Tyre Phillips called it an act of God.

Then a junior at Grenada High School, the 6-foot-5, 320-pound Phillips was often found on the football field. But instead of pants, pads and a helmet, Phillips wore a marching band uniform while wielding a trumpet.

Phillips quit football after his freshman season to focus on his musical talent, which he acquired from playing the keyboard at church with his father, James Phillips, who works as a pastor.

Tarsha Phillips, Tyre's mother, will never forget the day her son gave the game up.

"He went to every practice that summer, and about two days before school started he said, 'I'm no longer going to play football,'" Tarsha Phillips told the Clarion Ledger. "I was upset because I don't believe in my kids quitting. If you start something, I want you to finish it."

At some point, Phillips will finish it. Just not yet.

He picked football up again late in his junior year after being encouraged to do so by a plethora of people. One voice rang louder than the rest.

Michael McGee, an assistant basketball coach at Grenada, told Phillips something that has stuck with him forever. Phillips played basketball because it didn't conflict as much with his band schedule.

"God gave you size, so use it," McGee said. "You look like a football player to me, Tyre. I know you'd be a really good one."

Two weeks later, McGee died of a heart attack. Sitting at McGee's memorial service, Phillips thought a lot about what McGee told him.

"I received it as a confirmation," Phillips said. "I was asking God if I should get back to playing football, and I saw what he said as a sign. It hit me deep, like God was trying to tell me something."

Nearly a decade later, the kid who once quit is still going strong.

After stints at East Mississippi Community College and Mississippi State, the offensive lineman's next stop will be the NFL. A CBS Sports Mock Draft has Phillips, still 6-foot-5 but now 345 pounds, going to the Seattle Seahawks in the fourth round of this week's NFL Draft.

"It's going to mean a lot," Phillips said. "I'm just going to take a deep breath and thank God. I didn't expect to be here. I have a lot of people asking if I'm going to cry. I don't know what I’m going to do, to be honest, when I hear my name. It's going to be a heart-stopping relief knowing that all my hard work paid off to where I can compete and keep on going with my career with the most elite guys in the whole entire world."

'Tyre is an all or nothing type guy'

Football just wasn't Phillips' thing at first.

He didn't like it, and he wasn't good at it by his own admission. Even Matt McCory, Phillips' offensive line coach at Grenada, said Phillips "wasn't very good." Phillips took it a step further and said he "sucked."

"He was a huge kid, a super big kid, and you could tell he had it in him, but he didn't have the football part down," McCory said.

Phillips, who said music is his "heartbeat," was a much better musician

"He just had a gift for it," James Phillips said. "He was 3 or 4 years old making beautiful music on the keyboard. It was just so amazing at that age."

McCory knew about Phillips' musical prowess. He figured it came as a result of hard work, so he lobbied to get Phillips back on the football field. He believed he could make one heck of an offensive lineman out of him.

Once Phillips made his comeback, though, it came on the other side of the ball.

"They put me on defense because I couldn't block anybody on offense," Phillips said. "It was bad. All I could do was come off the ball and try to hit the running back."

Phillips and McCory spent time together during the offseason working on mechanics, techniques and trying to foster a knowledge of the game. Phillips went home and watched tutorials on YouTube to study more.

When his senior season rolled around, he was a much different player than the one who walked out as a sophomore and even the one who returned as a junior.

"I always told him, 'Man, you're so big, if you just hang in there and keep working, it's going to end up clicking at some point,' " McCory said. " 'Whenever that is, I don't know. Just don't sell yourself short now.' He maintained that belief in himself and just went to work every day."

"It took some time, but we eventually saw a big difference," added Ashley Kuhn, head coach at Grenada. "From game one, he did a fantastic job. I thought he had a great senior year."

Phillips originally quit football because he couldn't give his full attention to the sport. His parents said when their son sets his mind to something, he's determined to do it to the best of his ability. McCory saw it the same way.

"Tyre is an all or nothing type guy," McCory said. "When he commits to doing something, he's going to do it wholeheartedly and completely."

Once the commitment was there, it was a game changer.

'I knew I didn't want to do that'

Tarsha Phillips remembers taking her son to a band competition at EMCC when he was in high school.

"I was sitting there watching him perform and I was like, 'Who in the world would want to go to a school all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?' " Tarsha said. "Well, I had to eat those words."

With only one year of tape for college coaches to look at, Tyre Phillips wound up in Scooba, Mississippi, at a time when Netflix's original series "Last Chance U" brought it to fame.

As most players who suit up for five-time NJCAA National Champion Buddy Stephens do, Phillips saw his time there as an opportunity to prove he could play at a much higher level.

