Commitment is a powerful word. It means a promise to be loyal to someone or something. It is a word that brought Larry Leggett back to both his passions – football and music.
 
"If I commit to something, I have to see it through," says the hard-hitting junior safety from Bourbonnais, Illinois.
 
Admittedly, Leggett wasn't "all in" – one of the football team's 2015 mottos – on either football or music when he arrived at Oberlin as a freshman in the fall of 2013.
 
"I was out there, but I wasn't really all there. It was just something I was doing," he recalls about his freshman football season.
 
After quitting the team at the end of his first season, ironically, his path back to the field started from the sidelines. Working as a member of the chain gang when Oberlin opened up the Austin E. Knowlton Athletics Complex on September 20, 2014, against Wooster, he saw his former teammates struggle in a lopsided loss to the Scots. He remembered that word – commitment.
 
"I remember thinking I should be out there helping those guys – I had made a promise to them, the coaches, myself – everybody."
 
He played in the Yeomen's final six games, earning a starting spot in the defensive secondary for the final four. He finished seventh on the team with 41 tackles to go along with an interception.  In the seven games he has played this season, Leggett has made 35 tackles, including four for a loss, and has one fumble recovery.
 
Since returning to the Yeomen fulltime, he's developed into one of the leaders of the Oberlin defense and hopes one day to be a leader in the music industry as well.
 
He first became interested into music (and rapping specifically) as a junior in high school, but it wasn't until the winter of 2014 that he got back into it full-time after a chance meeting with Florida rap artist Dustin Hill.
 
Leggett shared with him his vision for starting his own record label and Hill encouraged him to follow that dream. OneHundro Music Creations (OHMC) officially launched in June of 2015 and, in just a few short months, Leggett has already signed a talented group of musicians and photographers under his label, including Oberlin classmate and baseball player Joe Greenberg. In total he has five artists and two photographers within the OHMC family.
 
"OHMC is a label for the artist made by an artist himself. I am attempting to help everybody. If one of the artists under my label blows up, then, by default, the others will as well."
 
With nearly 1,000 Twitter followers, Leggett has done well in promoting his music to the masses, but knows there will be doubters along the way.
 
"A few months ago I had one person reach out. He always ripped my music when I first started as a junior in high school. He wanted the link to our website, because he heard I make dope music now. I smiled to myself thinking, 'So now I make dope music'."
 
Leggett, who makes his own music under the name Lotus X, has seen his company grow due to the recognition he has received from his peers and others in the social landscape.
 
He shifted his focus to the production side of the industry after recording a verse with one of his artists, TC, but when the final version of their collaboration came out for release, Leggett's verse was not part of the track.
 
"I didn't make music for awhile after that, not until I got to Oberlin. Everyone thought the sound was great and when it was released without my beats – that hurt – that was the end for me."
 
With five artists from different geographical locations under the OHMC umbrella, it is Leggett's job to make the operation come together. He has artists from Florida, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Toronto.
 
"When I try to sign a new artist, I look to see what fan base they are appealing to and where they are at now. If I hit all these different areas, potential fans are all learning about OHMC. Our brand will continue to grow and spread to other areas across the country."
 
The number one goal for the label is to continue making as much music as possible, and Leggett is constantly stressing that to his artists. He believes to make it big as an artist, you need to do three key things – make music, grow music and be able to take criticism. 
 
Growing as a player and taking criticism are also major parts of the game of football.
 
"I have always been able to take a criticism well. If someone is going to take the time to critique you, it means you are doing something right. With both football and music you are always trying to get better everyday."
 
"Football has taught me a lot about being more receptive to criticism and how to handle adversity really well. We don't win a football game, I don't sign an artist, both events are adversity at their finest."
 
Leggett has enjoyed his return to the Yeomen under second-year Head Coach Jay Anderson.
 
"He wants to win maybe more than anybody else associated with the team. We win, he is jumping around like crazy. He has a vision to make the program better than it has been in a long time. We have a roster of guys who are all about both academics and football."
 
A double major in philosophy and law and society, Leggett plans to do a lot of work for the label over winter term and by the time he graduates in the spring of 2017, he hopes to have 15 performers and more than double his photography staff.
 
"OHMC has been my dream for four and half years - to make it into something. Now it is up to me to continue trying to make it into what I want it to be."

To read previous GoYeo Storyteller features, click here.