When Tyrone Broden was in middle school, he stuttered.
His father and his grandfather both had speech impediments. But as he was growing up in Detroit his dad Tyrone Sr., speech therapy and gaining confidence through playing sports, the younger Broden eventually bulled through that as a teen.
"Just knowing, like, it's people in the world that got it, too. I'm not the only one," Broden Jr., who has five siblings, said this week.
"And my dad helped me. He was like, ‘Just be yourself. Nobody can take that away from you. As long as you be yourself, nothing really matters.'"
When the Seahawks' zooming, 6-foot-5, rookie wide receiver was entering his junior year of high school in West Bloomfield, Michigan, he was short.
"I went from 5-8 to, like, 6-3 in two to three months," Broden said.
His sudden growth caused intense pain that in his knees, legs and growth plates. He Broden couldn't run. The vibrant teenager didn't play his junior year of high-school athletics. His first snap of varsity high school football didn't come until his senior season of 2019.
Yet because he was now over 6-3 and could run like a Great Lakes gale, college recruiters flocked to him when he was 17.
They didn't mind that he had yet to play a high-school varsity snap.
"My senior year summer, we had a showcase where, like, 150 college coaches came and watched us practice," Broden said of West Bloomfield and its well-connected coach then, Ron Bellamy. "Then I had a good showcase, and I got like 15 offers in 24 hours.
"I still hold the Michigan record for the most D-I scholarships in one day."
He signed with Bowling Green, because it was an hour and a half down Interstate 75 from his Detroit home- and because of coaching links. BGSU receivers coach Erik Campbell signed Broden. Campbell had coached Bellamy at the University of Michigan in the late 1990s.
Hence the football showcase Bellamy brought to West Bloomfield. That's Broden got offered college football scholarships before playing a high-school varsity game.
After three seasons playing in the Mid-American Conference, he transferred in 2023 to Arkansas in the mighty Southeastern Conference.
"That's 15 hours," from Detroit, Broden said. "So it was kind of hard."
It was not as difficult as this:
During his first month living in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in July 2023, Broden's older brother Derrick Streater died in a car accident back home in Detroit. Derrick was 31 years old.
Nine months later, in April 2024 while Broden was preparing for his final college season at Arkansas, his brother Darryl Burks committed suicide. Darryl was 30. He was the father of baby girls.
"One of my brothers passed away in a car accident, in 2023. And my other brother committed suicide in 2024. Yeah...," Broden told The News Tribune before a training-camp practice this week.
He paused, amid his memories.
"That was a big, big thing that I had to go through," he said.
So, yes, Tyrone Broden Jr., the rookie wide receiver his new head coach calls "a great person," playing his first NFL game Thursday night when the Seahawks host the Las Vegas Raiders at Lumen Field (channel 5, 7 p.m.) is a mammoth milestone.
Don't tell him it's just a preseason exhibition.
It's a validation of where he is. And where he's come from.
"Oh, it's going to be extremely exciting for me. And for my family," Broden said. Next week will be even better for Broden. His family, including his mother Felicia Streater, will travel west to Seattle to be in Lumen Field. They will watch Tyrone Jr. play his second preseason game, when the Seahawks host the Kansas City Chiefs Aug. 15.
"They're just going to be excited," he said, "just to live out the dream of me finally getting a chance to go out there and play in the NFL."
He smiled.
His grin lit up the long hallway outside the Seahawks' locker room at their Virginia Mason Athletic Center.
How he got through it
Broden is 24. Twenty-four-year olds shouldn't go through all he has already.
How did Broden get through the horrors of two brothers dying nine months apart, on top of homesickness in Arkansas, to get to this NFL chance as a one-year high-school varsity player?
"Oh, my biggest sister, TyLicia Broden," he said.
"She's been my everything. She's kind of like the mother of family. Like, she's the parents of my parents. She, really, just sees over everybody, just to make sure I was good. Just my sister talking to everybody." McCano Hayes was a key to his personal support team, too. Broden credits his 21-year-old brother for moving south and living with him in Fayetteville. They shared a house with fellow Razorbacks wide receiver Andrew Armstrong.
"They were always making sure I was good," Broden said, "no matter what."
Broden also thanks head coach Sam Pittman and his assistants on the Arkansas staff for their support. Broden's wide receivers coach his final college season was Ronnie Fouch, a former Washington Huskies quarterback from 2007-09.
"My coaching staff there was really supportive," Broden said.
"And just being able to play football. Because when you're on the football field, it's really hard to think about other things on the football field. Just getting out there and playing football kept my mind off of it."
Tyrone Broden's Seahawks chance
Broden is 6-5. That's what the Seahawks list him officially. Bowling Green and Arkansas staffers inflated that to 6-7. BGSU said he was tied with two others as the tallest wide receiver in the nation's Football Bowl Subdivision through the 2022 season.
He is reputed to have unofficially run the 4.22 40 at his Arkansas pro day this spring.
Yet he didn't have more than 36 receptions in any college season. That was when he also averaged 16.6 yards per catch as a redshirt sophomore at Bowling Green in 2021. He caught 30 total passes with four total touchdowns in his two seasons with Arkansas. Those around the Razorbacks program say Broden struggled at times dropping passes, particularly last season.
That's how a 6-5 receiver who runs sub 4.3 doesn't get drafted.
While rookie fifth-round pick Tory Horton is getting attention for starring onto the starting offense in this camp, Broden is quietly catching almost everything thrown to him.
New Seahawk Cooper Kupp, the 2021 Super Bowl MVP and NFL offensive player of the year with the Rams, is teaching Broden the nuances of route-running and reading defenses. So is Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who last season tied Tyler Lockett's franchise record with 100 receptions.
Broden made a stand-out catch late in the fan-fest practice Saturday at Lumen Field. He called that evening last weekend his first welcome-to-the-NFL moment.
"To actually walk out and be on the NFL stadium...," he said. "I played in the SEC, so I played in big stadiums. But actually being in the NFL stadium was just like, ‘Wow, I'm here, actually!'"
Most of his passes are coming from Jalen Milroe. Seattle's third-round pick this spring from Broden's SEC-rival Alabama is making fast friends with his rookie receiver.
Milroe and Broden hugged playfully while joking before the start of practice Tuesday.
"So far, we've been been close every day," Broden said. "Yeah, you start to practice every day. At the hotel. We go in the treatment room together. That's my guy."
He will be Thursday night. Milroe and Broden figure to play about half the first preseason game, or more.
How do Broden's new Seahawks coaches think he's doing so far?
His head coach called him "T.B." after he great grab in the fan-fest practice at the stadium Saturday night.
"He's a great person," Mike Macdonald said. "Comes to work every day. Does a great job. That's all you can ask for from a rookie.
"Coming in, rock and roll, be available. Know what to do. Do it full speed all the time. He's right there."
