There are two unteachable, unchangeable traits Diamonte Tucker-Dorsey possesses.

One has catapulted the linebacker into an emerging, prominent and boisterous role commanding James Madison’s defense. The other nearly prevented his college football career from beginning entirely.

“There’s been a lot of great players at all the different positions who were a little bit undersized,” Dukes coach Curt Cignetti said. “And if there was ever a unit where we needed people to step up, it’s our defensive unit because of how many guys we lost in the previous season and how many got hurt in fall ball. … But he’s got a lot of energy and he’s got a voice, too. People listen to him.”

The 5-foot-10 Tucker-Dorsey, a fourth-year junior, earned a starting gig for the first time in his career this spring. He piled up 12 tackles, a tackle for a loss and a quarterback hurry in non-conference wins over Morehead State and Robert Morris. And more importantly to JMU, he’s wasted no time becoming the reliable kingpin in the middle of the Dukes’ defense.

They’ve had others fill that duty in recent years like Dimitri Holloway, Kyre Hawkins and Gage Steele, but they were all at least 6-feet tall. Holloway, a team captain last season, is 6-foot-2.

“You’ve just got to be mentally tough for this game,” Tucker-Dorsey said. “And a lot of people don’t have the mentality I approach it with. So, size matters, but it only matters on paper.

“If you’ve got to go in the game and go against me, you’ve got to show that you’re better than me. You got to break my will before I break yours and I don’t think anybody could do that to me, so I think that’s how I persevere and have overcome a lot of things.”

Said Holloway, now preparing to start a career with the Ottawa Redblacks of the Canadian Football League, about his former teammate: “He’s got that dog mentality and I saw it when he first came in. You always know players that have it and the players that don’t, with the way they approach the game and the way they get on themselves about the game, so it was one of those situations where he knew his height and weight, but he never let it affect him or get in the way of what he wanted to do.”

Tucker-Dorsey’s reputation for a no-nonsense attitude on the field began when he was playing for state power Lake Taylor in Norfolk.

He racked up 115 tackles as a junior for the Titans.

“Here, he knocked off like six or seven helmets in different games off of running backs,” Lake Taylor coach Hank Sawyer said. “At first, I thought the first kid maybe had on a loose-fitted helmet, but Tuck kept doing it and I kept thinking, ‘This kid can pack a mighty punch.’”

Tucker-Dorsey said: “I was just popping off the tape. I was knocking helmets off, covering guys, running to the ball and I was the best in the area, but I would see others get their [scholarship] offers, and I was like ‘What’s going on?’”

And it’s not like the 757 isn’t heavily recruited or Lake Taylor wasn’t a school college coaches were flocking to.

In Tucker-Dorsey’s time with the Titans, current Dukes’ safety Wayne Davis was a four-star prospect headed to Ohio State and had offers from other marquee programs like Auburn, Clemson, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Offensive lineman Darnell Ewell was going to Notre Dame. Defensive back Keyvone Bruton signed with Temple.

Holloway, a product of Heritage High School in Newport News, said he had heard how good Tucker-Dorsey was in high school and believes the only characteristic that slowed Tucker-Dorsey’s recruiting was the lack of size.

“I even took him to a couple of schools like Wake Forest,” Sawyer said. “They liked his film and film sometimes doesn’t show the size of the kid, and then when they saw his size [in person], they kind of backed off. But I’ve always had a philosophy that bigger ain’t better. I want to play the best kids.”

Without any offers into the early spring of his junior year, Tucker-Dorsey began making alternate plans.

Sawyer said he told his linebacker to stay patient because eventually a school would provide an opportunity. But Tucker-Dorsey wanted a backup plan just in case.

“It would’ve been a real job,” Tucker-Dorsey said. “I was smart, so I got a certification in welding while I was in high school. And what’s actually crazy is when I came up [to JMU] to report, I had a job offer at a welding place in Norfolk, so I had to tell ‘em I was going to school.”

By the time Tucker-Dorsey got his offer from JMU it was April of his junior year, he said. It was Davis who connected Tucker-Dorsey with the Dukes. Former JMU assistant Bryan Stinespring recruited Davis and Lake Taylor, according to Tucker-Dorsey, and invited him for a junior-day visit to Harrisonburg where he gave the linebacker his first scholarship offer.

“It was like, ‘Phew, this is a big relief off of me,’” Tucker-Dorsey said.

