Levi Randolph: Playing In Memory of his Best Friend
11/26/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By Steve Irvine
Levi Randolph's memories of his best friend will never fade.
Memories of laughter and tears. Memories of success and disappointment. Memories of hanging out together or chatting on the phone. Memories of heading different directions after high school but never really separating. Memories of a young kid, who became a best friend, who became a brother.
Memories of the worst day of Randolph's life. Memories of the day - just over a year ago - that Dezmond Dennis, Randolph's best friend, lost his life in a two-car wreck with a car driven by a drunk driver.
Memories of Dez.
"I have a tattoo, I got it last January," Randolph said. "I got a tattoo of a stairway to heaven. I picked that because when I talked to the pastor at the funeral, he told me `Everything happens for a reason. God makes no mistakes.' I sat there and remembered the good times. This was the first time where I lost someone this close."
Dezmond was more than a friend. He was yet another brother to the oldest of four sons of Levi and Mia Randolph. Levi and Dezmond met in elementary school. Dezmond was the new kid. Levi sat next to him in class and during lunch. A lifetime friendship began that day. A couple of weeks later, Levi's mom brought him lunch at school. It was her first chance to meet Dezmond and Levi said she saw immediately that they would become close friends "because the way we interacted."
The layers of friendship covered many levels. They were football teammates as youngsters, playing on teams that finished undefeated four consecutive seasons. Randolph eventually transitioned into basketball. Dennis was more suited for football.
"We went to take pictures one day," Randolph said. "He wanted to be really good at football - that was his thing. I wanted to be really good at basketball. I said `You strike your football pose and I'll strike my basketball pose. It'll give us a good picture.' I can remember that like it was yesterday. They were good memories."
The two were constant spectators at each other's games and both families joined in. For basketball games, Dezmond's mother and sister would ride with the Randolph family. Dezmond's mother would generally drive to the football games.
Levi and Dezmond had different personalities but meshed as friends. Family dinners came at either house. Dezmond tagged along on family vacations with the Randolph's and lived with the family after he began struggling in school.
"We just kind of adopted him in," Levi Randolph Sr. said. "We made sure he had a drawer to put his clothes and over the years he became another son to us.
"My dad brought him in because his mom worked," Levi said. "She was a single parent with him and his sister. After school, he would ride with us home. My dad made sure he got his homework done. He would go home by himself. When that started happening, he stayed home with us more and more."
That arrangement just felt natural.
"He was another brother to me," Levi said. "He would actually call my dad, his dad. He would also call my mom, `Mom.' Everything clicked. It seemed like it was supposed to happen. We were always close. My brothers and I were close with Dez. We were all together."
Eventually, it came time to choose the next step. Levi chose to stay in state and signed with Anthony Grant's Crimson Tide program. Other than Grant, who said he "was doing back flips" after the commitment, no one was happier than Dennis. It allowed him to come to games when he had the chance.
They settled into their college life. Randolph started 67 of the 69 games he played in during his first two seasons at Alabama. Dennis signed to play football at the University of Charleston, a Division II school in West Virginia, after graduating from Bob Jones High but returned home to work after his first year.
Last fall, Randolph was struggling through the effects of a knee injury. He tried to keep the injury to himself and felt the burden. Dezmond soothed his concerns, telling him `everything was going to be alright.' A couple of weeks later, on Oct. 24, was the next time the two talked.
"We (usually) would talk every other day," Randolph said. "We were just talking about life. He told me this was my year. I'm going to have a good season.' At this time of the year, he wasn't in school. He was just working. I talked to him about going back to school. He said he was going to try to play football again and transfer somewhere in the spring. I was on my way to class. We had a good conversation."
Early the next morning, Dennis and a friend, Andres Gentry, left his apartment to get something to eat at a local convenience store. They never got out of the complex. As they were waiting to pull out, a car driven by a drunk driver swerved into them. Dennis, who was 20, died at the scene. The 22-year-old Gentry died after being transported to a local hospital.
Randolph didn't know about the accident but received a phone call from his father in the early morning hours, much earlier than he was accustomed to receiving a call from his father.
"I was on the way to the hospital when my wife called and told me Dez had died," Levi Randolph Sr. said. "I knew I had to call and tell Levi. I didn't know how to tell him or how to talk to him. I just took a deep breath, called him and told him Dez had been in an accident and he didn't make it."
"My dad just started yelling that Dez is gone," Levi said. "I wasn't understanding what he was saying. I just know it didn't sound good. He then passed the phone to Dez's mom and she was crying and yelling and she told me he was dead.
"It hadn't been 24 hours since I talked to him and I just thought `Why did this happen?' You ask `Why God?' and `Why now?' It makes you question your faith. Just a lot of questions that I didn't understand."
Afterward, he sat in his room by himself. He considered not going to the funeral because that acknowledged "that it happened.'
He did attend the funeral but first went to visit Dezmond's mom.
"I hugged her and cried and cried and cried," Randolph said. "I think it meant a lot to see her. I think it meant a lot for both of us."
Randolph was sitting by himself at one point before the funeral when a pastor stopped for a chat.
"He came and told me `Dez was in a better place,'" Randolph said. "Whenever you lose someone, no matter how bad you want them back, you want them to stay in heaven, because they're in a better place. I didn't have to worry about it anymore, because he was in a better place.
"God has a plan and I try not to question things. It's something that's with me every day and will be with me forever."
Handling everyday life wasn't easy for Randolph. He wanted to stay busy, which wasn't difficult with basketball and academics. But everything he did came with memories of Dez. He wasn't in the stands watching Levi play. He wasn't on the other end of the phone. He wasn't around to help Levi emotionally while trying to get his knee ready to play.
It got worse once he returned to the floor in time for the Crimson Tide's first regular season game. He didn't expect to play much that night in Dallas against Oklahoma but foul trouble dictated that he was on the floor for more than 30 minutes. It didn't go well. And with Levi's struggles to regain his form, the team struggled with some tough losses early in the season.
Things didn't get better quickly. The pressure built up. Pressure of coming back from the injury. Pressure of playing to his potential. Pressure of dealing with a challenging season. Pressure of playing for Dez.
One night, Coach Grant pulled Randolph aside to ask him an important pair of questions.
Why do you play basketball? What makes you love the game?
The pressure was lifted.
"It made realize why I started playing and still play," Randolph said. "I play basketball, because it's fun. It's what I love to do. I started at a young age and it's become part of me. I wouldn't know what to do if I couldn't play basketball. I'm good at school, but basketball is my favorite thing."
Last spring, Randolph completed the most important journey of his life in Tuscaloosa. He completed work on his business marketing degree last spring, taking just three years to complete. It was a bittersweet day when Randolph walked across the stage inside Coleman Coliseum to receive his diploma. Sweet, obviously, because of his accomplishment. Bitter because Dez wasn't there to share the day.
"His mom and sister came," Randolph said. "It was good seeing everyone. At the same time, it was hard because he wasn't there. I knew as soon as I get to the gym, that he's going to be at the same spot when I look up. Usually when I see my family, I see Dez's too. I think the hardest thing is seeing my family and not seeing him."
But Randolph forges on - in the classroom, on the basketball court and through life in general. The memory of Dez will never fade. It's made him a stronger person while knocking him down on his knees at the same day. It's not easy to put into words how badly he misses his friends. But Randolph wants to make sure a lesson is learned through this whole ordeal.
"No matter what you're doing, every decision you make impacts someone else," he said. "At the end of the day, if you drink and get behind the wheel, you're putting other people's life at risk. It could happen to anyone else."
