Morehouse's Harewood ready for his NFL journey

"He was telling me that he saw me on CNN and was giving me little pointers," Harewood said. "He told me that the school was proud of me and how excited he was."

Before Harewood grew into a 6-foot-6 1/2, 341-pound mountain of a young man and NFL prospect, he was a precocious 10-year-old when his mother, Roslyn Harewood, lost a four-year battle with breast cancer in the parish of St. Michael, on the Caribbean island of Barbados.

Because his biological father was out of the picture, Roslyn Harewood had planned for her sister to take Harewood, but she became ill and died, too.

Clinging to life, Roslyn Harewood asked Antonia Coward, her childhood friend since the age of 11, to raise her son.

Coward and her husband took in the big, bright and athletic young man and raised him as if he were their own son.

Before his mother died, Harewood already was running track. "I guess the best way to put it is that I just used sports as my solace," Harewood said.

He played cricket, then soccer and later rugby. "The rugby coach lived in my neighborhood," Harewood said. "He wanted me to come try out for the team. Then I picked up volleyball at the age of 16."

In 2005, he met Michael Grant, who was running an education consulting firm. He was in Barbados recruiting students to come to the United States to pursue college opportunities.

"I wasn't really interested," Harewood said.

So he enrolled at the University of West Indies. But after a classmate left to attend college in the United States, Harewood became jealous. He had a business card for Grant, who by then had landed a coaching job at Morehouse.

"I called him up and said ‘let's do what we need to do so I can get out of here,'" Harewood said. "That was like around March or April, the following January I was enrolled at Morehouse College."

Harewood had seen American football, but had never played it. He had watched the Super Bowl, and a cousin in Barbados had the NFL TV package.

"I didn't really understand too much about it," Harewood said.

In 2006 he played sparingly for the Maroon Tigers on the defensive line. Things began to click for him shortly after Rich Freeman was named head coach and Harewood moved to the offensive line. He began at right tackle before moving to the left side.

He eased into it at first, but over time, Freeman and his assistant coaches created a terror, and Harewood made the first team in 2008 and 2009.

"There is some tape of him just picking guys up at will and doing whatever he wanted to do with them," said Joe Douglas, the Baltimore Ravens' southeast area scout who did leg work on Harewood.

Streams of NFL scouts would make their way through Morehouse. They were there for summer workouts, spring ball, in-season workouts and finally for games.

The Falcons, who were not in the tackle market in the latest draft, also were frequent visitors.

"The first thing you notice is how enormous that he is," Douglas said. "He's every bit of 6-6 and 340-odd pounds, but it doesn’t look like it. He's put together pretty well. His physical characteristics stood out."

Only two other players from Morehouse have been drafted by NFL teams. Defensive back William Montgomery was an 11th-round pick of the Cincinnati Bengals in 1973 and wide receiver Alex Percival was a 12th-round pick by the Bengals in 1977.

Freeman thinks the Ravens got a steal by taking Harewood in the sixth round.

"If he stays the course, I think someday he'll be a Pro Bowl player," Freeman said. "A lot of other teams missed out on an outstanding player."

Harewood starts his NFL journey when the Ravens open minicamp Saturday.

Ravens assistant offensive line coach Andy Moeller was on campus April 29 and 30 and spent about 16 hours going over the team's playbook with Harewood.

"He wants to go into the rookie minicamp and be ready and be impressive," Freeman said. "With the way that kid was brought up, he was brought up in different environment. He has a tremendous work ethic. It's unbelievable."

Harewood, who listens to rap music and what he calls "conscience" reggae, was content just getting his education. He is a double major in general physics and engineering. He has finished the physics portion of his degree and has about four semesters' worth of engineering studies remaining.

"I wasn't even thinking about getting drafted until the beginning of this last season," Harewood said. "Every day, every week, there were a couple of teams at practice. I started think this really might happen."

The Morehouse community and the Ravens are rooting for Harewood.

"He's had to overcome adversity with the situation back in Barbados with his mom passing away," Douglas said. "When something like that happens, he probably had plenty opportunities to do some of the wrong things. But his mom's friend and her husband did a tremendous job with him. He just really blossomed."