DEBBIE JACOB
EVERYONE who learns that I am an NFL football fan always expresses surprise, if not utter shock. They feel I would scorn such a rough sport. But I am no different from all those people who find heroes in sports.
I enjoy stories of young men who defy the odds and overcome the naysayers predicting, 'You will never make it in this sport or in life.' I search everywhere - in schools, in our prisons and in a sport that I watch for entertainment and upliftment - for those young men strong enough to overcome adversity.
Occasionally, young men who shatter stereotypes and instill pride in a place overlooked or scorned by everyone else emerge to surprise us all. Joe Burrow, the 25-year-old quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals football team, did just that. His remarkable poise proved inspirational.
Burrow didn't cave when universities passed him up for scholarships or when Ohio State University (my alma mater) benched him for talent deemed better than his. Instead, he transferred to Louisiana State University where he won a national championship, broke football records and won the Heisman Trophy, the biggest honour in American university football.
He used his Heisman speech to highlight how poverty in The Plains and in Athens county, where he is from, runs about twice the national average. His speech brought donations of $650,000 for the Athens food bank.
My home state of Ohio was never considered one of those cool states like California or New York. Our state symbol, the buckeye, rendered us as worthless nuts because there's nothing you can do with a buckeye. But Burrow found pride in his roots.
When the NFL professional draft rolled around, sportscasters called the Cincinnati Bengals football team pathetic and warned Burrow to avoid that team and that place. Burrow went to Cincinnati.
Early in his first professional season, Burrow suffered a horrific knee injury and disappeared into physical therapy. In this, his second year, he took his Cincinnati team to the pinnacle of success, moving a team that hadn't succeeded in 30 years from last place the previous year to the coveted Super Bowl this year. He changed the culture of a team and a state.
Burrow used rejection to motivate himself, and he made the most of every chance beginning with his starting quarterback position at Louisiana State University. Instead of being angry and doubtful, he emerged as bold and confident.
When Burrow got injured in his first year of professional football, Cincinnati Bengals fans donated money to the Athens food bank in multiples of nine - $9, $90, $900 - because Burrow wears the number nine jersey. In less than one week, the Athens's food bank received more donations than its annual budget.
Joe Burrow channelled adversity into a swag. He gave meaning and purpose to his life instead of giving up. That's a hard feat to accomplish, but we witness such transformations in sports where heroes often emerge from the most downtrodden places. Those places have a history too, forgotten many times as other pl
