Bearcat end excels after tough childhood

By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Antwan Peek recalled the hard-knock life of the streets of Cincinnati's Bond Hill.

"We used to play a football game called 'sideline pop,' " said Peek, a Cincinnati football player whose team will play Hawai'i Saturday at Aloha Stadium. "If you had the ball and you were in the middle of the sidewalk, it was two-hand touch. If you were on the sideline, it was tackle, and you could get hit. People can talk about hard turf, but we played on concrete. It was kind of rough. We used to come home bleeding a little bit, but it was all right."

With little money, Peek and his friends used tennis balls or rocks as footballs. "It didn't matter," he said.

But Bond Hill also was a hard-scrabble area, where most dreams led to dead ends.

"When I was younger, I had a lot of friends who were very talented, and I used to think, 'I know these guys will make so much money,' " Peek recalled. "But they were the ones who were drug dealers or were shooting folks. Those guys turned out to be nothing."

Peek said one of his relatives was recruited by Kansas. "He got in the wrong crowd and ended up doing nothing," he said.

Peek, a senior, said his parents had personal problems, and he ended up living with an aunt.

"It was hard for a while, especially growing up wanting certain things," he said. "Growing up in poverty, you just don't have a lot of things. I used to look up to a lot of the guys in the neighborhood, and I wanted some of the things they had. But I'm grateful for the way things turned, and I thank God for everything I have."

Last year, the National Athletic Academic Advisors Association presented Peek with an achievement award for overcoming a difficulty childhood. In turn, Peek founded an organization that counsels youths on the dangers of sexual promiscuity.

Peek also has emerged as one of Conference USA's top defensive players. He has set all of the Bearcats' sack records, and in the last two games, he has scored on two fumble returns.

Peek, who is 6 feet 2 and 245 pounds, ran 40 yards in 4.57 seconds during a speed combine last spring. He can bench press 225 pounds 25 times, leg press 1,625 pounds and squat lift 775 pounds.

It is a remarkable ascent for a player who was a quarterback in high school and a wideout as a Bearcat freshman. He also played for the Bearcats' basketball team as a sophomore.

At the start of the 2000 season, Peek was asked to move to defensive end.

"It was a simple choice," he said. "It was either do what the coaches say or don't play at all."

At first, he resisted. "Playing offense my whole life, I always thought the big, fat, sloppy guys were the ones who played on the defensive line," he said. "I thought that was a garbage position. When they put me there, I was like, 'Nah, I don't want to play there.' They had to really talk me into it."

Peek has earned several preseason awards, and has received letters from postseason all-star games, presumably including invitations. He's not sure, since he has vowed not to open the letters until the end of the season.

At that time, he said: "I'll see what happens. I just want to take care of one thing at a time."