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You may have seen it on Sunday morning before the football game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Washington Redskins, but on ESPN, they featured Darnell Dockett and his inner struggle with the loss of his parents as a teenager and how it affects him today.
It is well documented how his dad left him at age five, his mother was murdered when he was 13. After being reunited with his father, he died of cancer just a few months after that. Darnell got himself into all sorts of trouble in the meantime.
His uncle took him in and directed him to football. The rest led him to be one of the league's best defensive linemen for the Arizona Cardinals.
I have found him to be a fascinating person. Just on Twitter, you can see his different sides. There is the man trying his hardest to be a good father to his son. There is also the God-fearing man trying to make amends for all the mistakes he has made. Then there is the part of him that comes from his past, trying to get attention and cause trouble.
Regardless of what you may think about him as a person, you cannot help but feel for him when he talks about how there are things that he never got to talk about with his mother -- how he was when he was little, not telling her he loved her or how she felt when he was born.
He may have earned millions of dollars in his career and is able to take care of his family, but as he has mentioned numerous times before, I certainly would not have traded places with him in his life.
His story is nothing short of amazing.
Here is a portion of the video that I could find and embed. The ESPN video has embed code, but was not allowing the code to be copied:
Darnell Dockett on ESPN from Crew West Inc. on Vimeo.