Villanova standout Tyrell Mims spreads hope to other kids who have a parent in prison

Rasheedah Mims was already at her cousin’s funeral, so perhaps she had been primed to anticipate anguish.

So when her phone buzzed during the indoor gathering that followed the service and a voice said, “they just shot the youngbul,” she immediately assumed the worst and screamed.

“Everybody was just looking at me,” she said in a recent phone interview. “My heart was in my stomach.”

That was around April last year. It was the same day her son, Tyrell Mims, now a sophomore defensive back at Villanova, had come home for spring break.

“I didn’t know who they were talking about, but when you’re calling me and saying that — and I know that my son is home …” she said as her voice trailed off. “I just screamed in that place.”

Gun violence had killed a different young man that day, not far from the Mims’ home in Germantown. Such an act, such an abrupt end to a life full of promise, is why Tyrell Mims doesn’t like to return home often.

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That doesn’t mean, however, that he’s forgotten where he came from or who helped shape his journey.

In fact, even as Mims — whose father has been incarcerated since he was a baby — continues to make a name for himself on the field, he seems determined to leave bread crumbs so those who grew up in similar households also can find paths toward success.

“Yeah, my dad is locked up,” Mims said, sitting in the bleachers after a recent practice. “Yours might be, too, so why don’t we stick together and share about these problems and let other people know what it’s like?”

On the field this season, Mims, a 5-foot-10, 190-pounder, has earned a reputation as a player who gets his hands dirty in various phases of the game. Last season, he played safety, corner, and even blocked a punt on special teams for a veteran-laden squad that shared the Colonial Athletic Association title. This season, he has 27 tackles and is tied for the team lead in interceptions with two.

Rasheedah Mims, however, still remembers the quiet little boy who always tried his best to stay clean.

“It’s funny he plays football because he was a boy who didn’t like dirt,” she said with a laugh.

He also didn’t like being teased by classmates in elementary school when they found out his father was in prison. Football eventually became an outlet.

As he got older, Mims attended football camps hosted by local stars who made it to the NFL, such as Jihad Ward and Ibraheim Campbell.

Mims said Ward, a Bok Technical High School alumnus, and Campbell, who attended Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, symbolized what was possible.

Ward was a second-round pick for the Oakland Raiders in 2016 and now plays linebacker for the New York Giants. Campbell was selected in the fourth round by the Cleveland Browns in 2015. He last played for the Indianapolis Colts in 2020 and still has a special connection to Mims.

“When I saw them, I knew I could change my life,” Mims said. “They filled our brains with a bunch of knowledge and gave us hope that we could do bigger things.”

That’s why Mims wants to one day host his own football camp for children whose parents are incarcerated. He hasn’t thought of a name for the camp, but said he wants it to be known for the kids it serves not the name it bears.

“There has to be a real meaning behind the name because I really want it to be about the kids,” he said. “I don’t even care who knows that I hosted the camp. I just want for those specific kids to be there.”

He tried to host the camp last year, but wasn’t able to coordinate the dates with his football schedule. He did, however, participate in a team-organized turkey drive that occurred not far from where he grew up in Germantown. The event, Mims said, was held to support mothers who had been incarcerated.

“When I was a younger kid,” he said, “I didn’t like all the dad jokes. But at a certain point I was like, ‘So what? I’m not the only one facing this. I know everyone in that situation feels the same as me, so why not share this so it isn’t a joke anymore?’”

When Malik Jones joined the coaching staff as an assistant coach at Martin Luther King High School in 2016, he says he met a talented player with little ambition for the future.

“He said, ‘I’m going to do [nothing] because my dad did [nothing],’” Jones said. “That kid stands on that until this day. He later got shot, and it’s almost like he accepted it because he thinks that’s how life is supposed to be. He thinks he’s supposed to get shot. He thinks he’s supposed to run the streets because of the fate of his father.”

Jones, who graduated from King, became its head coach in 2019. He saw the opposite mindset in Mims when he joined King as a freshman and made a dynamic catch during practice.

Jones says he made a mental note of Mims, whose first love was basketball, and then watched as Mims worked to learn King’s defensive system.

After a group of seniors skipped practice before a game and subsequently got benched, Jones told the freshman he would start. The two have been nearly inseparable since. Jones, who is the older brother of Campbell, actually took Mims to his brother’s football camp.

“He’s one of my biggest male role models,” Mims said of Jones. “I think not having my father in my life, [Jones] taught me how to be a man.”

Now, Jones uses Mims as an example to teach his current players what is possible. Pictures of Mims adorn the walls of King’s weight room. Jones, who also is an artist, hopes to paint a mural of Mims somewhere his team will see it often. He also has asked Mims to send inspirational video messages to King’s group chat, pass along football tips, workout and study habits, and any other little tidbit he’s learned at Villanova.

“I have a lot of kids here who are stuck in generational cycles,” Jones said. “They don’t think much of themselves because they’ve never seen anyone overcome. But we don’t have to have the same paths as our fathers, but you do have to choose.”

On game days at Villanova Stadium, you can find Rasheedah Mims, 42, where she has always posted up at her son’s football games.

“At the 50-yard line,” she said with laughter, “loud and proud.”

That pride extends both ways.

“My mom is my rock,” Tyrell Mims said. “Dealing with everything that we’ve been through, her being a single parent and having to raise two kids, I think that made her tougher, made me tougher, and made my little sister tougher. My mom is like my superhero.”

Mims also is close with his father. He also made sure Jones and his father connected and said his dad is appreciative of how Jones has helped his son.

Mims declined to talk details about his father’s case but said he visits whenever he can. They talk on the phone a few times a week and also can video chat and email, he said.

“I’ve been visiting him since I was a toddler,” Mims said. “My mom always brought me to see him. As I got older and started to understand that he was in a prison, I would break down when I had to leave. There’s a limited time you get, and having to leave him just kills me. And he breaks down as well when I have to leave.”

Perhaps because he broke what could have become a cycle of incarceration, Mims, also an honor roll student at Villanova, might already be inspiring change.

In addition to his younger sister, Taliyah, a sophomore at Mims’ alma mater, Parkway Northwest High School — which his sister says also uses Mims as an exemplar for its students — it seems others in and around his orbit have also noticed his success. He has a young nephew who plays football and now dreams of playing at Villanova.

Then months ago, Rasheedah Mims was at the movies when she says a little boy recognized her as “’Rell Mims’ mom. He said, ‘I want to be just like ’Rell Mims,’” she recalled.

“It was so cool,” she said. “I tell him that people are watching all the time, and you have a story to tell.”