What I always remembered about playing Chicago, more so up there, we were always able to move the ball between the 20s and we felt like we were better than them for so many years, but yet we never capitalized on our opportunities once we got down there.
Anytime a franchise has struggled as much as the 49ers have and are starting to go upward, it’s a fun time to be a part of it. I did that in Baltimore, I did that in Seattle, I started it in Tampa. I’m familiar with the building process.
I’m really excited because I grew up just south of the Bay Area and get to play in front of my closest friends and family.
The story I tell about Baltimore is that when I was watching things in training camp the first time as a backup in this league, I was thinking, “Wow, this is a really good football team. If we just went to the NFC championship game in Tampa, this team is much better than that team.” I mean, it wasn’t close. I remember talking to John Lynch and Brad Culpepper when they were still in Tampa and saying, “Hey, we were pretty good last year, but nothing like this football team. They just don’t know how good they are.” And being around Shannon Sharpe and Rod Woodson and Tony Siragusa, those guys made me such a better player because I saw these Hall of Famers, especially Shannon and Rod, and how they prepared, how they studied, their leadership qualities. A light went off. I said, “This is a great football team; I can’t wait till I’m playing,” because I knew I’d be playing soon. I just knew. It was just a matter of time.
I never played not to lose the game, but I played to make sure that we won the game. There’s a big difference there.
Brian (1) and I don’t get along. I don’t think much of him, but he’s a heck of a football coach. A good motivator. And what he did with that team was he let us be who we are. He didn’t try to shape us the way he thought we should be. He just let that team kind of evolve and let the personalities come out. I’d say that team had as much personality as any team since the ’85 Bears.
I’ll tell you what, I’ve told Mike (2) and Jim Zorn and Gil Haskell, the three main offensive figures there in Seattle, that when I got to Seattle I thought I was a pretty good quarterback, but when I left Seattle, I felt I was a great quarterback, and it was because of them. I owe them so much.
Mom and stepfather were teachers. My stepdad was a football coach, a high school football coach. He stepped down when I was getting into school because he didn’t want that dynamic of the stepfather coaching the stepson.
My father was a retired federal parole agent who lived in the same city. So I had a really interesting dysfunction in my family that worked to my advantage.
I was a better basketball player than anything, but I would have to be a 6-4, 235-pound two guard. I couldn’t cover anybody. I could score on anybody. I just couldn’t cover anybody.
My parents kind of raised me not looking for things to be easy but looking to embrace the difficult times in life and working through them and getting better through them. To me, that’s the greatest thing they instilled in me.
I really think that I look at life maybe a little clearer than other people because I’ve battled some big-time adversity personally and professionally.
A virus attacked his heart. (3) It happens, they say, to a very, very small percentage of people in the world, and it happened to our son. By the time they diagnosed him, it had eaten away 99 percent of his heart. It was a miracle to get him on life support. He survived on life support for 40 days and then he got another systemic infection, and once you get a systemic infection on life support, you’re no longer a transplant candidate. So that’s why we had to take him off life support. Obviously, that was the hardest thing anybody could ever go through, but we know where he’s at. He’s waiting for us in heaven, and that’s what we’re excited about. Our family’s grown closer together and stronger through it. And I think we’ve had an impact on the people around us with the way we’ve handled getting through it.
If I had to sum it up, I’d say what defines people is what they achieve in life and what they overcome.
(1)-Baltimore Super Bowl coach Brian Billick.
(2)-Seattle coach Mike Holmgren.
(3)-His 5-year-old son Trevin, who died in 2003.
