Albert Haynesworth: Letter To My Younger Self

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http://www.theplayerstribune.com/albert-haynesworth-letter-to-my-younger-self/

Letter to My Younger Self
ALBERT HAYNESWORTH
CONTRIBUTOR


Dear 14-year-old Albert,

I know your knees hurt so bad right now that you can’t sit in the car for more than 20 minutes at a time, but don’t freak out about it — it’s just growing pains. What did you think was going to happen drinking two gallons of whole milk a week? You start high school this fall, and you’re just going to keep getting bigger. You’re going to grow five inches over the summer and when you show up for track practice on the first day of school, all your buddies are going to look at you like, “Dude, you got tall.”

You’re going to grow to 6’6”, an inch taller than your hero Reggie White. And like him, you are going to be an athletic monster. During a playoff game your junior season, you’re going to run down the field on punt coverage and stick out your arm to wrap-tackle the returner, only you’re going to clothesline him with so much force that he wraps around your arm and does a backflip. The crowd is going to react like it’s pro wrestling. Don’t worry, the kid will be okay. This is going to be your first experience of playing with so much adrenaline that you’re straddling the edge. It will feel like an insane kind of control. You need to learn how to reign this in. More on that later.

Haynesworth-Getty-2.jpg



In the state championship game, you’re going to rack up 15 tackles as a defensive tackle. Colleges will start recruiting you hard after that, and things are going to start happening very fast. Remember that you’re just a kid from a town of 4,000 in Hartsville, South Carolina. Because when you get to the University of Tennessee, you’re going to feel like a very small fish in a very big pond. This feeling won’t last, but it’s going to feel that way for a while. You’re going to have some very lonely moments.

During your freshman year, Coach Fulmer will introduce you to a psychologist who will become one of your best friends. He’ll listen to your problems when you’re struggling. You’ll go tubing and water skiing on his boat and hang out with him all throughout college. He will come to your house and meet your mom. I know this sounds crazy, Albert. But do not trust this man. As soon as you decide to declare for the NFL Draft, he will say, “You know, I do some investing on the side. I’ve been helping other guys out for years. You should let me handle your money.”

You’ve heard the horror stories about guys buying a fleet of Rolls Royces and gold chains and going broke. You’re not an idiot. You know you should invest your money, and this guy is showing you a business card that says “Morgan Stanley” and a multi-million dollar portfolio. I know he seems trustworthy. I know he seems smart. But if you let your friend handle your finances, he’s going to take millions from you.

Are you paying attention now?

Haynesworth-Jim-Rev-Pull.jpg



Remember when you were 8 years old, watching an NFL game with your mom, and you turned to her and said, “That’s what I’m going to do some day”? Well, it’s going to be a lot more complicated than just a simple game. When you get drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the first round of the 2002 Draft, you’re going to come into camp thinking you got this. Sure, you only benched as much as some of the safeties at the combine, but you can run. You have that short-burst playing power.

You’re going to be a better athlete than 85 percent of the offensive linemen you’re up against. You’re going to run over guys in practice. But for some reason, when Sunday comes around, they’re going to do just enough to stop you. Because they have the brains. Year by year, you’re going to figure this out and start picking up little tricks.

In 2006, everything is going to change, for better or worse. By now, you will fully understand that to survive in an NFL game, you have to work yourself up into a kind of insanity. This is what it takes. Before games, your coaches will essentially pimp you out. They’re going to use humiliation and fear as a means to make you play as hard as humanly possible.

One of them will literally show you a scene from the movie Deliverance during a mid-week meeting in order to demonstrate just how badly the opponent is going to own you. You will love this, in a way. It will make you go absolutely nuts. The NFL culture will brainwash you into a certain mentality: “My opponent is trying to take food out on my mouth, and I want to embarrass him in front of his family. It disgusts me to be on the same field as him.”

You will approach games as war. I don’t mean that as a cliche. There will be many times where you feel like your opponent is trying to steal your entire life. In October 2006, you’ll be playing against the Dallas Cowboys, rushing against the guard like you have thousands of times before, when you get your knee clipped from behind. You’ll get up, furious, and see that it’s the center, Andre Gurode, who hit you. This is an unspoken rule among lineman. You don’t do it. But maybe it was an accident. You say, “What the hell was that? You ain’t man enough to block me straight up?”