Others followed JMU’s lead and by the time he signed with the Dukes, most CAA programs had offered and so did a few Group of Five schools. Tucker-Dorsey tallied 122 tackles, seven sacks and two interceptions as a senior for Lake Taylor. He was a Virginia High School League 4A all-state choice and the Conference 17 Defensive Player of the Year.

Just because he was thrilled to be heading to JMU, doesn’t mean the Dukes were ready to use Tucker-Dorsey early in his career.

He was a scout-team player in his first two seasons on campus, buried behind bigger and more experienced linebackers on the depth chart.

“It threw him for a loop because all through recruiting they usually tell you that you’re going to get a lot of playing time,” Holloway said, “it’ll be substantial, this and that, but I know one thing Tuck had to get used to was not being the guy anymore.”

Tucker-Dorsey said he also had trouble grasping the college playbook, which was much more complex than what Lake Taylor ran. And when players don’t know the playbook in college, they’re usually ticketed for a Saturday role on the bench and a daily role during the week on the scout team.

“It wasn’t a walk in the park,” Tucker-Dorsey said.

Through those early struggles, he often leaned on his longtime buddy Davis and especially once Davis left Ohio State and transferred to JMU.

And Tucker-Dorsey always tried his hardest to know what the Dukes were doing on defense. He and Holloway said they’d spend extra time together studying after training camp practices. Holloway would do the tutoring and Tucker-Dorsey would listen.

“When you come in as a freshman during your first camp and you go 30 days straight with 10 to 12 hours a day, it was crazy,” Tucker-Dorsey said. “And I was going through so much mentally and he was a helping hand. He would help me when he could. We were roommates at one point and he was just helping me every night going through the playbook and to keep my head on straight and he’d say that everything would come.”

Holloway believed in Tucker-Dorsey’s talent, and thought if he’d learn the playbook then he could boost JMU’s defense immensely.

“I would speak football to him and he would just kind of look at me in confusion at first,” Holloway said. “And I would just be like, ‘Well, that’s normal football talk, Tuck, you’ve got to get that.’ So it was little stuff like that, but we spent countless hours together and if anybody knows how our camp was, we only had so much time to ourselves. But even when we were back home and it’s 10 o’clock at night, he’d come in there, get at least an hour of work of just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

When former JMU coach Mike Houston and his staff departed for East Carolina, Tucker-Dorsey understood he’d have to learn a new defense with Cignetti and Dukes defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman in charge.

Tucker-Dorsey said he made it a point to do so and impressed them early. He was elevated to Holloway’s backup and contributed as part of JMU’s nickel package in 2019. Last season, Tucker-Dorsey had 32 tackles, three tackles for loss and a sack, and his performance provided him the confidence he needed to jump into the job he has now.

“Definitely much better than sitting on that bench,” Tucker-Dorsey said with a laugh.

It’s positive to start and contribute on the field, but it’s even more responsibility to lead effectively and Tucker-Dorsey is doing so.

“I feel like he’s really stepped up as a big leader on this defense,” Dukes senior cornerback Wesley McCormick said.

Said senior safety MJ Hampton: “He reminds me of Dimitri.”

Tucker-Dorsey said he learned he could lead when he was playing for Lake Taylor. He looked up to Davis, who was a grade ahead, and those two handled the tasks of leading there.

“He was an advocate for other players on the team who were waiting for their turn,” Sawyer said of Tucker-Dorsey. “He was a vocal leader, but more importantly he led by example and by the way he played. He understood the process here of what we were trying to do.”

Tucker-Dorsey said being in that position with the Titans, a team with multiple Division I-bound and college-bound players, has stuck with him and is aiding him this spring in a magnified spot with the Dukes.

“My role has changed a lot,” Tucker-Dorsey said. “I’m replacing one of the biggest leaders on the defense – the voice – so I’ve just tried to take on that role little by little. I’m not trying to be too pushy, but I understand I’m replacing a leader, so I just had to bring those qualities and I’ve tried to incorporate that.”

Holloway said he’s proud of his former understudy.

“I literally am grinning from ear to ear,” Holloway said, “because I know where he came from. The same Tuck that had no clue about what the defense was and what was going on out there. That same Tuck is in a starting position now, leading, so it’s like, man, life works if you actually put in the work.”

Said Cignetti: “I do believe that the sky is the limit for him.”