MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — As Mackensie Alexander absorbed the South Florida heat and humidity for a third training camp practice with the Miami Dolphins this week, he was reminded on Thursday of the hard work he had to endure both working with his parents in his youth and as a high school football standout in Immokalee in similar conditions.
Alexander and his twin brother, Mackenro, gathered everything from oranges to tomatoes on the fields of the rural Florida town just southeast of Fort Myers for his working-class parents, who were Haitian immigrants. It was commonplace for Alexander to have to wake up at 4 or 5 a.m. to spend the morning on the fields before getting ready for school.
It motivated him to see football as a way out of that lifestyle, and he made the most of his opportunities at Immokalee High, becoming a five-star recruit that played for Clemson and eventually became a second-round pick of the Minnesota Vikings in the 2016 NFL draft.