“Nah,” he’ll say, “I’m trying to put your ass out.”

Haynesworth-1-AP.jpg



This will be one of the most significant moments of your life. You will go the sideline, and your vision will be red. You will be madder than you’ve ever been in your entire life. A switch will get flipped. You will not be able to control the monster, and you’ll step way over the line for the first time. I know this will seem impossible to you — but you will stomp on Andre’s head, cutting him above his eye and causing him to get 30 stitches.

After that moment, you will never be looked at the same way again. And the complicated thing is, this is going to help you on the football field. Even as the media and the league is vilifying you, the irony is that this mistake will put you on the radar of everybody in the NFL. Guys will think you’re crazy. When you return from suspension and you play against the Eagles, an offensive lineman’s helmet will come off at the end of a play, and he will look at you scared shitless, like, “Hey Albert, you OK? Just relax.”

Guys will be terrified of you. They’ll shy away from your side of the field. And that’s where things are going to get really murky. On one hand, people expect you to flip a switch and be a killer when you’re on the field, and on the other hand, they expect you to be able to instantly switch it off when it’s over. Should you embrace the bad guy? Is that who you want to be, even if it means success in the short-term? I still don’t know if I have the answer for you, Albert. What I know is that you’ll make back-to-back Pro Bowls in 2007 and 2008, and you’ll start to believe that you’re unstoppable. That you can do anything. That’s when you’re going to do something really dumb.

If nothing else, listen to me on this, Albert: Do not leave the Tennessee Titans. Your defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz is a mastermind. No matter how much I tell you this, you’ll probably never realize it until your career is over, but it’s true. You’re like a system quarterback. You thrive in a very specific scheme. When you hit free agency, the Washington Redskins are going to offer you $100 million. Everyone will talk about this (they won’t talk about the fact that most of that money is not guaranteed, or that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offered you $135 million). The $100 million will become a huge burden. Take less and stay in Tennessee where you belong.

Haynesworth-Coach-Rev-Pull.jpg



Oh, when you get on that first phone call with Dan Snyder and the organization in Washington, it’ll be all good. “We want you to play just like you did in Tennessee, Albert. We’re going to let you loose and destroy the Giants, Cowboys and Eagles. That’s your job.”

Then during your first OTA, you’re going to be introduced to a different brand of football. I can already see you rolling your damn eyes. How can football be different? I’m a defensive lineman. Well, football in Washington versus football in Tennessee was like the difference between a general physician and a cardiologist. Both doctors. One is just a little more sophisticated.

People are going to be all over you for your contract, and you’re going to feel really frustrated. You’re going to do some dumb things. But what people aren’t going to see is Mike Shanahan calling you into his office and saying, “Albert, we just want you to eat up space. All we want you to do is grab the center and let the linebackers run free.”

You’re going to look at this famous NFL head coach in total disbelief and say, “You want to pay me $100 million to grab the center?”

And he’s going to say, with a straight face, “Albert, if you have more than one sack this season, I’m going to be pissed.”

The last thing you’ll say before walking out of the office is, “Can’t you just pay someone $300,000 a year to do that?”

You will lose your passion for football in Washington, and it will be impossible to get back. In retirement, you will discover that your financial advisor has squandered most of the money you made with the Redskins, and he will be under investigation for financial fraud. Thankfully, you will have discovered a passion for restoring houses and buying property during your offseasons. You’ll even open up a BurgerFi restaurant in Knoxville (I know you love burgers). Instead of being on the beach in the Bahamas, like most people probably think you are, you will be hanging drywall in a condo in South Carolina. And you know what? That will make you extremely happy.

You are just a kid from a town of 4,000, and you made it out like your hero Reggie White. You did what you told mamma you were going to do. The same traits that got you to the NFL are the same traits that got you into trouble. You have to live with that. I am proud of what you’ve accomplished.

Remember to enjoy it a little bit,

Albert
 

12intheBox

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That was pretty cool. Never cared much for him, but I have to tip my cap to the guy - that seemed pretty real.
 

