Messiah Swinson keeps father's legacy alive by sharing his story
Earlier this school year, during a school-wide gathering for chapel, Messiah Swinson addressed his classmates at Long Island Lutheran high school. Swinson told the story of his father’s death.
One afternoon in 2013, Swinson’s father, Corey, didn’t show up to pick his son up from football practice. Swinson found Corey unresponsive in their home. Corey, who played college football at Hampton and spent one season in the NFL with the St. Louis Rams, had suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 43.
Swinson, a three-star tight end who signed with Missouri in December, said the point of sharing the story was not to sadden his classmates, nor to arouse pity. He wanted to let audience members who may have been dealing with struggles of their own know that they were not alone, and that they could reach out to him for support if need be.
“There’s kids that are going through the same thing I am,” Swinson said. “I feel like I’m pretty successful, so to say, just with athletics and going to college for free. I felt like talking to those kids, it just can show people you have to keep fighting and persevering and making your family proud, because that’s what they would want you to do.”
Swinson said he thinks about Corey “every day, all day,” and he’s excited to follow in Corey’s footsteps by playing college football. However, each time he steps onto the field, he doesn’t think of himself as carrying on his father’s legacy. That legacy extended well beyond football. After retiring from the NFL, Corey dedicated himself to social work in the Long Island area. In recognition of the impact Corey made in the area, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo named a bridge in his honor. Swinson believes his father would be far more proud of him for sharing his story with his classmates than for performing well in a football game. He does seek to honor his father’s legacy, but he does so simply by being the best he can be athletically, academically and as a person.
Even within sports, Swinson doesn’t think of his father, or himself, just as a football player. Corey grew up playing basketball — he didn’t take up football until college — and he introduced his son to both sports at an early age. As late as Swinson’s freshman year of high school, when he transferred to Long Island Lutheran, he didn’t know which sport he would ultimately pursue. As a freshman, Swinson had played for his school’s varsity basketball team, and he only played junior varsity football. (Now 6-foot-8, Swinson was already about 6-foot-5 as a freshman.)
Once at Long Island Lutheran, however, it didn’t take long for football coach Chris Reno to place Swinson on the varsity roster. Reno said he was immediately struck by Swinson’s size and coordination. Swinson initially struggled to grasp the complicated playbook, but once he started playing, Reno said Swinson “was good for like one catch (each game) where you go, ‘How the hell did that happen?’”
“The combination of his size and athleticism stood out right away,” Reno said. “And he was quick off the ball, too. Because sometimes those kids that grow too fast, they’re kind of growing into their bodies. He seemed to be very comfortable in his body.”
It didn’t take long for Swinson’s size and athleticism to attract college coaches. Swinson played basketball for Long Island Lutheran that winter of his sophomore year, but during the spring, college football coaches started showing up to watch him work out. Scholarship offers soon followed. During that summer — Swinson believes it was late July or early August — Missouri tight ends coach Joe Jon Finley called Swinson to extend an offer.
Missouri is not exactly known for recruiting the Northeast, but in Swinson’s case, the Tigers had an advantage. The father of one of Swinson’s assistant football coaches graduated from Missouri, and the coach’s sister currently attends Missouri. Swinson said the coach’s family members are avid Tiger fans. When they found out Swinson was considering Missouri, they delivered their best sales pitch, and Reno believes that resonated with Swinson.
Ultimately, Swinson said, it was the familial culture he observed on his visit to campus that sold him on Missouri.
“I went on a lot of other visits … and the culture wasn’t like it was at Mizzou,” Swinson said. “Although college football is a business — when it comes down to it, coaches want to win — I felt like they genuinely cared about the players, which I really, really liked.”
Swinson mentioned the importance of family multiple times. He listed several names of people — some blood relatives, others close friends — who have impacted him in the years since his father’s death. One of his uncles, for instance, accompanied him on several of his college visits. Then, there’s Swinson’s mother, who he calls “my rock.” Not only has she helped him craft and maintain a strict diet (he doesn’t eat dairy products and rarely eats bread) and manage his asthma, Swinson said he feels comfortable talking to her about anything — even football, which Swinson said isn’t her area of expertise.
That was one of the messages of Swinson’s chapel speech to his classmates: It’s okay to accept and rely on the help of others during times of hardship. Swinson credits those who have gone out of their way to help him in the years since his father’s death for where he is today. He also sought to establish himself as someone to whom another student battling adversity could turn for help.
“I felt like I needed help sometimes, and I had it, so I feel I can be that to other people,” Swinson said.
Swinson has lofty goals for his college football career. He is already studying Missouri’s playbook, and he hopes to contribute as a true freshman next season. He said Finley and head coach Barry Odom have both told him they don’t plan on redshirting him. Later in his career, he hopes to become both an all-American on the field and an academic all-American. Finally, he hopes to be selected in the NFL Draft, like his father.
Of course, Swinson believes his father would be proud to know that his earned a college scholarship, and he’d likely be more so if Swinson made it to the pros. But Swinson isn’t playing football and seeking these accolades for his father. He’s doing it because he enjoys football, he has worked at it, and he wants that work to pay off. To honor his father, he’s doing something more simple: sharing his story to inspire other people to overcome hardship of their own and to use him as a resource to do so. He believes Corey would be more proud of that than any football accomplishment.
“My dad was very much like that, he was big in the community,” Swinson said. “… Everybody knew him, everybody loved him. But I’ve been through a lot, too, and I’ve seen a lot, so I feel like I could definitely, maybe one day moving forward, help kids who were kind of in the same situation that I was growing up.
“I feel like I would like to do that, just to help people.”