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It was his turn to speak and Matthew Judon knew exactly what he wanted to say. Growing up in a household with nine siblings, he had plenty of practice in making sure his voice was heard and his words resonated.

But as he stood in front of his Grand Valley State freshman classmates to make a presentation, a paralyzing sensation took hold of Judon. His eyes darted around the room. His hands quivered and his jaw locked. Judon broke the uncomfortable silence by muttering, “I hate public speaking. I hate public speaking. I hate public speaking.”

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The embarrassment was consuming.

“I was just like, ‘I can never have this happen to me again,’” Judon said.

It wouldn’t take Judon long to find his voice.

In the locker room and on the field, the Ravens’ 26-year-old outside linebacker has become one of the team’s most boisterous and unpredictable characters. “His personality, if you could pick a color to describe it, his would be a disco ball,” said teammate Brandon Carr. “He’s everywhere.”

Off the field, Judon has developed into a leading voice of the franchise’s social conscience. He’s spoken to politicians and lawyers about criminal justice reform. He’s met with law enforcement officials and local educators. In his third NFL season, he’s morphed into one of the most active Ravens in the community.

His words carry the perspective of a young man who has experienced both love and loss, who knows the feeling of being overlooked and underestimated, and who didn’t have much growing up in Michigan, but thanks to his mother, stepfather and nine siblings, he had everything he needed.

“Nobody ever threw a pity party for themselves because of what we didn’t have,” Judon said. “We found a way to make it work. I feel like that’s how I am today. I’m always trying to find something to better myself or a way to make something work.”

In the Ravens’ 34-17 victory over the Oakland Raiders last Sunday, Judon became just the NFL’s second defensive player since 1982 to have a sack on three consecutive plays. After the last one, giving him a team-leading six sacks for the season, Judon sprinted up the tunnel and momentarily disappeared.

“That’s just Matthew,” said Pieretta Hairston, Judon’s mother. “He’s my wild flower. If there’s something he wants, he just goes for it.”

Judon’s blunt and outspoken manner has led to him getting comparisons to a young Terrell Suggs. “There are some similarities there,” Suggs grudgingly acknowledged this week.

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Judon, though, has a different view on it.

“I just want to be me,” he said. “In my head, I could have went to LSU and played or Oregon. In my head, I was a first-round draft pick. In my head, I’m the best outside rusher in the league. That’s where I live. I live in my head and that’s what I believe in my heart.”

Judon didn’t get any Division I scholarship offers. He wound up at Grand Valley State, a Division II school in western Michigan that has produced several NFL players. Despite leading every NCAA level in sacks as a senior, Judon wasn’t taken until the fifth round of the 2016 draft.

In parts of three NFL seasons, Judon has 18 sacks while serving as a bookend edge rusher across from Suggs. The Ravens believe Judon, who has 4 ½ sacks in his past three games, is still ascending.

“There’s too many people in the NFL that were worried that he wasn’t going against good guys,” said Grand Valley head coach Matt Mitchell. “Matt had 20 sacks his senior year. I don’t give a shit who you are going against. Twenty sacks is 20 sacks. Well, he’s not going against the left tackle from Alabama or Florida. But it’s still an ungodly amount of production.”

Judon has been called a small-school success story, but he’s never liked labels and he’s always had bigger goals than that. “I’d rather be considered a great person,” he said.

To that end, Judon is constantly under construction.

“Matt can be selfish, just like we all can be. But Matt is breaking the cycle of dysfunction,” said Dr. Damon Arnold, the director for academic services in the Grand Valley athletic department. “He had a lot of love in his household, but there was also some dysfunctional things. The key is learning from it and saying, ‘I’m not going to allow other people to judge me based on what I used to do. Judge me on what I’m doing now.’ Matt knows that his story will be able to change a lot of lives.”

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A packed house of love

Judon doesn’t often elaborate on “his story.” When he talks about his challenges growing up, he focuses more on what he had rather than what he didn’t.

“Some guys will tell you how hard they had it,” said Matt Yoches, who was a defensive assistant at Grand Valley when Judon was at the school. “Maybe he had it just as hard, if not harder. Maybe he didn’t. But he’s not going to be a martyr. His mom did everything she could to put him in a good situation. Maybe she wasn’t dealt the greatest cards, but I’ve never heard her complain either.”

Judon never met his birth father, who left the family when he was very young and embraced a lifestyle that led to a long prison stay. His mother worked two jobs to be able to provide for her kids. The growing family moved around a bit and there never seemed to be enough room to accommodate them. However, they always made it work.

Pieretta Hairston had a rule that all 10 of her kids, who are 23 years apart in age, would abide by or risk consequences. She didn’t want to hear about the wealth and luxuries that other families enjoyed. She wanted her kids to appreciate what they had and be determined to work for more. Judon once made the mistake of coming home from school and raving about how good one of his friends was as basketball. Hairston quickly cut off her son and challenged him: “Tell me how good are you?,” she said sternly.

“That’s kind of how I started to look at life,” Judon said. “I didn’t have a car until I got drafted, but I never looked at people who had cars and was like, ‘Man, I wish I had that.’ I was just like, ‘I got to get to practice, so I’ll just ride the bus.’ I never thought of it as other people were privileged and I wasn’t. Other people probably wished they had the family that I had.”

Pieretta had six kids with her first husband. Years later, she met Earl Hairston at the General Motors plant where both worked. Pieretta was in dining services while Earl was on the assembly line. Earl would bring food to work, but he’d still go to the cafeteria to buy another lunch because it gave him an opportunity to woo Pieretta. The two ultimately married and had four more kids, giving Pieretta 10 in all. The oldest, Myra, turns 37 next week. The youngest, Bryce, is 14. All of them either have steady jobs in diverse fields or are currently in school.

