T. J. Wright (born November 29, 1983) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create tur ...

. He was signed by the

Cincinnati Bengals The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The c ...

as an

undrafted free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

in 2007. He played college football at

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. He has also been a member of the

Florida Tuskers Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to th ...

Early years

Wright was an All-District, All-State cornerback at Clifton J. Ozen Magnet High School

Beaumont, Texas Beaumont is a coastal city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat, seat of government of Jefferson County, Texas, Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur, Texas, Port Arthur Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, metropo ...

. Wright was named most athletic his senior year after being a 4 sport varsity athlete. Wright also began recording at the local Parkdale mall as well as designing T-shirts for the local group then known as S.T.Y.

College career

As a senior with the

Ohio Bobcats The Ohio Bobcats are the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Ohio University, located in Athens, Ohio, United States. Ohio University is a charter member (1946) of the Mid-Amer ...

, Wright started all 14 games and earned first-team All-MAC honors from the league's coaches. He was, also, named All-MAC by Collegefootballnews.com, which rated him as the second-best defensive back in the league and one of the top 30 best football players regardless of position. Wright was named MAC East Division Player of the Week after recording seven tackles, two pass break-ups, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery at Miami. He led all Ohio defensive backs, and ranked third on the team overall, with 59 tackles. He ranked first on the team with four interceptions and was the first Bobcat since Bop White (1999–2002) to notch four straight seasons with at least three interceptions. In his senior season, Wright helped lead the Bobcats to a MAC East Division title, a

MAC Championship Game The MAC Football Championship Game is a football game between the winners of the East and West divisions of the Mid-American Conference (MAC) to determine the conference champion. History The game has been played since 1997, when the conferenc ...

appearance, a

GMAC Bowl The LendingTree Bowl is a postseason NCAA-sanctioned Division I FBS college football bowl game that has been played annually in Mobile, Alabama since 1999. In 2021, the game was moved from Ladd-Peebles Stadium to Hancock Whitney Stadium, on the c ...

appearance and accepted an invitation to play in the inaugural

Texas vs The Nation Texas vs The Nation was an American college football all-star bowl game played from 2007 to 2013. Originally played at the Sun Bowl Stadium, the format of the game pitted 50 top-rated college seniors who played college or high school football in ...

All-Star game in El Paso, TX.

Professional career

Cincinnati Bengals

Wright was signed by the Bengals as an undrafted free agent on April 30, 2007. He was released on November 12, 2007.

Florida Tuskers

Wright was drafted by the

of the United Football League in the

UFL Premiere Season Draft The UFL "Premiere" Season Draft was the inaugural draft of the United Football League (UFL). The results of the draft were announced via press release on June 19, 2009. Among the players selected were those that participated in earlier workouts in ...

in 2009. He signed with the team on August 17.

Music

Wright is an independent hip rock artist in the band Orion's Belt as well as an independent solo artist.

Fashion

After attending Miami International School of Art and Design Wright began to design luxury shoes and accessories operating under a created private label. After initially designing luxurious women's shoes as merchandise for his band to separate the now defunct Empire band from the consistent pattern of T-shirt and bottle caps as the only options a band had to offer fans, Wright received warm reactions from the Houston,Texas affluent that he created the Empire Collection accessories brand and the M•L•A•M (My Life's A Movie) luxury brand under the HEART Portfolio.

Technology

After losing his phone on a way to a football meeting, Wright developed the Locator1 wireless paging system first to allow himself to stop being late to important meetings due to something as simple as a cell phone. Wright soon discovered that 113 phones are lost every minute and has since filed a patent and taken the prototype into a full scale final design separating the Locator1 series from applications and external attachments by allowing phones to be located and retrieved despite battery life or ring tone/vibration loudness. The Locator1 computerized cell phone case launched the creation of Empire Tech.

References

External links

Ohio Bobcats bioJust Sports Stats
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, T. J. 1983 births Living people People from Webster, Texas Players of American football from Texas American football cornerbacks Ohio Bobcats football players Cincinnati Bengals players Florida Tuskers players Jacksonville Sharks players