After family tribulations and transfers, NC State CB Derrek Pitts is enjoying success
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct a couple of inaccuracies and clarify a few statements that were made in the reporting of this story. Pitts has three older brothers, one older sister and a younger sister. Additionally, Pitts and his sister, Rajah, were already living in West Virginia prior to moving in with their grandmother.
Derrek Pitts picked off the game-sealing interception against North Carolina and he was off and running.
With the football tucked under his arm, Pitts, the N.C. State defensive back, was on a dead sprint around the field as fans rushed the field around him.
The interception by Pitts, his second of the season, secured a 34-30 victory after the team trailed by nine late in the fourth quarter. Pitts wasn’t letting go of that ball — he was taking his victory lap.
In the stands his mother Dionne Beverly-Hairston was tracking his every step with one thought: “How am I going to get down to that field?”
As the stands emptied and fans flooded the turf, Hairston eventually made her way to Pitts. She climbed down the wall and found him sitting on the bench on the UNC sideline, catching his breath. Pitts battled the flu all week leading up to the game, so once his adrenaline wore down, he was finally able to stand up and embrace his mother.
As they stood on the grass, they both realized the embrace was more than just about his interception.
“In that moment it’s like a movie,” Hairston told The News & Observer. “It’s like a movie where you’re reflecting the good and the bad. The moment just takes you there — the good, the bad, the ugly, whatever of the journey and it makes it all better.”
The journey of this close-knit family is a remarkable one and made Pitts the man he is today.
LIFE-CHANGING EVENT
In late November, Pitts settles into a chair in a meeting room inside N.C. State football’s Murphy Center. He puts his plate of leftover lunch down beside him, never takes off his team-issued book bag, and peels back the layers of his life, unapologetically.
“Who is Derrek Quadon Pitts Jr.?” the 23-year-old graduate cornerback says out loud before unveiling his family tree.
Pitts has five siblings, including three older brothers. He and his baby sister, Rajah, were born on the same day, one year apart.
Pitts was born in Baltimore and lived in Atlanta for a while before settling in West Virginia, where he grew up and started college. Hairston says all her children — Khalil Brown-Pitts, Ahmari Smith, Shaquille Smith, Rajah and Derrek — are tight and protective of each other. It remains that way until this day.
As a young kid, Pitts doesn’t remember a time when there wasn’t a full house of friends and family. They were living in Atlanta and life was good. All Pitts knew was being around a bunch of family, all the time.
That changed before he reached his teenage years. Pitts still remembers being in the house with his siblings when there was a knock at the door. Federal agents entered the home with an arrest warrant for their mother. Pitts’ father, Derrek Pitts Sr., was already incarcerated at the time.
“My mom and my father were heavily involved in the fast life I guess, if that’s what you want to call it,” Pitts said. “Eventually, you know how the game goes, either death or prison. Thank God they didn’t have to face the death part. They just had to go sit down for a little bit and reassess their life.”
A July 2007 indictment lists Pitts’ parents among 16 members of the Black Family Mafia (BMF) charged with cocaine distribution. The drug trafficking and money laundering organization was the subject of a recent TV series on Starz.
Pitts’ world as he knew it changed. His parents were both gone, his siblings separated.
“When my mom and dad were out and about, they took care of a lot of people,” Pitts said. “But the parents my mom had good relationships with, when she got taken away, they didn’t return the favor and step in and help out. I was young, but I was very aware of that. I wouldn’t be invited, but I’d see them out. It wasn’t them (my friends), it was the parents. My friends would be upset that I wasn’t invited, but I wasn’t mad because how else would they look at me?”
Eventually, Pitts and Rajah moved in with their grandmother who also lived in West Virginia.
“She looked after me and my little sister,” Pitts said. “Or tried her best.”
Unfortunately, his grandmother passed away, which meant uprooting again. Pitts and Rajah were able to stay in West Virginia, and some family friends of his mother looked after them. Still, it matured Pitts beyond his years. Even from afar, Hairston noticed the impact her absence had on him.
“I will say this, for five years I rarely saw pictures with him smiling,” Hairston said. “When I would see pictures, everyone would be smiling and happy, coaches or my mom would send me pictures and he was always the kid who wasn’t smiling. Even when he would take pictures with me at the prison, he wasn’t smiling. I guess there was a time he wasn’t smiling.”
To see Pitts these days, it’s the complete opposite. His half-hour interview is filled with ear-to-ear grins.
As he sits in the Murphy Center, dressed in N.C. State gear, he knows how much he’s overcome.
