AJ Lewis will be the first to tell you that he was easily a troublemaker at the start of his high school career and that football was the farthest thing from his mind.
Now, he is rated a four-star recruit and holds 21 Division I offers, and those accomplishments have changed Lewis for the better.
Lewis is from and grew up in Oak Grove, but after his freshman year, he transferred to Columbia.
“I was getting in trouble a lot,” Lewis said. “Football was the last thing that I wanted to do because of my grades and everything that I was doing.
“I had to grow up.”
Oak Grove football coach Drew Causey remembered Lewis and could see the young athlete’s potential.
“He was probably our best ninth-grade football player,” Causey said. “But you know he didn’t like the classroom. He didn’t like to work on that side of things.
“If you backtracked when he was in ninth grade, that was COVID, and everything was so much different with the way school happened.”
But it was at Columbia that Lewis began to realize his potential as he helped the Wildcats win 25 games in two seasons. During a summer camp after his sophomore year, Lewis ran the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds and two weeks later received his first offer from Ole Miss.
“I realized that I can do it and that I’m actually good at this,” Lewis said. “All I have to do is take care of my other stuff, like school, and not get in trouble.”
Last season, Lewis recorded 54 catches for 889 yards and 10 touchdowns, which helped the Wildcats reach the Class 4A state championship game.
However, the departure of Columbia’s head coach and his desire to fix his old image prompted Lewis to want to return to Oak Grove.
“There’s distractions,” said Lewis of why he previously struggled at Oak Grove. “There are way more people here then there is in Columbia. Hattiesburg has way more people than in Columbia. Being here you can lose yourself and lose focus on everything you’ve got going.
“My thought process was, if I go back to Oak Grove then will I be able to handle it? I talked to my mom and my dad, and I told them that I’m 17 years old now and I’m a senior. Before, I was in the ninth grade with no offers and nobody really telling me that this is what I could do.”
With his parents on board, Oak Grove officials handled the transfer through the proper channels. Despite what outside critics might believe, Causey was adamant that no recruiting was involved.
“You do a transfer form, and both teams sign off on it. Then, it goes from there,” Causey explained. “I feel like we’re at a school that people want to be at. I have a saved message on my phone because, somehow, people get my number. I copy and paste that message which says you need set up an appointment with the principal and counselor, athletic director and that you cannot go through me. We want to make sure it’s done the right way. We have a great administration that is not going to allow us to do something wrong.”
With Lewis now at Oak Grove it’s a needed boost for a team that bring back just two full-time starters from last year’s offense.
“We have a stud on the outside that can go get it and has done it,” Causey said. “He runs really well. He’s got big hands and catches the ball really well. He checks all of those boxes.
“His best friends were going to school here, and they never lost that contact. For our kids, it’s like he never left. We’re glad to have him on our team.”
Lewis hopes to prove that he is a changed person and that the upcoming season will bring him future life lessons and challenges.
“I have to show everybody that ninth-grade me is no longer because my image was bad,” Lewis said. I want to show people that I came here to play football and graduate.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m looking for a perfect season. I’m looking for a season with lessons. I’m looking for a season with ups and downs because you do need ups and downs. I say that because we were going 14-0 last year, we got humbled in the state game. So I feel like you need ups and downs through the season, so I’m looking forward to getting that gold ball.”
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