Basketball Preview: Renaldo Woolridge as swiperboy

Tennessee basketball forward Renaldo Woolridge has made a name for himself since arriving at UT last year. The self-proclaimed “lyricist” has been writing music since he was a kid, but only recently has he shown off his talent as “Swiperboy.”

“I made probably six or seven songs total when I was in high school,” Woolridge said. “So a calendar year ago, I only had six songs, and now I’m on YouTube.”

Woolridge did not just appear on YouTube; he was the 69th most-searched video on the site for the months of September and October for the “Eric Berry 4 Heisman” video. Woolridge wrote the rap, and once word got around campus, the music and film department approached him to do a video for the song.

“I had been making songs about a lot of players, my teammates in high school and players in the NBA,” Woolridge said. “I had heard a lot of people saying that ‘Eric Berry’ would be catchy, and I talked to the music and film department, and they said we should work together and do something. And they said they wanted to make a music video. So I’m thinking it’s going to be a little camcorder, and I walk in and they have so much professional stuff. It was cool.”

So how did the basketball star, ranked the 11th-best small forward in the 2008 class by Rivals.com, come up with his rapping name, Swiperboy? It came from his hometown of North Hollywood, Calif.

“Swiperboy is like a California, Los Angeles thing,” Woolridge said. “Basically it’s a teenager who does it all. You know, a basketball player, a ladies man, all around. It’s catchy, so I kept it.”

All rappers have detractors regardless of their success, and Woolridge is no different. Many feel Woolridge’s time would be better spent practicing basketball, but he said rap doesn’t take away from basketball.

“They have to take a second to understand,” he said. “On the outside looking in, I put myself in their shoes, and I can see that if you listen to all of the stuff that I have out that I’m spending too much time doing it, but I have a mobile studio. I use my own computer and a few mixing things, so I can record on the road. I can take it anywhere. It takes five minutes to mix it, and then I have a song. So it’s really not very much time.”

Woolridge’s teammates are very supportive of his other craft. He says while at first they did not take it seriously, now they respect him for it. Even head coach Bruce Pearl appreciates his rapping. Woolridge wrote Pearl’s now infamous Volscar’s rap last year.

“He cracks us all up with it,” forward Steven Pearl said. “We’ll all be in the locker room dying laughing when he raps on the spot about a teammate. We’re all real supportive of him.”

As for the future of Swiperboy, Woolridge hopes to leave Tennessee with a legacy in basketball rather than in rapping. He averaged 8.8 minutes and 2.6 points per game last year as a true freshman, playing in 32 of UT’s 34 games.

“I want to be known for my basketball skills. My plan is to hopefully get drafted and play in the NBA,” Woolridge said. “But I want to be the first-ever NBA player to have his own record label and be rapping mainstream and I want to be a trendsetter for other athletes who feel like they have other talents.”