’ve turned out worse than 27 months.
