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Heart-To-Heart Turns Spikes Into Leader

The Associated Press

The 6-foot-3, 245-pounder leads the team with 87 tackles, returned two interceptions for touchdowns and was a finalist for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy.

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By MICK ELLIOTT

melliott@tampatrib.com

Published: January 5, 2009

FORT LAUDERDALE - Early in 2008, shortly after the Florida Gators' annual spring game, junior linebacker Brandon Spikes and Coach Urban Meyer sat down together inside Florida Field, just the two of them and 90,000 empty seats.

"We had workouts and I kind of noticed he had something on his mind," Spikes said. "So we just sat down right in The Swamp and had a long talk - an hour and a half or so."

No holds barred. Few pleasantries. The talk was direct and painful. After the 2006 national championship, the Gators had returned to lay a 9-4 egg. Spikes and several other underclassmen had been thrust into the starting defensive lineup by necessity of attrition and the end results were less than acceptable.

"It was awful last year," the Gators coach said. "You can underline it; you can bold it and put a couple of exclamation points on it. I'm not just talking about performance; I'm talking about demeanor, effort level. I was embarrassed to show the film."

Spikes listened, somewhat shocked and a lot hurt. There were tears.

"He just looked in my eyes and asked me what happened," the team captain said. "I got emotional. I felt I didn't prove them wrong."

"Them" were doubters back in his hometown of Shelby, N.C., who Spikes knew were waiting on failure. After Spikes' older brother, Breyon Middlebrooks, had been sentenced in 2003 to life in prison without parole for murder during a drug deal in 2001, many assumed trouble was the bloodline.

"Them" have been so wrong, wrong, wrong.

The first tip-off that you are around a personality of special significance comes when others begin to naturally follow. And Spikes' parade is growing.

Now, here are the Florida Gators, preparing for Thursday night's BCS National Championship Game against the Oklahoma Sooners. The Gators defense has been the season's greatest surprise, ranking fifth in the nation in scoring allowed (12.8 ppg) and ninth in total yards (279.3).

How did it happen?

"As Spikes goes, so go we," defensive teammate Joe Haden said.

By first light, Spikes' ascent to team leader could be explained by exceptional play. The 6-foot-3, 245-pounder leads the team with 87 tackles, returned two interceptions for touchdowns and was a finalist for the Bronko Nagurski Trophy.

"When Spikes hits you, it's kind of like a miniature car crash," Gators freshman running back Jeff Demps said.

But to focus exclusively on Spikes' physically contributions - significant as they might be - would be to overlook what he has done best for the Gators.

"I'd say Spikes definitely is to our defense what Tim Tebow is to the offense," Haden said.

"For one he's a motivator," safety Major Wright said. "He's one of those guys, when he gets up, the whole team gets up. I've never played around a player like Brandon."

And from fellow linebacker Ryan Stamper: "The way he plays makes everybody else want to step up their game. He reminds us why we are here. He motivates us to get through tough practices."

Sitting at a table inside a hotel ballroom before one of this week's practices, Spikes recalls his spring meeting with Meyer and easily traces the course that has followed - all the way to Thursday's game.

"It shocked me," he said. "At the time, I really didn't know he was expecting so much from me. I guess he noticed my leadership skills. Guys always just kind of followed me. But my sophomore year, I wasn't aware. I just wanted to come out and be accountable and do my job. I didn't feel like it was my time to be a leader. We had older guys on the team. I didn't think it was my time.

"But he let me know you don't have to be a certain age to be a leader. It's the way you handle yourself and carry yourself."

Meyer saw the change early this year. On the Gators' first road trip of the year - an SEC visit to Tennessee - many of his players took their seats on the team plane and immediately began switching on iPods and their favorite music. A few others leafed through textbooks.

Spikes opened a laptop computer and slid in a disk put together by the Gators' coaching staff that contained Tennessee offensive tendencies.

"You got to have an edge," Spikes said. "If you want to play well, you definitely got to be prepared. Preparation is critical."

So committed to proper rehearsal is Spikes that after Alabama broke from season-long tendencies during the SEC Championship Game to run a heretofore unseen pass pattern, Spikes soon came to the sideline in search of defensive coordinator Charlie Strong.

"He came over and said, 'Coach, you never showed us that play,'" Strong said. "I told him, sometimes you just have to improvise."

Spikes is working on that, too.

He writes regularly to his brother, who watches what games he can in the Scotland Correctional Institution in Laurinburg, N.C. Prison guards also update Middlebrooks, now 28, on all Florida games.

Growing up, Middlebrooks always had kept an eye on Spikes while their mother, Sherry Allen, was working long shifts in a fiberglass plant. When Allen was laid off after 23 years on the job, she moved to Gainesville to be closer to her youngest son. She now is working at a janitorial job at a local school.

"She's my world," Spikes said.

This should prove it. When Spikes stepped on the team plane after arriving in Fort Lauderdale last week, he was wearing a light pink suit, the outfit he wore to the 2006 BCS Championship Game in Glendale, Ariz. The suit his mother had sewn for him for the trip.

"I'm kind of superstitious," he said. "I figured we won big out at Arizona my freshman year, so I figured I'd throw it on one more year. What the heck. That's what I did. It's kind of nice. My mother made it for me."

Them. So wrong.

Reporter Mick Elliott can be reached at (813) 281-2534.

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