ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Marquez Valdes-Scantling will live out his football dream on Sunday, playing in Super Bowl LVII. The journey to the game's biggest stage began at Lakewood as a Junior Spartan.
"He was a center when he first started out. Many people don't know that," stepdad Marcellus Scantling said with a smile.
He soon found a more fitting position playing wide receiver, but the transition to the Spartans' powerhouse high school program was far from smooth.
"Marquez first came in, [he] was probably 5-feet, 5-inches tall, maybe 100 pounds," Lakewood head coach Cory Moore said.
Not quite the measurables to be a Spartan. The coaches cut Valdes-Scantling his freshman year. He made the roster the next season but did not play. He was ready to quit.
"He was very upset and I just told him. I said, 'Hey, you see this feeling that you have right now? Just go and take that feeling to fuel you for the next year, the next day,'" Marcellus Scantling said.
He turned that fuel into a growth spurt -- literally and figuratively. As a senior, MVS was standing 6-foot, 3-inches, tall and weighing more than 190 pounds. Valdes-Scantling was determined to make a mark at Lakewood High School.
"He's always had to work extremely hard because there was always someone ahead of him," his mother, Tahisia, said.
The work ethic was always there. Once his body caught up to his mind, he was ready to make an impact on the field.
"Marquez was an individual that will work out after practice weekdays, weekends," Moore said.
His stepdad, now a defensive coach at Lakewood, said, "I didn't have to push him. I had to go look for him to see where he was at after school. It's 9:00 p.m., where this dude out? He out there running routes in the dark."
The wide receiver made the most of his final high school season tallying 50 catches for 800 yards and 14 touchdowns. But when you ask around, one game stands out above the rest.
"When we played Jesuit at Jesuit, that was his coming out party," Moore said. "That game was like, 'I'm the man. I'm here to stay.'"
His stepdad added, "Ever since that point, I think that was his, kind of his moment, where others say, 'who in the heck is this No. 11 that came out?'"
The Cincinnati Bengals ended up saying the same thing.
MVS was the MVP in the AFC Championship leading Kansas City with 116 receiving yards and a touchdown.
"It was kind of crazy. It was really crazy. As a mom, I'm just happy when he's happy. You know, I'm sad when he's sad," Tahisia said. "So I never really looked at it from the perspective of, oh my gosh, you have the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl. I looked at it as you're going to be happy."
So when you see Valdes-Scantling on Super Bowl Sunday, keep in mind, that is the Lakewood Spartan that didn't quit.