When the chance finally arrived for the 17-year-old, Richardson jumped at it. Next thing he knew, the coronavirus pandemic stopped him in his tracks.
Richardson skipped the second half of his senior year at Gainesville Eastside to enroll at UF in January 2020. A little more than two months later, on March 13, the university canceled athletics due to COVID-19 concerns and sent athletes home –– in Richardson’s case, just prior to the start of spring football practices.
“It was kind of challenging, not gonna lie,” he said recently. “I didn’t really get to finish my senior year of high school, so I was ready to just get going, just to start playing football again.