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Inside The Huskies

Huskies Look for Another Fairfield Playmaker, Offer Cornerback

Leroy Bryant visits UW, leaves with scholarship proposal.
Dan Raley|
Huskies Look for Another Fairfield Playmaker, Offer Cornerback
Huskies Look for Another Fairfield Playmaker, Offer Cornerback

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Washington Huskies

Somewhere in the University of Washington back football files are directions to Fairfield, California. City of 100,000 people. Halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento. Home to Jelly Belly jelly beans.

Four and a half decades ago, legendary coach Don James and his Husky recruiters stopped off in this Northern California metropolis and came away up with one of his first real recruiting finds: Doug Martin, a defensive tackle, a four-year starter and a 10-year NFL player.

Kalen DeBoer's new staff likewise is mining Fairfield for football talent. 

On Monday, they offered a football scholarship to Leroy Bryant, a swift cornerback among many other endeavors at Fairfield's Rodriguez High School. 

Actually, the 6-foot, 175-pound defensive back traveled to Seattle for a visit, attended practice and sat for some rain- and football-themed photos before leaving with a Husky offer. 

Bryant plays both ways for Rodriguez High and led the 7-4 Mustangs in receiving with 25 catches for 456 yards and 4 touchdowns. On defense, he had two pass interceptions and dropped a third in his season opener alone. 

Capable of going the distance, Bryant returned a pair of kicks for scores during the 2021 pandemic-shortened spring football season.

He's also in his third season as a starting guard for the Rodriguez basketball team, a sport that could easily lead to scholarship offers for him.

The UW was the 14th school to offer Bryant a scholarship, joining Colorado, Colorado State, Fresno State, Oregon State, Utah, Utah State and Washington State among others. 

If he's half as good as Doug Martin, who played for Fairfield's Armijo High, he's worth pursuing.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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