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Maybe it’s the glow of Christmas lights that tints the surroundings with a sense of fantasy; maybe it’s the arrival of family and friends that we haven’t seen in a while; maybe it’s the feeling of nostalgia layered over the traditions that cause us to recall memories. Whatever it is, this time of year begs reflection. As Kai Dean and her family spend time together this week, adjusting to a new normal of football dictating the calendar, she still finds time to reflect on all of the moments and decisions and twists of fate that led her son—freshman corner Trey Dean III—to this place.

There are lots of places to start the story, each one as significant as the last, but let’s start at the beginning.

When Marco Wilson went down to the field near the start of the Kentucky game, Kai’s heart dropped. She’d been around football long enough to know the situation didn’t look good.

“As a mother, I was just so concerned about Marco. Literally, the first thing was like ‘oh my gosh’…so my heart at first went out to him.”

Then she realized who coaches were trotting out there to take his place.

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“Once I saw them get Marco up and I saw Trey run out there, oh my heart dropped. I was like ‘oh my God’ my heart just dropped…year one, we talked about he was gonna get his opportunity. But being a mom and just being around football—our home is just a football household—I really knew the pressure and I was just really praying for my child because—SEC football, it’s very fast, it’s the fastest that’s out there and just knowing the complexity of our wonderful defensive coordinator Grantham, I was just like, I knew my son would have to learn a lot and he would have to grow. And just pray for him every week. Just pray for him every week. And we still do that.”

It’d stand to reason her prayers have been answered.

As a freshman, Dean has started every game since the third slated against Colorado State. Pro Football Focus tallied him at 583 snaps on the season (only Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, CJ Henderson and Vosean Joseph played more) as he graded out at 65.8 for the season, a number that has the huge potential to rise next season. He finished with 22 total tackles in the regular season and broke up six passes. He capped the regular season off with a 44-yard interception return against Florida State. League coaches named him to the Freshman All-SEC team.

“This whole year has really been a blessing and an eye opener for us,” says Kai.

“Never started this year knowing that it would evolve to what it has for Trey. I mean Trey’s been very blessed and very thankful to be at the University of Florida to play football at his dream school so this is evolving, the team doing so phenomenally well with Coach [Dan] Mullen and all his staff coming in to do everything that they did and for all the boys to be at this place to now, it’s just amazing.”

It didn’t just happen though. There are so many things that had to come together to give Trey Dean the freshman year that can be the beginning of a special career. With a bit of reflection and the intuition that only a mother can have, Kai sees each step that brought Trey here.

For starters she and her husband had to keep him balanced as he adapted to a new position through baptism by fire.

“His dad and I would call him to keep him encouraged when he didn’t do well, cause my son is very hard on himself. And just trying to keep him encouraged and just remind him you’re a freshman. Just do the best you can and he’s, my son is a competitor and the coaches just really, when they talk about him they really know him because he’s always been that way. He likes the competition, he’s gonna compete and he likes that.”

We’ve seen in practices just how competitive he is, bringing out the best in his teammates along the way and something that will serve him well if coaches decide to move him around next season upon Marco Wilson’s return. But there’s more and it involves Trey getting to the point to even play with those older guys.

“[Strength and conditioning coach Nick] Savage being with those boys…Trey could not have been able to execute if he did not have a healthy body. It just, you think about, you got a 17 year old boy and my biggest thing is he’s playing against boys that are 21-22, playing with grown men. And honestly his body would not have been in that condition [without Savage].”

There’s also the relationship he’s formed with those around him, something that Kai got to see first hand recently as several of the Gator players travelled to Atlanta early before the Peach Bowl week began and stayed with Trey and his family in their Atlanta home.

“I honestly feel like his teammates, the help that he got on the field, I watch them, they really were a good support to him and just really helping him. On that field, there’s a whole lot that goes on even that we don’t understand and sometimes what we think we’re seeing, we’re not really seeing it and so I just say his teammates were just, I’m really thankful for them. Especially with he and Chauncey playing right there together, I just see some things how they would talk and communicate, with CJ even being across the field… They were just a lot of help because he was the baby back there.

“It’s just amazing just how things have just transpired and all of his team members, how they’re really a brotherhood. And I was able to really see an eye piece of that the last couple of days, just how they really take good care of each other. And they appreciate each other and I’m really glad that my son is in that environment. And I just see how the boys are able to be so successful in that type of environment.

“What Coach Mullen and they instill and say they’re gonna instill with the boys, they really do take care of each other. As parents that’s really what we hope our kids go into, that hopefully they go into an environment where they have brothers.”

Then there’s the studying, something Trey figured out would be necessary at age five when he began playing football.

“He is just really marveling over all this knowledge. He is a studier and if he knows he’s getting trained by some of the best he’s gonna listen then he’s gonna try to master what the information that he’s given… you’ve got that raw talent but has a whole lot more that can be nurtured and trained and Trey’s just eating it up, he’s eating it up and just around the right group of coaches, the right group of men that want to be phenomenal in all that they do and want all the players to have that drive, they’re here to give it to you…and that’s the Florida that my son grew up loving, wanting to be apart of.”

It’s that aspect—that created habit, which makes us realize though that September was not the beginning for Trey Dean.

Atlanta has become a hubbub for sports and specifically college football. But it hasn’t always been that way. Growing up, Kai says there weren’t a ton of trainers or 7-on-7 options for Trey. So he had to learn the game by his own discipline. He studied for hours, just pouring over tape. Every Thursday and Friday he would pull out his dad’s projector and cue up clips of defensive backs and see what they did differently, figuring out how he could emulate it himself. He’d watch Florida players—his cousin is former Gator Ahmad Black—dreaming of one day being apart of DBU himself. And he’d watch every bit of Vernon Hargreaves tape he could find, his favorite player then and now according to Kai.

He figured out their game and he specifically noticed their penchant for trash talking.

“Nobody at our house are trash talkers,” laughs Kai.

“Trey had discovered when he was in high school, he discovered that the trash talking threw players off then gave him the advantage because he learned ‘if I can get into your mind then I got you.’”

Now he’s often cited by teammates as one of the Gators best and most consistent trash talker.

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But Trey’s first foray into football still goes back further than that. Back to when he was a little kid and he would be invited to the Chick-fil-A FCA breakfast as local youth football player. When he would walk the halls of the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown Atlanta, dreaming of one day being a name in those halls. When this week every yea, his mom and dad would take him to the stadium to watch the Peach Bowl and he would watch the players and games he could only dream of being apart of one day.

“It’s almost like dreams really coming true. People, they have dreams, but do you really walk in your dreams? How many people have the opportunity to do that?”

This Saturday, Trey Dean’s parents will make that same trip to downtown Atlanta that they make every year. They’ll head into the stadium and settle in to watch the Peach Bowl like they do every year. But this time their son won’t be sitting with them. He’ll be on the field, a culmination of everything he’s put in to arrive at that moment. And it’ll be a whole new beginning.

“For us to be here in Atlanta, it’s a blessing and it’s just really shows you what all your hard work and how things can come full circle for you. Even just your freshman year. Trey, he really is thankful that he’s there in every opportunity that he gets and the coaches give him the opportunity, it just shows him that he made the right decision to come to the University of Florida…I look for them to have many more phenomenal opportunities as a team and I just can’t wait till next year.”

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