Sending her son away to finish high school was ‘the best decision I ever made,’ says football star’s mother

There was a time, years ago, when Patricia Reichner walked Philadelphia’s streets with the ferocity of a mother bear, head on a swivel, constantly assessing potential danger, always ready to strike.

It was the early 2000s in Mantua, a neighborhood in West Philly with limited resources or city investment.

Reichner, a white woman raising three Black children, schooled her cubs to keep them safe. She showed them what to avoid and what happened on certain corners, and urged them to be aware of their surroundings at all times.

“I truly was in survival mode with my kids,” Reichner said in a phone interview. “I think that’s the best way to word it.

“It explains my every action, my every reaction, my every behavior, every attitude.”

It might also explain why, fearful of rising gun violence in 2018, Reichner sent her youngest child, Omar Speights, to Oregon when the budding football star was a high school senior.

Speights finished his high school career at Crescent Valley High School in Corvallis, Ore., before starring at linebacker for Oregon State, where he eventually earned a degree in business administration.

In January, Speights, a first team all-Pac-12 player last season, transferred to LSU for his final year of college eligibility.

This Mother’s Day, Reichner reflects on what led to her decision, how it changed her son’s life, and what the future holds for her family.

By 2018, Reichner’s fears about gun violence in the city had been brewing for years.

Her oldest, Briana, now 29, had twice been feet away from people who were wounded while she waited for a SEPTA bus.

But there was something about the frequency of shootings and the use of automatic weapons that frightened Reichner when Speights was in high school at Imhotep Charter.

She even had a few “meltdowns” at work when she couldn’t reach him via phone calls or texts.

“I know I drove him crazy,” she said. “I’m quite sure I drove him completely crazy. But that’s what it was like for me.”

Perhaps her fears were born from experience.

She was in her 30s when she unexpectedly lost her job living in Mantua with her three young children. When they were old enough to understand the streets, she educated them accordingly.

“I kind of taught them real life on real life’s terms,” she said. “I would point things out to them. I just gave them the street smarts that they needed.”

The experience, she says, hardened her.

“I took nothing from no one because I was a female out here on my own,” she said. “So I had to be strong for me and for my kids. We didn’t have anybody else.”

Her tough exterior, however, was shaken after Kristian Marche was shot and killed in August 2018.

Speights and Marche had been friends and teammates at Imhotep. Speights later had Marche’s face tattooed on his back.

Marche was headed to Penn State on a track scholarship before he was killed. Speights was committed to Oregon State, where his older brother, Jeromy, already was playing defensive end.

Reichner mourned Marche, but also refused to lose her son to gun violence.

“It was the best decision I ever made,” she said. “Of course, it was the most emotional. That was the worst time ever, but now all these years later, it was the best decision I could have ever made.”

» READ MORE: Fearing gun violence in Philly, this mother sent her football star son across the country to keep him safe

Jeromy Reichner, now 25, shared his mother’s fears when his little brother was still in Philadelphia.

The 2015 West Catholic graduate says he once attended an Imhotep football game that was interrupted by gunfire.

“Death is so common in Philly that something as small as someone not answering your call can have you thinking [about death] immediately,” Jeromy said.

So when Speights arrived in Oregon, Jeromy felt a sense of relief. His brother was safe. His mother no longer had to worry.

“You have to understand that I wasn’t just in survival mode,” Patricia said. “Our kids are in survival mode too. If I’m on edge, what do you think they’re on?”

Speights flourished in Corvallis, becoming an all-conference player in three of his four seasons with the Beavers.

When her boys left the danger of Philadelphia, Patricia said, they became the men they were meant to be.

“Being out there let them grow and mature in ways I don’t think they would’ve been allowed to had they still been in Philly,” she said.

A few years ago, Jeromy saw Oregon State paperwork that estimated his mother’s income.

He always knew his mother worked hard.

But now that he has his own responsibilities, Jeromy appreciates his mother’s resilience even more.

After around 10 years in Mantua, Reichner saved enough money to buy a home elsewhere in West Philly. Today, she says she has mellowed and considers herself “healing” from survival mode.

“I saw my mom be brave in situations she shouldn’t have had to be brave in,” Jeromy said. “I saw her persevere when it seemed like there was nobody in support of her.”

Jeromy graduated from Oregon State in 2021 and works with children on the autism spectrum. He also started a podcast to help young people heal from childhood trauma.

On Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, he thanks his mother because she played both roles in his life.

He also has coached high school football in Oregon. One day, a player complained about his mother.

“It just came out naturally,” Jeromy said. “I told him his mother’s job is to worry about him and that it was his job to make sure she has nothing to worry about.”

If that job can be accomplished, it hasn’t been yet, at least according to Patricia.

“We’re not finished yet,” she said with a laugh. “I have to continue molding [my kids]. They’ll tell you differently. They say, ‘Mom, I’m grown.’ I feel like I still have more mothering to do.”

» READ MORE: ‘Playing Fields, not Killing Fields’ Amid Philadelphia's gun violence, sports can play a role in curbing the epidemic.