After growing up in 16 foster homes, Lorenzo Mauldin gets drafted by Jets
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. – Lorenzo Mauldin hopes he can finally call a place home, something that the New York Jets’ third-round pick hasn’t had for much of his life.
A tough-as-nails linebacker for the past four years at Louisville, Mauldin can point to a childhood that was anything but stable to explain his character and convictions in life. He has been told that he grew up in 16 foster homes in and around Atlanta but he truthfully can remember only “10 to 12 of them.” It was a life that could have pointed him in the wrong direction, but instead he landed in the NFL.
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Neither of his parents were in the picture. His father was incarcerated and his mother sold drugs as a way to make ends meet, a choice that eventually landed her in jail too. Mauldin said she never took drugs and they were never around the house but when times got tough to the point that she couldn’t provide for her family, she would take to the streets to sell drugs.
He can understand that she was doing it for her family even as there is a bit of sadness in his voice as he talks about her decision.
One of five children, Mauldin is the second oldest and the oldest boy in the family. When his mother would disappear for a night or two, sometimes without notice, he and his older sister would be in charge. There was no money in the house and the children would have to scramble just to buy food.
One of the things they did was go house-to-house and ask people if they could take their trash down to the neighborhood garbage depot. It took hustling – it was dirty work – but sometimes they would do enough to afford “some noodles.” Something to put in their stomachs.
Eventually Mauldin’s mother was arrested and then arrested again and arrested again. Family services stepped in.
“Once my mom got locked up, they asked if she had kids and who would take care of the kids,” Mauldin told Yahoo Sports. “They knew there was no one to take care of us so they came and got us. That’s how it all got started.”
He would go from place to place. A few months here, a few weeks there. He was never under one roof for long.
Within the past year his mother was arrested another time and put into jail for a sentence for 10 years. She is currently serving that sentence.
Mauldin doesn’t slam the way he grew up. He looks at foster care as something that helped him at a time when he was a child hauling around trash to try and make a few bucks.
“I can’t say it’s a tough place, most people care about you. Some people didn’t care, some did it for the money,” Mauldin said. “Some people though really care about you and wanted you to succeed, they wanted to help you and be there. Once that happens, they feel they’ve done their job. It can be a great environment but I guess some would say it was less fortunate way to grow up than others.”
It became the life he knew. He stayed in the foster care system until he went to college.
Mauldin is tough, to the point that he was struck by a moped last August and didn’t miss any games during his final season of college football. On film he looks like he plays with his hair on fire, as someone who clearly loves the game of football. Maybe it is because the sport was a way of escape for him through all those years, 16 stops in all, without a place to call home.
On the second day of the draft, his mother watched on television from prison as her son was taken in the third round. The Jets saw something special when they scouted him and fell in love with his play on the field.
“She called me from jail,” Mauldin said. “And said she was proud.”
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Kristian R. Dyer writes for Metro New York and is a contributor to Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KristianRDyer
