If you haven’t heard already, you can — heck, you should — watch tonight’s episode of The Journey, which will feature Ohio State senior defensive tackle Michael Bennett.
Bennett, of course, is a senior captain and cog on the Buckeyes’ vaunted defensive line. But that’s only part of his story. Off the field, he’s more.
“We felt that looking at Ohio State, Michael was a really interesting story. Here’s a guy that comes from an interesting family background, both his parents are, I believe, military people — I believe West Point — and he grew up in kind of a very disciplinarian household where he was pushed for success by his parents in many ways and he owns up to that,” coordinating producer Bill Friedman said.
“And the other thing that really interested us about Michael away from the football field — obviously, the guy’s a terrific football player and a senior leader on probably one of the best defensive fronts in the country — is the fact that he lives with three of his friends from high school.
“I just find it interesting: We cover a lot of student-athletes at the Big Ten network and most of them live with other athletes. Almost all of them have a roommate or roommates from the team and Michael’s guys are three normal guys from Centerville, Ohio. I thought that was kind of fascinating and it said a lot about him, and he addressed that in our content where he said football’s intense and it takes a lot of your time and there’s a lot of pressure.
“He said if he lived around football people the whole that he’d just snap and these guys don’t see him as a big-time football player, they see him as Michael from Centerville, Ohio.”
Bennett, a preseason All-American and noted scholar-athlete, is up for 2014 Senior CLASS Award, which honors a student-athlete for notable achievements in the on and off the field.
Added Friedman: “I wasn’t on location for this, but just from listening to the interview and the content in our piece, he seems like a very introspective kid; very serious, driven, motivated. I think he’s got his priorities in the right place. I think there’s a lot examples these days of student-athletes who aren’t living up to either of those descriptions and I think Michael's the opposite.”
You can watch the episode Wednesday night at 7 p.m. on the Big Ten Network. You can follow Bennett, his roommates, and The Journey on Twitter, too.
