Big things. We’re headed in the right direction right now, as far as winning ballgames and putting us in the position to be successful and get us to where we ultimately want to be, and that’s the Super Bowl.
I’m not a big talker. I’m more of a doer.
I bring athletic ability. I bring vision. I bring explosiveness. I bring excitement to the game. A childish love for the game. I love to go out and play and try to get interceptions and just do all the things a football player should be able to do.
Nickname in college was “ESPN3” because I always had a highlight or something like that at the University of Texas. They had an ESPN2, but they didn’t have a 3, so they thought I needed to have my own channel.
Lovie (1) calls me “The Interceptor” for being in the right spot.
The wind conditions were crazy that game. (2) We had never experienced anything like that. Throughout practice, we had worked on a little return-type scheme just in case field goals did drop short. I just went back, caught it in the wind, started up the sideline and made a spin move and made it out to the right and had a lot of blockers out there and just tried to take it in.
I couldn’t hear anything until the end. Just the roar of the crowd.
It’s a long way to run. A real long way to run.
The people at the game and family members who were watching on television were saying they were getting ready to do something else. People were on their way to the concession stand, getting ready to get popcorn, just thinking it was going to be another half–“I won’t miss anything”–to where people turned around and it was like, “Oh my God, it was one of the greatest plays ever.”
I always went out and did my thing and I always felt like football was an escape and used it as a positive.
I grew up in a single-parent family. My father passed from cancer when I was 4, so it was basically just us. I have two older brothers. My mom has bipolar disorder, so it makes it really difficult to get out and do the crowds and go to the football games and support you like that.
Not having that cookie-cutter-type “football dad” and “soccer mom” stuff, it was never our thing. I used to go out and play–and play exceptional–and I would come home and my big thing was just having my mom’s health and making sure she was OK. I would score four or five touchdowns in high school and I would tell her about it.
My mom got diagnosed in 1984. My mom and my brothers used to keep it from me until ’98 or something. I was almost out of high school.
She’s seen me play a handful of times, and each time, it’s special.
It forces you to grow up a lot faster than you want to. My mom was strict on me taking care of my business and being responsible. The neighborhood I was from, anything could happen. I lived on West 15th Street, inner city in Texarkana. It was either drugs or alcohol.
It was either the fights and the gangs or things like that.
In a support system like my mom and my brothers, they did a good job. It never appealed to me. I always knew it was a dead end. That was something I didn’t want to venture into. My goal was always higher–to go to college, to get a good job, to go to the NFL, to get a degree. Alcohol wasn’t in the plan.
I’m a semester short of a degree in education.
I bought a house and moved into a subdivision. It’s fairly nice. A lot of my neighbors hadn’t had a chance to meet me.
They see my car parked out front or a lot of my big teammates coming in and out, but they never get a chance to come over and meet and greet. So, Halloween came, and at any given time, there were 20-25 kids and parents in my yard.
I save all the footballs. I have a lot of them. I know I have more than 20 as far as interceptions and game balls just from here. I just pile them up in my dining room. I’ll find a good place for them.
This is a football city and the people here deserve a championship team. I mean, it’s been a long time since they’ve won a Super Bowl here.
– – –
1 – Bears coach Lovie Smith.
2 – Against San Francisco this season, when he ran back a missed field goal for a record 108-yard touchdown.