Stephens saw remembers watching Phillips play in the band at halftime of a Grenada game as a junior. Then he saw him manhandle defenders as a senior. Most of all, he saw Phillips' drive.

"The effort was there," Stephens said. "And there was a lot of 'want to.' As an offensive lineman, when you're that big of a kid, effort and 'want to' are the things you've got to have."

The motivation was also utilized in the classroom. It had to be.

"If you messed up one time, there was a chance it would be the last time," Phillips said. "I always learned from other people's mistakes. All those hardheaded guys there, a lot of them were getting into trouble. I knew I didn't want to do that."

Staying in line wasn't hard for Phillips. It was natural. Every night as a kid, his mom quizzed him on school topics so he could prove to her he had been doing his homework.

"If you wanted to go to sleep, you better have some type of information to let her know that you had been studying or at least tried to," Phillips said.

Back on the field, Stephens knew Phillips had "turned the corner" when he saw him on warming up for the first spring practice of his sophomore season before Stephens even pulled into the parking lot.

Phillips was fully suited working on his left tackle stance and kicks. The rest of the team was still getting dressed in the locker room, tying their cleats or just standing around chatting.

The extra work made him the No. 1 offensive guard out of junior college in 2017 according to 247Sports. He landed an offer from Mississippi State, where he found a home for the next three years.

"The work ethic is what's taken him and put him to where he is," Stephens said.

'Hey, I can do this'

Phillips didn't dream of playing football for Mississippi State. He wanted to play in the Famous Maroon Band instead.

"There were plenty times being with my teammates on the sideline I'd be like, 'Hey, I'm not even supposed to be in this jersey. I'm supposed to be up there in the corner.' "

Phillips never touched Scott Field with a trumpet in his hands, but he did use his mitts to grapple with plenty of opposing defensive linemen. Before he ever got into a game, though, he learned the ropes from some future NFL players, including Martinas Rankin of the Kansas City Chiefs, Elgton Jenkins of the Green Bay Packers and Deion Calhoun of the Miami Dolphins.

Phillips took a redshirt season in 2017 to sit behind those offensive linemen. On the scout team, he faced the likes of defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons of the Tennessee Titans and Montez Sweat of the Washington Redskins, day in and day out.

Former MSU offensive line coach John Hevesy watched Simmons plow past a double team during a practice. Phillips made up one half of the defeated duo. Hevesy called it his "welcome to the SEC" moment.

"It meant a lot getting those what I call 'NFL reps' because that’s basically what they were – NFL reps every day," Phillips said.

That's the way Phillips saw it when he was inserted into the lineup as a redshirt junior in 2018, too. Senior linebacker Josh Allen opened Phillips eyes to what his two years of SEC football would be like when he recorded a sack and two tackles for loss in a 28-7 Kentucky victory.

Phillips, however, was not on the hook for Allen's sack. He didn't allow a single sack all season. As a redshirt senior last year, he started all 13 games at left tackle. He played the most snaps on the team at 821, giving up just two sacks and one quarterback hit.

According to Pro Football Focus, Phillips had the second best overall offensive grade among qualifying offensive tackles in the SEC.

"The SEC is stout. It's the next level under the NFL," Phillips said. "I feel like I was blocking NFL guys every game. Every week, I knew I was going to play a potential first rounder or a potential draft person, period. That kind of built my confidence like, 'Hey, I can do this. I'm bowing up to these guys fairly well.' "

'It's sort of like a dream'

Phillips knows football won't last forever.

Special needs children looked to Phillips when they were picked on at school back in Grenada. As the biggest student in the school, Phillips served as their protector.

He sat and ate lunch with them in the cafeteria and sought out their classrooms to make sure they were OK throughout the day. Phillips majored in human development and family sciences and wants to work as an occupational therapist for children with special needs.

"That's what inspires me the most about him," James Phillips said. "He motivates those kids and lifts them up. That means more to me than anything. He's making an impact on people's lives off the field."

Phillips plans to use his platform as a professional football player to serve special needs children in whatever city he ends up in. His parents are proud to call him their own no matter where that is.

Tarsha Phillips said she won't know whether to laugh or cry if her son is drafted. She conceded that it will probably be both. James Phillips, meanwhile, might just be in shock.

"It's sort of like a dream," James Phillips added. "Every now and then I have to pinch myself and ask, 'Is this really real?' My wife and myself, we sit there and discuss how we never thought we'd have a star football player in our family."

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Contact Tyler Horka at thorka@gannett.com. Follow @tbhorka on Twitter. To read more of Tyler's work, subscribe to the Clarion Ledger today!