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Vincent Webb Jr. knows about temptation.

He even has a plan to defeat it.

And unlike some athletes today, Webb practices what he preaches- literally.

Webb, Eastern football’s second all-time leading rusher with 4,233 yards and the 2006-07 Daily Eastern News’ male athlete of the year, delivered his first sermon in front of a church crowd last month in his hometown of St. Louis.

He talked about temptation and delivered a four-step plan to overcome it.

“The first step is to speak the word of God,” Webb said. “Step two is to control your mind. Step three is, control your eyes and your body. And the fourth step is to find an escape for the temptation. And it went well. It was something I’d never done.”

It’s a philosophy that Webb feels can work.

But Webb’s life hasn’t gone exactly on a normal path.

“Vincent always felt like he had to prove himself,” said his father Vincent Webb Sr.

From birth, where it was unclear he would survive, to switching homes before he entered high school to coming to Eastern as a walk-on, his life has been full of obstacles he’s had to overcome.

Webb Jr. was born in the bathroom of his childhood home and wasn’t breathing initially.

But his grandmother saved his life.

Martha Webb, Vincent’s paternal grandmother, rushed to the home to help.

“My mother’s breathing into his mouth,” Vincent Webb Sr. said. “I was outside crying. I didn’t think he was going to make it.”

Martha Webb said she delivered CPR to the newborn and kept him alive until an ambulance came and took him to the hospital.

Being there from the beginning of his life to where he is now fills Martha with pride.

“It’s just a wonderful feeling,” she said. “There was a purpose for him to be here.”

A purpose that Webb has fulfilled away from the football field also.

Away from football

This past season, Webb had a breakthrough year, rushing for a career-high 1,351 yards and leading Eastern to its second straight trip to the I-AA playoffs and second straight Ohio Valley Conference championship.

His efforts also earned him co-offensive player of the year in the OVC.

But on-the field accomplishments are secondary to what he has accomplished away from it, say several members of his family.

The moment Webb’s mother, Veronica Brown, is most proud of is her son receiving a college degree.

Webb graduated from Eastern last year with a degree in African-American studies.

It’s a fact that left an impression on his maternal grandmother.

“That was important for me, him getting a degree and being educated is just as important as him playing sports,” said Lockytee Humphrey, Webb’s maternal grandmother.

Webb moved back to St. Louis following his graduation in December, in a move to help his professional football chances.

He’s also become more involved in his church, New Jerusalem, going to different areas of St. Louis and talking with other young people of different denominations.

“What I’ve seen him is fulfill his full spiritual belonging to the Lord,” said Solomon Williams, the pastor at New Jerusalem who has known Webb his entire life. “He is a breath of fresh air for a young man.”

His path to Eastern

Webb Jr. came to Eastern out of Ladue High School in St. Louis as a walk-on.

Other schools recruited him as a defensive back, but the 5-foot-10, 206-pound Webb didn’t want to play defense.

Eddie Johnson, an assistant at Ladue and whom Webb refers to as “my mentor,” said Webb’s work ethic helped elevate him into a special player.

“When you look at talent, you’re not always able to project talent on a special upside like Vincent has,” he said. “We didn’t really have an idea until his senior year that he really emerged as an athlete, sticking around after practice, doing sprints. You could just tell he was a determined kid.”

But that determination wasn’t getting schools to offer him football scholarships.

Webb said Southern Illinois showed the most interest in him, but the Salukis only wanted him as a defensive back.

Late in the recruiting season, Webb said his father contacted Western Illinois and Eastern. Both wanted him to play running back, but he would have to walk-on.

Webb visited Eastern, saw the spring game and decided to come to Charleston – even without a scholarship.

“(The coaches) just told me if you come and you work hard and you prove yourself, then you can have a scholarship,” Webb said. “I took that as my motivation that summer and worked hard.”

Webb red-shirted his first year at Eastern, with running backs J.R. Taylor and Andre Raymond taking most of the carries.

But Webb emerged as the Panthers’ No. 1 running back during his red-shirt freshman year. Once he earned that No. 1 spot, despite competition during the next three years, he held onto it.

After rushing for 593 yards his red-shirt freshman year, Webb eclipsed the 1,000-yard plateau in each of his next three seasons. He also earned that coveted scholarship prior to the beginning of his second year at Eastern.

