Donovan Slick-Driscoll has sights set on joining NFL

CEDAR RAPIDS — Donovan Slick-Driscoll is dreaming of someday being in the NFL — and his coaches at Kennedy High School say he might be among the 1 percent who can do it.

Slick-Driscoll, 18, is one of about 380 students graduating at 7 p.m. May 27 from Kennedy High at the Alliant Energy PowerHouse in Cedar Rapids.

“I’m going to try to get as far as I can in football,” said Slick-Driscoll, who is attending Wartburg College in Waverly this fall to play football and study physical science.

“He’s a kid that can be a Day One player,” Kennedy football coach Brian White said. “It’s not too often freshman at the collegiate level can walk in and play right away. Donovan is a kid who can.”

Slick-Driscoll prides himself in being a leader on and off the field. He wants to be someone younger kids can look up to the way he looks up to the players in the NFL, he said.

His team at Kennedy feels like a family — “a brotherhood,” Slick-Driscoll said. Together, they set goals for the football season including "commitment, effort and dedication“ to the team, he said.

If Slick-Driscoll doesn’t make it to the NFL, he wants to return to Kennedy as a physical education teacher and coach. In high school, he’s been a four-sport athlete, also running track and playing basketball and baseball.

George Anderson, another Kennedy High football coach and social studies teacher, said Slick-Driscoll is “easy to coach” because he wants to get better. But the greatest compliment Anderson can give Slick-Driscoll is that he would be proud to have him as a neighbor.

When Anderson started coaching Slick-Driscoll, the coach told him he was in a competition to be the team’s running back. “He told me, ‘I’m going to be your tail back. I look forward to this competition,’” Anderson said.

Anderson said Slick-Driscoll is “tough as nails.” He earned the running back position. When the coaches reviewed practice videos, Anderson said, “The tapes aren’t lying. We’ve got to put the ball in his hands.”

Slick-Driscoll will be the first to say he had a tough childhood. He acted as a parent to his two younger brothers before he was 8 years old. He said he stole food so they could eat and got them dressed and ready for school on time.

He and his brothers were removed from his biological parents’ house when he was 8, he said, and began living with his aunt and uncle — who he now calls Mom and Dad.

Slick-Driscoll has sought therapy to help him work through issues he experienced as a young child. “If I didn’t go to therapy, I would be lost. In the long run, therapy will make you a better person,” he said.

His friends on the football team also have helped him through tough times.

“I can call them and get my mind off it,” Slick-Driscoll said. “Being socially active and playing sports — I would say that helps a lot more than talking about it.”

Slick-Driscoll also is enjoying learning about his Meskwaki heritage as a Native American and Black man.

“I’m proud to be me,” he said.

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