Georgia Tech veteran defensive back Rodney Shelley: ‘I love it here’

Everything changed for Rodney Shelley in the spring of 2021.

As a talented, versatile athlete playing football for Langston Hughes High School, Shelley had received plenty of interest from college programs, mostly from FCS and then-Group of Five schools. But it was Trooper Taylor, now the associate head coach at Texas A&M but then an assistant coach at Duke, who gave Shelley his first scholarship offer.

Taylor also told Shelley he better get his academics in order.

“He said he loved my film, but I gotta get my grades together,” the soft-spoken Shelley recalled this week. “That was the first time I ever heard anything from a college coach about grades. After he told me that, I never failed a class, got all A’s and B’s.”

That turning point in Shelley’s mindset is not lost on Tech’s senior defensive back as he and his teammates prepare to play at Duke on noon Saturday, putting their undefeated record and No. 12 ranking on the line at Wallace Wade Stadium. Shelley will be suiting up for his 39th career game and is only one of seven Tech seniors to have spent their entire career in white and gold.

“The reason I stayed is because I love it here,” Shelley said. “I don’t wanna go anywhere else.”

Shelley (5-foot-11, 180 pounds) is an Atlanta native who grew up thinking his future would be in baseball, admitting the sport was his first love. He was a standout shortstop up until middle school when a scary play made him have second thoughts.

Sliding into second base, Shelley emerged with a swollen knee he feared was a serious injury. It turned out to be a minor sprain, but spooky enough that Shelley turned his entire focus to football before his freshman year at Westlake High School.

Former Westlake assistant football coach Mike Sims-Walker thought the speedy Shelley, mostly a running back and linebacker in youth ball, would be a good fit at wide receiver. Shelley worked his way onto the varsity squad and began to emerge as a sophomore when he made 12 catches for 155 yards.

But Shelley thought he could do more than just play offense and wanted to contribute in all areas of the game. So he opted to transfer down the street to Langston Hughes in Fairburn.

“I was punt returner, kick returner, free safety, cornerback, wide receiver — I played everything (at Langston Hughes),” Shelley said. “I just feel like that gave me more versatility on tape just to show my talents. It gave me the option to get recruited at wide receiver and the defensive back spot.”

As a junior, Shelley was limited because of an early-season shoulder dislocation, and he worried going into his senior season he wasn’t on enough radars to have a shot at playing at the next level. And that became partly true as Coastal Carolina, Eastern Michigan, Georgia State, Troy, and of course, Duke, were the only programs to reportedly offer Shelley a scholarship.

Shelley committed to Eastern Michigan in June 2021 and remained loyal to that program for the next five months. His performances in the 2021 state high school playoffs, however, began to turn heads.

Shelley had 14 catches for 306 yards and five touchdowns in five games, had 104 yards on punt returns, made 16 tackles and picked off four passes. Kerry Dixon was one of a few former Tech assistants who developed, and maintained, a relationship with Shelley throughout.

“After that game, I immediately got a text (message) from Coach Knight. He texted me and told me to come (visit Tech) with my teammate (former Tech running back) Antonio Martin the next day,” Shelley said. “When I came (on the visit), he pulled me downstairs, talked to me and said they wanted to offer me. I’ve been waiting for a Georgia Tech offer all my life. As I kid I always wanted to go to Georgia Tech.”

But truthfully, Shelley was torn. He insists he didn’t make a college decision until signing day when he signed with Tech instead of Eastern Michigan. He even had to call his parents hours before his signing ceremony to tell them to go find a Tech hat he could wear when he officially made his announcement Dec. 15, 2021.

Nearly 10 months later, Shelley was on the field during a game against Florida State and gave Brent Key, Tech’s interim coach then and full-time coach now, Key’s first on-field memory of Shelley.

“He makes a heckuva play as a gunner on the punt team and then stands over the guy and gets a 15-yarder,” Key said. “He came to the side and he was, like, so shook, because he made a great play, made a dumb play, all sandwiched into about three seconds. It stuck in my head his reaction, he thought I was just about to tear him one up. And I didn’t. I just said, ‘That’s not what we do; you gotta learn from that.’”

Shelley said it was his all-out play on special teams as a freshman that helped him be in position to make his first career start later in 2022 against Georgia.

Since then, Shelley has been a constant on Tech’s defense, playing more than 700 snaps over the past two-plus seasons and adding 42 tackles to his seven-tackle freshman season. In 2024, Shelley returned 14 punts for 94 yards. In Tech’s 35-20 win Saturday over Virginia Tech, Shelley finally got his hands on his first career interception.

The 2023 Gasparilla Bowl, the 2024 upset of No. 4 Miami at Bobby Dodd Stadium and always striving to play with a reliable level of consistency are some of Shelley’s top memories during his time at Tech, the length of which only a few others on the roster can match.