Eastern head coach Bob Spoo said the accomplishments Webb made on the field proved that college coaches sometimes don’t always sign the right player to a scholarship out of high school.

“His accomplishments mean there’s no science to this recruiting thing,” Spoo said. “It’s just a luck of the draw sometimes. But we were lucky to get him.”

Family is everything to him

Webb’s parents separated when he was a young child. But that doesn’t mean he had a rough family life growing up.

Webb lived with his mother until he entered his freshman year at Ladue. Prior to entering high school, he moved in with his father. Both parents still remain close today, and traveled together to most of Vincent’s games at Eastern.

“As a child, my mother raised me and she couldn’t teach me how to be a man, so my dad was here to be that role model in my life,” Webb said.

Webb’s father had always played a major role in his life, telling him words of wisdom from his own boxing career. And the young Webb paid attention to his advice.

“That kid listens to me more than anyone else,” the elder Webb said. “And it started when he was two or three years old.”

The elder Webb was a boxer, even trying out for the Olympic squad.

He has taken the lessons he learned from his own athletic career and tried to apply it to his son.

But all of the elder Webb’s boxing accomplishments and accolades don’t measure up to what his son has done, he said.

“As far as football, I don’t have words to put into it,” his dad said. “All of that is second. What I do is secondary to anything that Vincent do.”

The fact that nearly 40 family and friends showed up to Webb’s house in St. Louis last Friday to congratulate him on being named the DEN’s male athlete of the year is evident to his family’s involvement in his life.

“We have a very close-knit family,” Brown said. “I think the support of the family makes a difference in any child’s life. And I think that has helped Vincent become the man that he is today.”

Future in football is what Webb wants

There is no hesitation in his voice.

Webb is adamant about his upcoming plans for the rest of the year.

“Next fall, I want to be on someone’s team playing football,” he said.

Where that will be is unknown.

Webb said he is hoping his name will get called this upcoming weekend during some point of the NFL Draft.

But, if his name isn’t called, Webb only wants a phone call from his St. Louis-based agent Harold Lewis saying a professional team wants his services.

“God has blessed me with the talent (to play football) and now I just want to continue it,” Webb said. “If I have to be invited to camp, be cut, whatever, I’m going to keep trying to make it. It’s a life-long goal. I’m here now, so I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

Webb worked out for some NFL scouts, including one from the Indianapolis Colts, on March 31. But Webb had suffered a pulled hamstring prior to the workout and couldn’t perform position drills.

Webb’s first passion is football. But he has developed a love for the ministry, more so now that he has preached his first sermon. He said 10 years from now, along with playing football, he wants to be a preacher and own a real estate company.

“I feel if football doesn’t work out, I’ll have a place in the church,” Webb said. “God has given me the ability to speak well and deliver his word. If it works, I’m more than thankful.”

But, right now, his focus is on football and improving his appeal to pro teams.

Johnson said, though, that a fallback plan for Webb wouldn’t be the ministry, but rather football.

“He’s just a godly young man and I think that’s first and foremost,” Johnson said. “Anything else is just going to fall into place.”

Whether it falls into place according to plan or goes along a different route remains to be seen.

But Webb’s paternal aunt Tonya, who said her nephew has never led a normal path, switching homes before he entered high school and not being highly recruited out of Ladue, knows the future will bear more uncertainty.

“As a kid, I gave him a nickname,” Tonya said. “His nickname is Abo. He got that nickname because he would be wandering around the house and there’d be this little musician that would be on MTV at the time and they called him Abo. I was always teasing him, wondering ‘Where are you going, Abo?'”

That little boy with the nickname Abo has now grown into a 22-year-old man. Webb has managed to overcome any obstacle in his life on his way to earning his college degree, becoming a record-breaking running back at Eastern and finding a higher calling.

Now ‘Abo’ can reflect and move on to the next part of his life. A place where only he knows will take him.

“It’s just amazing from where I started to where I finished,” Webb said. “Without God, it wouldn’t be possible. God definitely blessed me. I walked on and then four years later, male athlete of the year? It’s awesome.”

Vincent Webb Jr. stands in front of the Arch in St. Louis on April 20. Webb is a St. Louis native who came to Eastern to pursue a career in football. “My favorite place in St. Louis is home,” said Webb. (Nora Maberry/The Daily Easter News)

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