STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Reidgee Dimanche has spent Sunday mornings throughout his football career on Facetime with his older brother.
 
Jayson, a four-year standout linebacker at Southern Illinois, who went on to enjoy a five-year NFL career, critiques his younger brother's game film.
 
"I send him good plays and bad plays and we just talked about it," the younger Dimanche said.
 
As Reidgee now prepares to enter his redshirt junior season at Stony Brook, he uses his brother's journey as the fuel that drives him toward a professional football career of his own.
 
Jayson had a strong college career, one that Reidgee vividly remembers watching.
 
"Back in middle school, my whole family would get in the car and we would drive the 17 hours to Illinois to watch him play," Dimanche recalled. "It was really nice getting to go there and being around the stadium."
 
After wrapping up his college career in 2012, Jayson signed a professional contract with the Cincinnati Bengals. He made the 53-man roster out of training camp. It was a memorable moment, one that was captured on HBO's "Hard Knocks." When Jayson returned home for a ceremony to celebrate the occasion at their high school — where Reidgee was a freshman on the football team — something clicked.
 
"As a freshman coming in and seeing that, I had my eyes wide open," Reidgee said. "I knew that I could do that too. I knew there was a very good chance of that."
 
During his redshirt sophomore season with the Seawolves, Reidgee demonstrated his upside.
 
He had 87 tackles in 2019, one behind team leader Augie Contressa. Reidgee picked up 10.5 tackles for loss and a pair of sacks, anchoring a strong Seawolves defense.

He recently was named second-team Preseason All-CAA.

The Hamilton, N.J., native credits his brother for assisting him with the technique that helped him have a career-best year a season ago.
 
"He'll tell me what to do with my hands and my feet on certain plays. He'll tell me what to do in certain situations," Reidgee said. "He has just really helped me out."
 
Reidgee also got himself more acquainted with the playbook, something that the upperclassmen had pushed him to do entering last season. Learning the ins and outs the playbook off the field led to a strong performance on it.
 
"The older guys were always getting into my head that I needed to get into the playbook," he said. "Having a very good understanding of it helped me a lot and our coaches put me in great positions to be able to make tackles."
 
Now an upperclassmen himself, Reidgee has made it a priority to pass on what he has learned from both his brother and his teammates to the younger players on the team. The group of linebackers is willing to learn, he said, and he enjoys going through the playbook and helping them out when necessary.
 
"I really feel like I'm doing something important," he said. "Some of the guys text me after meetings just wanting to talk about certain plays. When we had Zoom meetings during quarantine, guys wanted to hop on a separate Zoom to go over plays and ask questions. It felt good being able to be the guy to help them."
 
To prepare for the upcoming spring season, Dimanche relied heavily on his resources at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. He focused on keeping his strength up, using his bar and squat rack at home to stay on top of his workout regimen. The team sent each other texts and Snapchats, talking about their workouts and what they were doing to stay in shape.
 
As Reidgee's redshirt junior season gets closer, he has one main goal. The conference recognition, the awards and the attention is nice, he saud, but the linebacker has his eyes on one thing.
 
"I want to get a championship with this team," he said. "That's all I'm worried about."