When I get the sack, it’s like, “Whew, I got it.” But in between when I beat my guy and me getting to the quarterback, that’s probably the biggest rush right there.
Get up the field, get up the field. That’s what I did in college. Then I got here, and my first couple years, coach Blache and coach Jauron, we played the run. It was all about taking on your tackle and holding your gap, not necessarily getting up the field.
That helped me out a lot because I learned to do the things that were my weaknesses when I first came here. Now, we go back to what I’ve always done, and I still know how to play the run.
It was horrible (1). I was home. I went fourth round. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think I was the 104th player in the draft.
I used to think about it. Not anymore. Now, I want to be on the No. 1 defense and to dominate offenses and bring a championship to the Bears.
I’m an autograph guy. If I saw Gale Sayers, I’d want his autograph because I think he’s an unbelievable player.
Oh, man, I said some crazy things in college. My junior year going against Tennessee, I probably said something to the effect that they can’t block me.
Spurrier? Spurrier loved his players. He didn’t really care what anybody else thought outside that building.
In Florida, there’s this game, the Florida-Georgia All-Star Game. They take the 24 best players from Florida and the 24 best players from Georgia and they take you down to Universal Studios for three days. Gerard Warren, he came running up to me. He knew I was a Lawrence Taylor fan. He told me Lawrence Taylor’s here. “No way.” So, we go running through the crowd, and we see him and he’s with his kids. He’s just walking, and I’m like, “Wow.” I wanted to shake his hand, and he said, “No, I’m with my kids.” I’m like, “Man.” He kept walking, and I was saying, “I’m probably never going to see him again; I have to try one more time.” So, I tried it again, and he just went off, just started cursing and saying bad stuff. I was just staring like a deer in headlights, I guess. I felt just horrible. I couldn’t believe that he would actually say stuff like that.
I actually learned from it, because I’ll never do that now. I’ll always have time for fans. Always.
I’m from a small town — White Springs, Fla. — so everything I do now and everything I did back then was huge because I was the first person to ever do it. There would be a party going after the game and I could have 14 tackles — I played quarterback in high school, too, so I could throw for two touchdowns, run for three — and my mom would take me home. That’s just the way it was.
My dad, he was my coach in Little League, so after all the kids left, we would do up-downs, we would do bear crawls, we would do push-ups, sit-ups, whatever it was. I started playing when I was 4. Probably around 8, 9 everybody we had to run extra laps.
He used to make us run around the outside of the house. It would get to the point where we’d be crying running, and my mom would get us in the back door and give us something to drink, and then we’d have to go back out because she knew my dad would be mad.
In 10th grade, I made a D in Spanish. I was playing varsity basketball. They took me off the team.
In 8th grade, I got taken off the team for six games because I got into an argument with a teacher. You’re not supposed to do it.
My 11th-grade year, I came in about 2 o’clock in the morning, and my mom made me turn in my track uniform. Actually, that was my senior year, because in my 11th-grade year I won state in the discus and I was going to win again, but she didn’t care. She’s like, “No, turn in your stuff, because you know not to come in at 2.”
All I knew was farm and you wake up and do your chores. If my dad said, “We’re going to kill a hog in the morning so mom can cook it that night,” that’s what we did.
There’s nothing in this world that I love more than my son. Antonio. I would do anything for him. He’s an unbelievable kid. His birth was just, I don’t know–everytime I think about it, it kind of makes you want to cry.
(1) — The weekend he was drafted in 2002.
