ROMEL DISMUKE anchors the Cleveland Benedictine team to a spot in today’s Division II 400-meter relay finals at the state track meet in Columbus during the first week of June. WARREN DILLAWAY / Star Beacon
Published July 23, 2008 03:53 pm - There were no girls. Anywhere.
It’s the cat’s life Dismuke went from Puma to Bengal and will be Bearcat
ADAM RAEDER Star Beacon
There were no girls.
Anywhere.
Coming from West Junior High School, that was the first thing Romel Dismuke noticed — couldn’t help but notice — about his new school, Cleveland’s Benedictine High School.
As he walked down the halls, there wasn’t a girl in sight.
“My school’s Catholic and an all-boy’s school,” Dismuke said. “It was hard to adjust, seeing nothing but guys when you walked in. It was kind of weird.”
It would have been harder for Dismuke to adjust, though, if it weren’t for football.
“It was kind of hard my freshman year to adjust,” Dismuke said. “But I love football, I always loved football. So it wasn’t too hard to adjust to that. I made friends really quick.”
And he made a name for himself. With one season left to play, Dismuke, who played all over the field for the Bengals, committed to continue his football career with the University of Cincinnati Bearcats.
“It’s always been one of my top choices,” Dismuke, who had offers from Pitt, Eastern Michigan, Bowling Green and Toledo, said. “It was a good feeling when I went down there, standing on the field, running on the field.”
An eighth-grade sports star, Dismuke left Ashtabula — and his friends — behind to move to Cleveland, where his dad, Phlenoid, lived.
The pair looked all over for a high school for Romel, looking at St. Edward and St. Ignatius before settling on Benedictine.
Phlenoid liked its strong reputation for academics. Romel liked that Benedictine, coached by former Madison coach Art Bortnick, had claimed the Division III state football crown the year before.
“I went to Benedictine and they treated me well there. ... I decided to go there and it really paid off,” Romel said. “I got a great education there. They really take it serious.”
That’s the same way Dismuke treats football.
And when he learned that he’d start his Bengals career on the freshman team, instead of playing JV or even varsity, Dismuke didn’t get down or throw a fit. He just went out and had fun.
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