'I was just trying to escape.' Bear Alexander made it USC thanks to father figure
LOS ANGELES — Keithian Alexander was just a few months old when his father, Keith, was arrested.
Keith Alexander already had six prior arrests. But this time, in May 2004, the punishment was especially severe: Keith was sentenced to 30 years on felony drug charges, leaving a young son to navigate life without a father.
Even still, as the years passed, Keithian kept a piece of his father close. Around Terrell, Texas, east of Dallas, folks knew Keith by a different name, one that would be passed down to his son, who would give it a different sort of notoriety. One day, every major college football coach in the country would know the name Bear Alexander.
At USC, his name alone has been a symbol of hope for a defense in desperate need of some. But "Bear" meant something entirely different in Terrell where he grew up. Out of respect for his father, who was granted early release in 2019, Keithian still carried the name proudly, never forgetting where he came from. But over the years, as "Little Bear" bounced from high school to high school, emerging as the 300-pound, blue-chip behemoth his father once hoped to become, it would serve as a constant reminder of what he was outrunning.
"I just wanted to live his name in a different way," Bear Alexander said recently. "Go out there, and