Judon was number six for Pieretta, which meant that he got the sixth plate when the family sat down for dinner, an exercise that was often chaotic. The kids shared beds and rooms and Judon said the most challenging aspect of having such a packed home was waiting out the line for the bathroom. There was no way to keep a secret either.

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Judon was changing diapers for his younger brothers when he was in elementary school. The kids all look out for each other and also benefited from community help. Pieretta reminded them frequently that if they misbehaved, it was not only a reflection of them, it was a blemish to the family name.

“A lot of times when you are a huge family, a lot of people will look at you and say, ‘Well, I know with all of those kids, this was going to happen and it was always negative,’” Pieretta said. “I was determined to not have my children a part of that world where they just became a number, whether it was a prison number of just a number of the State. I was determined to show that a parent with that many children, the children can be something other than a statistic.”

An inquisitive leader

In many ways, Judon is a product of the many environments he’s been in. He credits his ability to relate to teammates to having to learn about the personalities and quirks of his various siblings and growing up with different types of people. While times were often tight and his family didn’t have much money, Judon went to school in a pretty affluent district. He was exposed to people with whom he didn’t have a whole lot in common.

“My junior year and a little of my senior year in high school, I lived with one of my friends and he was Jewish,” Judon said. “I’ve dealt with a lot of different types of people.”

Judon is into psychology. He likes reading about Freud and learning about why people do what they do and think what they think. He simply enjoys human interactions. At Grand Valley State, he went on retreats with members of other campus groups. He also spent time as a volunteer counselor at Camp Sunshine, a program for cognitively impaired people.

“I didn’t have a lot to give back, but I had time,” Judon said. “You can learn something from everybody. It was a Christian camp and you just learn total surrender and love with them. Just for spending time with them, they automatically loved you.”

Judon quickly became the face of the Grand Valley football program along with its best player. His profile as a potential NFL player grew, but he never acted entitled. He embraced the unglamorous life of a Division II player and entertained his teammates during 10-hour bus trips to games.

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When there was an appearance that needed to be made on behalf of the program, he made it. When a lack of the necessary funds threatened to prevent the Lakers band from traveling to a road playoff game, Judon orchestrated a social media push that resulted in the band going

“Matt has natural-born leadership qualities,” Yoches said. “He’s someone who can engage in conversations at all levels. He can come off as a huge goofball, but he’s very intelligent. He knows the world in a lot of different lights. He’s not just a millionaire football player and he’s not a guy who came from the streets and doesn’t know how to act. He does this stuff because he cares, because it means something to him.”

Judon showed up to a group interview session during Ravens training camp wearing a shirt that read: “More than 60% of prison population are people of color. End mass incarceration.” He declined to discuss the significance of the shirt at the time, but he’s one of several Ravens in the team’s social justice program which is targeting criminal justice reform.

At a players coalition event in March that also included current teammate Brandon Williams and former one Benjamin Watson, Judon spoke of experiences that several of his friends have had and also offered suggestions on the way the bail system can be improved.

“The guy is a leader,” Watson said of Judon. “He’s a guy that I can see being in that city for a long time obviously because of what he does on the field, but also because of that, he’s been given the opportunity to affect positive change in the community. He’s taking that by the horns and really stepping into that role.”

At times, still a kid at heart

Judon regularly attends community events on behalf of the Ravens and he rarely does it alone. He often brings his 3-year-old daughter, Aniyah.

“I’m planning on being rich and having a lot of money, but I want her to see the other side,” Judon said. “Maybe she might never ever see the other side or maybe unfortunately she will and she has to live through that. But I want her to be grateful and appreciative for everything she gets.”

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Judon acknowledges fatherhood has changed him, but there are still times when the kid in him shines through. It happens when he goes home to Michigan and visits his parents. He’ll quickly grab his mother’s hand and lead her in a dance or jump in bed with his mother and stepfather. It happens on the field, when Judon will break out an elaborate sack celebration.

Occasionally, it still manifests itself in a negative way when Judon goes on Twitter and rants at a fan in defense of himself or a teammate. Judon admits it’s been a challenge to not speak to critics and fans in the same manner he communicates with teammates, family members and friends.

“Matt is so smart, but Matt found himself dumbing down to the people he hung with,” Arnold said. “I’ve told him that can’t happen anymore. He’s seen what’s possible, he’s been exposed to different things. He’s living that life now and he’s embraced what his purpose is. His purpose is beyond the NFL platform that he has.”

Arnold recognized the potential early. Arnold was questioned about Judon being in an advanced-level mathematics class at Grand Valley State. He didn’t pull Judon out of the class. Instead, he challenged him to pass it, which Judon did. It was Arnold who also helped Judon conquer his public speaking fears.

There is still one conversation, though, that Judon is hesitant to have. Ever since his birth father got out of jail last year, Judon has pondered getting together with him. His mother has mostly stayed out of it, while Judon has talked extensively about the prospects with other family members. But breaking the ice isn’t easy when the wounds are still fresh.

“I never knew him. I’ve never even seen pictures,” Judon said. “As sad as it is to say, one day hopefully I’ll have that sit down with him. Hopefully, it’s not too emotional, but that’s my father. My mom and stepfather have done tremendous things for us, but it’s just genetics. I got a lot of stuff from my father that I don’t even know about.”

(Top Photo: Evan Habeeb/USA Today)

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