For Jahsen Wint, like many other athletes, the chance to play sports was an escape.
"I think it's because I was the oldest child, and I didn't want to have responsibilities at such a young age," Wint told Eleven Warriors. "But I was easily pissed off. My aunt put me in football because of my anger issues when I was 8."
The oldest of five children in Brooklyn, Wint fondly recalls the way that first encounter with football, the game that has launched him into the public eye, went.
"The first time I put on pads, I got hit," the three-star prospect from Erasmus Hall said. "I got pissed off and just let the kid have it the next play. I hit him so hard that the coach had to move me up in division."
Moving up in divisions, stepping up above and beyond what most kids had to do was the norm for Wint, so football being that way just made sense. He never shied away from what was required of him.
"Being from Brooklyn, I had no choice but to man up fast," the 5-foot-11, 186-pounder said. "I had to be a positive example for my brothers and sisters even when everything around us was bad. My mom and aunt did a great job of keeping us from the negativity and helped us see ourselves as different from other people."
As Wint began developing his on-field skills, the pressure to be a man off of it weighed heavily on the future Buckeye defensive back. The challenges of emerging from a situation like his are well-known and even the people who normally are there to support you gave him reason to doubt himself. Those doubters helped fuel Wint, undersized in the eyes of analysts and recruiters, for most of his high school career.
"I remember this coach I had," he said. "He told me that I would get caught up in girls and be playing around and that I wasn't good enough to play college ball. He just kept going on and on about all the stuff he thought I did. From that day forward, he was in my head, and I had to prove him wrong."
From that moment, and with the help of the coaching staff at Erasmus Hall, Wint turned his focus to one thing only: Becoming the man and player he wanted to be.
"My only goal is to make people who doubted me respect me," Wint said. "(Erasmus head coach Danny) Landberg was the positive father figure that I wish I had growing up, and I thank my coaches for all they did to help me be a better athlete and man. My first offer came from Stony Brook, my junior year, and I remember their head coach came up to the school and it made me feel so good cause I knew then and there that I could achieve more. After the Temple offer I knew that I was a Division I caliber athlete and after going against the top athletes I knew I could compete at any level, at any school in the country."
Wint committed to Temple in August of 2015, roughly two months after the Owls' offer, and it seemed that things were all but finished in his recruitment. Still, there was a belief that he could go bigger, do more.
All was quiet until late October when the Buckeyes came calling. The three-star prospect remembered well his first impression of Ohio State at Erasmus Hall.
"I was amazed to see Urban Meyer in Brooklyn," Wint remembered. "It just made me feel good that he was in my school. He just told me to keep working, to keep it up."
That moment, as a sophomore–when the Buckeyes were recruiting current running back/wide receiver Curtis Samuel–helped reinforce what Wint already knew: this was going to be about the work he put in. The rest would take care of itself.
"Seeing him there helped my work ethic increase, because I knew now everyone would be watching. If I didn't work hard others wouldn't and I didn't want that especially for my teammates. I wasn't going to be in the same position Curtis was, but it helped me aim for better. New York talent is already underrated, so we have to work as hard as possible to put it on the map."
To have the Buckeyes calling for him two years later? That changed the game for Wint.
"When Ohio State reached out," Wint said. "It made me feel so good because all my hard work paid off. People sometimes just say it, but I swear to God I worked for this. I praised God every good and bad day. When I got that offer it made me feel like this is what I needed to become great, and to make sure I can take care of my family."
Wint had never visited Ohio before his official visit in December, but as the conversations with the Buckeyes ramped up, he knew that breaking his commitment to Temple, which he valued, would be a difficult matter to consider. The trip to Columbus gave him the chance to see how he'd fit in at a place he'd never imagined he'd be.
"On my official visit, me and the guys clicked," he said. "Chemistry is a key thing if you want to win a championship. Without it you just have a bunch athletes running around, we all liked each other. I knew that the opportunity to go to a place like Ohio State was a one in a 100 chance, so I had to do what was best for me and my family."
Fortunately for Wint, Matt Rhule, the head coach at Temple who helped him see that his game was big enough for any school, helped him feel comfortable making a difficult choice.
"I talked to Matt Rhule one night about my situation," Wint said, discussing the hard choice to decommit. "He told me that if it was Ohio State he could live with that."
Wint decommitted from Temple on Christmas, knowing he would be a Buckeye soon thereafter. He announced his pledge to the Buckeyes on Jan. 2, the day after Ohio State's 2015 football season came to an end. From that moment on, life has changed a bit and he's doing his best to just prepare for what's next.
"Life is different. Everybody wants to train with me now, fans are coming out of nowhere and family loves my decision so it's been great," Wint said. "But that just means there's more work ahead. I have to work on more defensive back stuff, and I have a personal trainer who has been working with me, too."
The country's 140th-ranked athlete says that for him, it's just about getting better now and to let the chips fall where they may. There's no point in obsessing about what he can't control, no point worrying about what anyone else sees or thinks. His job is to put in the effort to become a success, to become a winner. That's the way it's been since he was a kid.
"Right now, I'm just trying to get bigger and faster," he said. "Once I get that, I should be good. Anyway that I can contribute, that's what I'll do to try and get on the field next year. I will do whatever it takes to win. I'm just Jahsen Wint, a Brooklyn kid, the only thing I know is to work."
