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blstoker
Bill Bergen for HoF!
RICARDO LOCKETTE
WIDE RECEIVER / SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
It was like being in a car accident. Everything was fast, then it was suddenly slow motion. I was running down on punt coverage against Dallas last season, like I’ve done a thousands times before. I pushed off on my blocker. I turned to my left. I saw a white jersey.
Car crash.
I hit the ground, and I heard the sound you never want to hear. When you have a brush with death, people always say you see a light. Well, I didn’t see a light. I heard a noise. You know the noise I’m talking about — like when you were a little kid, bored at a family party, and you ran your finger around the top of your auntie’s wine glass. It’s that weird, far-off ringing sound.
It was terrifying. I couldn’t hear the crowd. I couldn’t hear my teammates. That’s when I knew it was bad.
I was thinking, O.K., get up. Just get up.
But I couldn’t get up. My whole body was numb. I couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t move my head. I couldn’t talk.
All I could do was move my eyes. I was thinking:
Am I deaf?
Am I paralyzed?
What is going on?
Am I about to die?
Please, somebody come help me.
In that moment, I was completely helpless. You know what it felt like? Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? Imagine you wake up from a dream early in the morning, and you can hear everybody in your house making breakfast and talking and laughing, but you can’t move. No matter how hard you try, you can’t actually get up. You’re stuck in between being asleep and being awake.
So you just lay there, trapped inside your own body while the world goes on around you. That’s exactly what it felt like, except I wasn’t in bed. I was at the 50-yard-line of Cowboys Stadium, surrounded by 90,000 fans.
I said to myself, “Lord just help me. I know that I’m here for a reason. If you help me off this ground, I’ll change lives.”
It was the second time I had ever said that to myself.
I’ve never spoken about this before, but the first time I made that promise was when I was in college. I was talking to a young lady when her boyfriend came up and pulled a gun on me. It was a revolver, so I could see the bullets in the chamber. I didn’t know whether I was going to live or die.
In that moment when I was looking at the chamber, I said to myself, “Lord, please help me. I promise I’ll change lives.”
The guy put the gun down and we talked it out.
At Cowboys Stadium, I found myself asking God to save me again.
It’s crazy what matters to you when you’re in that situation. Cars, jewelry, big houses, Super Bowls? It all seems so meaningless. I came up from nothing. Undrafted, practice squad, released a bunch of times, then I made it to three Super Bowls in a row. I have a saying, kind of like a mantra, “A hundred dollars and a dream.” When I came to Seahawks training camp as an undrafted rookie, all I had to my name was a gym bag full of clothes, my Fort Valley State receivers’ gloves, and a hundred bucks.
I used to want a black Lambo and a seven-room house. That’s what I dreamed about.
Now, all of a sudden, I can’t move. And the only thing that mattered to me in the entire world was being able to see my family again, to hold my kids in my arms.
Then I remembered something that broke my heart. My daughter was in the crowd. It was her 10th birthday. She wanted to come down to Dallas to see me play. Now she was watching her daddy lying on the field, surrounded by teammates and trainers.
(Continued)
WIDE RECEIVER / SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
It was like being in a car accident. Everything was fast, then it was suddenly slow motion. I was running down on punt coverage against Dallas last season, like I’ve done a thousands times before. I pushed off on my blocker. I turned to my left. I saw a white jersey.
Car crash.
I hit the ground, and I heard the sound you never want to hear. When you have a brush with death, people always say you see a light. Well, I didn’t see a light. I heard a noise. You know the noise I’m talking about — like when you were a little kid, bored at a family party, and you ran your finger around the top of your auntie’s wine glass. It’s that weird, far-off ringing sound.
It was terrifying. I couldn’t hear the crowd. I couldn’t hear my teammates. That’s when I knew it was bad.
I was thinking, O.K., get up. Just get up.
But I couldn’t get up. My whole body was numb. I couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t move my head. I couldn’t talk.
All I could do was move my eyes. I was thinking:
Am I deaf?
Am I paralyzed?
What is going on?
Am I about to die?
Please, somebody come help me.
In that moment, I was completely helpless. You know what it felt like? Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? Imagine you wake up from a dream early in the morning, and you can hear everybody in your house making breakfast and talking and laughing, but you can’t move. No matter how hard you try, you can’t actually get up. You’re stuck in between being asleep and being awake.
So you just lay there, trapped inside your own body while the world goes on around you. That’s exactly what it felt like, except I wasn’t in bed. I was at the 50-yard-line of Cowboys Stadium, surrounded by 90,000 fans.
I said to myself, “Lord just help me. I know that I’m here for a reason. If you help me off this ground, I’ll change lives.”
It was the second time I had ever said that to myself.
I’ve never spoken about this before, but the first time I made that promise was when I was in college. I was talking to a young lady when her boyfriend came up and pulled a gun on me. It was a revolver, so I could see the bullets in the chamber. I didn’t know whether I was going to live or die.
In that moment when I was looking at the chamber, I said to myself, “Lord, please help me. I promise I’ll change lives.”
The guy put the gun down and we talked it out.
At Cowboys Stadium, I found myself asking God to save me again.
It’s crazy what matters to you when you’re in that situation. Cars, jewelry, big houses, Super Bowls? It all seems so meaningless. I came up from nothing. Undrafted, practice squad, released a bunch of times, then I made it to three Super Bowls in a row. I have a saying, kind of like a mantra, “A hundred dollars and a dream.” When I came to Seahawks training camp as an undrafted rookie, all I had to my name was a gym bag full of clothes, my Fort Valley State receivers’ gloves, and a hundred bucks.
I used to want a black Lambo and a seven-room house. That’s what I dreamed about.
Now, all of a sudden, I can’t move. And the only thing that mattered to me in the entire world was being able to see my family again, to hold my kids in my arms.
Then I remembered something that broke my heart. My daughter was in the crowd. It was her 10th birthday. She wanted to come down to Dallas to see me play. Now she was watching her daddy lying on the field, surrounded by teammates and trainers.
(Continued)