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I was team captain, and my friends asked me to find out when
the coach would make final cuts. She cut me for asking.
Suddenly with nothing to do after school, I went to watch my little brother play the U.S. version of football, entirely unpopular in the small town whereI was growing up in Canada. A few practices later, the coach asked
me to play, and it became a sport I did each year.
Where I come from, the most likely path is working as a “Rig Pig,”
in the oil fields.
We’re in awe of the stadium crowd; 112,000 fans. Our games draw no more than seven people willing to watch us play in the snow.
WSU offers me a full scholarship, and then 30 other
NCAA schools follow their lead.
I have offers from the best football programs in the country.
I choose WSU; I know so little about NCAA football that I don’t know they are dead last in the PAC 10 conference.
I felt loyal to the fact that they believed in me first. And my family was so poor they couldn’t buy me an airline ticket; I’d be riding my scooter to college. Washington State was the closest.
Like the scene in Dumb and Dumber, I load up my backpack and ride my 50cc scooter to the United States, right through the snow-covered Rockies, with $33 to my name. When I arrive on campus, I find out my scholarship and housing won’t start for a month.
So I sleep in the team locker room every night for three weeks, secretly. Teammates think I’m the first to arrive every morning. But one day the captain figures it out and offers me his couch. We’re friends to this day.
I start every game as a freshman, and we go from worst to first.
Two monumental things happen during my Junior year of college.
(I’d transferred to BYU).
I’m living on a $380 a month scholarship. My rent eats up $250 of it.
And since I am eating 5000 calories, a day…. scrounging every free meal I can get.
I get an idea.
I find a 5 bedroom home for sale. Of course, I don’t have the money or credit to buy it. But my friend’s dad had money, and he was a big BYU football fan.
I entice him to breakfast with sideline passes to our next game, and I pitch him. If he’ll co-sign and put up the down payment, I’ll pay the mortgage by renting out the rooms and fix it up. After college, we’d
sell it and split the profits.
He says yes.
The rest of that year, I’m a full-time student, full-time athlete, and I work a 20 hour a week job at the campus carpenter shop to learn how to fix up a place. And at night, I renovate the house.
I’m busy, but I live rent-free and make an extra $1k a month.
At the end of my junior year, I sell the house for a $120k profit.
My share is $60k, a crazy amount to me; Far more money than
my parents ever made in a few years combined.
After college, I get signed by the
N.Y. Jets.
I’m walking out on the NFL field in a Jets helmet, my emotions
running high, and I remember…
The second monumental thing that happens my Junior year is I meet my wife Candace. (We’ve been married for 20 years and have 7 children together).
After College, I sign a free agent mini camp deal with the N.Y. Jets.
I’m walking out on the NFL practice field in a Jets helmet, my emotions running high, and I remember…
I remember the
day on my steps
back home in
Canada in 8th grade,
crying in my
mom’s lap…
I remember my mom
looking me in the
eyes and saying,
I remember the day on my steps back home in
Canada in 8th grade, crying in my mom’s lap…
I remember my mom looking me in the eyes and saying,
There’s no way I could have played football, made it to the U.S., gotten a scholarship, met my wife, created the relationships
I have today… if I hadn’t been cut in the 8th grade.
People call me an optimist, but I’m not an optimist.
