FRISCO, Texas – Shavon Revel Jr.'s road to the NFL has been the furthest thing from easy. From dealing with multiple devasting injuries dating back to high school to working long shifts at Amazon with his father, his journey to being selected in the third round of the NFL Draft by the Cowboys is an inspiring one.
But it's far from over.
"Job ain't finished," Revel said. "I still have to go out there and prove myself to the coaches. I've got to go out there and show them what I have. You can always talk, at the end of the day, you've got to prove to the coaches what you can do."
The next chapter in Revel's book will be overcoming the ACL tear he suffered three games into his final season at East Carolina. The surgery done to repair his knee was done by Cowboys team doctor Dan Cooper, who Revel gave high marks to.
"He did an extraordinary job on my knee," Revel said. "For me to be walking the week after my surgery should tell it all. All the connections that he had just helped me connect with other people and open up opportunities for me to help me know more about the facility and the Cowboys."
Now about seven months removed from his injury, slowly but surely Revel is getting closer to making his way back onto the field and reaching his goal of being ready to play by the time the Cowboys head to Oxnard for training camp.
"Right now I can pretty much do everything," Revel said. "Running straight line, cutting, haven't gotten too much into that, just trying to take it day by day, trying to take it slow."
Revel has had to take things slow plenty of times in his career already, but has never gotten down on himself throughout the process of recovery. Instead, he embraces each challenge that comes his way as an opportunity to come out better on the other side of it.
"It's definitely made me a tough individual…" Revel said of dealing with his hardships. "I'm very hard on myself, and that's what it did to me because I look back then, I don't look back and myself and be like 'Bro, you never did this and that,' because everything happens for a reason. You learn and you grow, you learn from your mistakes, and that's kind of what I did."
After beginning his collegiate career in the junior college ranks, East Carolina was the only school to give him an opportunity after he wowed then defensive coordinator and now head coach Blake Harrell at one of the team’s prospect camps.
That stuck with Revel, especially following a 2023 season where he exploded onto the scene and received offers from anywhere between $350 thousand and $600 thousand to enter the transfer portal and play at a bigger institution. Many collegiate players in today's college football climate would take on the opportunity in a heartbeat, but Revel is wired differently than most.
"NIL, stuff like that, of course it's gonna help you, but I like to work for my stuff," Revel said. "I like to work up to it so I know I did something. Money getting handed to me, this and that, okay it sounds good, you can help your family, but my family knows how I work.
"My family knows how they work, how I operate, and I want to work for. ECU gave me that first opportunity, so I stayed loyal to them."
Although there have plenty of times when other would have given up or moved on to the next chapter of their lives, Revel was dead set on achieving his dream of having his name called during the NFL Draft, and now has his chance to shine at the professional level.
"I'm very self-motivated," Revel said. "I don't care what level you play on, I feel like if you've got that heart, and you believe in yourself and you do what you want to do and not try to work yourself through other people and what they think about you… I feel like you will be on this level. You'll get to where you've been dreaming of."