A BIG MOVE FOR GOOD
Pitts became a football prodigy early in West Virginia, picking up an offer from Auburn after his freshman season in high school. He didn’t even know what an offer meant until a friend explained that it would allow him to go to college for free because of football.
The offers continued to roll in and Pitts committed to Penn State. That was a shock to everyone, according to Hairston. Eventually, Pitts decided to stay in his home state, first playing at West Virginia, before transferring to Marshall.
“Marshall is what made him,” Hairston said. “Marshall was his Juco (junior college). I will forever love Marshall University for what it did for him and what it did to him.”
Pitts played in 12 games in two seasons at Marshall. He was a starter for the Thundering Herd his senior year before transferring to N.C. State. Having first met current Wolfpack defensive coordinator Tony Gibson when the two were both at West Virginia, a reunion seemed fitting. When Pitts played at WVU, Hairston would always reach out to Gibson if she needed to track down her son. He was an easy drive and quick call away. Raleigh, though, would be a whole new world. The first time Pitts wouldn’t be around siblings or any family.
“Derrek is my leader,” Hairston said. “Because he’s never been afraid to go out on his own.”
As much love as he has for West Virginia, Hairston knew leaving his home state would be the best thing for him.
“I’ve seen a more mature, well-rounded young man. I’ve definitely seen the positive transformation being at N.C. State has given him,” she said. “Being somewhere where it’s more diverse and he sees more people of color, the more he’s saying, ‘I can just be me.’ He’s seeing more of who he is represented down in that area. It’s definitely been a positive transformation for him.”
Pitts — who finished the regular season with 43 tackles, 2.5 tackles for a loss, two interceptions and six pass deflections — decided to return to Raleigh for another season. At 6-foot-1, 182 pounds, the former safety brings a physical presence to the cornerback position that’s hard to come by. With another good season on tape for the Pack, Pitts can put himself in position to play on Sundays. That’s why he spends more time in his new home, Raleigh, instead of visiting West Virginia.
It’s why he always has that smile on his face, the kind of energy everyone gravitates toward at N.C. State.
“It’s refreshing to be around someone who doesn’t take things for granted,” Wolfpack head coach Dave Doeren said. “He has a really positive outlook and he has a million reasons not to. He’s really, really a joy to be with as a coach, to feel that energy every day.”
Doeren said Pitts’ ability to stay on track is part of the reason he likes him so much.
“He’s unique,” Doeren added. “No matter what, he just keeps going. Not many people are built like that. They find failure, they give up, blame other people. He’s found strength through all his adversity.”
A PROUD SON
Hairston doesn’t miss games. Not a lot of the family does.
Hairston came home when Pitts was 15, his dad more recently. This season, from Raleigh to Miami, they’ve come in droves to watch Pitts play. His mom enjoys watching him play, knowing not only that he’s talented, but also the gridiron is his outlet, his joy for the game never taken away.
“Did he tell you about when he and I snuck into the WVU workout facility?” Hairston asked with a laugh.
Once while visiting Pitts at West Virginia, Hairston says Derrek got bored and wanted to go work out. She agreed to go, thinking they would go for a run or something. Moments later, Pitts had her climbing over a 12-foot fence to get into the Mountaineers sandpit.
“This boy had me climb over that wall,” Hairston recalled. “Scaling the 12-foot fence to go to the WVU sandpit and run routes with him.”
Pitts still has the video on his Twitter page, Hairston backpedaling, and falling, in the sand, Pitts laughing the whole time.
“It’s crazy, but that’s the kind of stuff he and I would do together,” Hairston recalled.
Those moments together, from the WVU sandpit, to the long embrace after the UNC game, are all part of moving forward. It’s what prompted Pitts to say, “I’m proud of my mom.”
Hairston has her Bachelors in Health Science and Masters in Public Administration and is a business owner. She says her kids were the motivation, and all of her children went to or are currently in college.
She doesn’t know what she did for Pitts to say he’s proud of her, but the thought almost brought her to tears.
“I’m taken back by that because I’ve never heard it,” Hairston said. “I don’t know what I’ve done for him to say that, other than just be a mom. I guess it’s good to know that he’s taken notice of my sacrifices, being diligent in their lives. Football has always been his outlet, for me the joy I have seeing him in his element just having fun. The football field is his playground and always has been and I love it because it still does that for him.
“The challenges he’s had to overcome, different situations, different schools, has not taken that love from him for that game.”
This story was originally published December 26, 2021 at 11:30 AM.