RamsJunkie

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LMAO so Fisher was making his guys watch the rape scene from deliverance to get them fired up??

deliverance-remake-myself-sebber.jpg
 

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LMAO so Fisher was making his guys watch the rape scene from deliverance to get them fired up??

Then there was Joe Vitt using the movie 'Gladiator' to get the Rams amped up.

http://www.clanram.com/forums/f11/vitt-montgomery-deserves-credit-gladiator-idea-12423/

Vitt: Montgomery deserves the credit for "Gladiator" idea
By Jim Thomas
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Tuesday, Nov. 01 2005

A movie buff, he's not. In the truth-be-told category, interim head coach Joe
Vitt said it was not his idea to show film clips from the movie "Gladiator" to
the Rams last Saturday.

"The last movie I saw was 'Godfather III,' and that's the truth," Vitt said.
"I'm just not a movie guy. Wilbert Montgomery brought ('Gladiator') to me last Wednesday. He had kind of cut the thing up and put it together."

Montgomery is the Rams' running backs coach.

"We're always looking for things to kind of motivate our guys on Saturday,"
Vitt said. "The week before it was the Jimmy Valvano tape. Our guys really
liked it."

(That tape was of Valvano's emotional "never give up" speech at the 1993 ESPY awards, shortly before the former North Carolina State basketball coach died of cancer.)

"And our guys liked ('Gladiator') this Saturday," Vitt said. "It's a shorter
practice on Saturday. You're looking for things to get their mind right for the
game the next day."

Movie buff or not, Vitt later confessed that he has seen "Animal House" "six or seven times."
 

Pancake

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These guys should just take look at their pay stubs to get amped.
 

Stranger

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Freakin fantastic read.

You can't believe one word from the NFL/ESPN PR Machine. And I never do.
 

Dieter the Brock

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I call bull crap
Get the self pity crap out of here

Haynesworth hanging drywall in my condo in South Carolina???
Are you serious?
Noooooooooo
Your financial advisor is at fault?
Noooooooooo

Stop writing letters to your younger self and stop stomping on people with your cletes
 

HometownBoy

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I don't know why people are assuming immediately that it was Fisher. In Albert's own words it was one of the coaches. Not Fisher, one of the coaches.

The 2006 Titans had some many coaches who could be coaching up a DT it's not even funny, just to name a few:

Jim Schwartz, Dowell Loggains and Jim Washburn.

Not to excuse Fisher if he did, but I don't see why people are immediately leaping to him.
 

FrantikRam

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This was really cool.

Pro athletes are so in the public eye and it's easy for us fans to judge them. But were we in their shoes, we wouldn't feel the same way.

"They should look at their pay stub and get amped" - ??? really? They are paid market value for what they do, just like most of us are. That's why they can still be unhappy, get "fired", and go broke just like some of us do. But for some reason it's okay for "normal" people to be all "woe is me"?? Bull shit.

If you can't appreciate this, then I don't know what to tell you. This was real, and he actually took responsibility for his actions while simultaneously letting the public know the other side of the many Albert Haynesworth stories.

Great read.
 

12intheBox

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Your financial advisor is at fault?
Noooooooooo

I don't find this part very difficult to believe at all. The kind of shysters that get their claws into young, often barely educated, millionaires aren't always the most trustworthy types.

He wouldn't be the first to lose his $$ behind bad financial advice and he won't be the last.

Still, it doesn't absolve him of his own accountability - but pro athletes are huge targets for this crapola.
 

Dieter the Brock

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I don't find this part very difficult to believe at all. The kind of shysters that get their claws into young, often barely educated, millionaires aren't always the most trustworthy types.

He wouldn't be the first to lose his $$ behind bad financial advice and he won't be the last.

Still, it doesn't absolve him of his own accountability - but pro athletes are huge targets for this crapola.

That's really all I'm saying, it's not that it isn't a good PR move but it's just that - a PR move

I'm not biting at all

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2015/01/20/albert-haynesworth-reckless-boating/22053325/


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W5nlEA8BUTQ
 
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RamDino

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While I can appreciate Albert's mature self writing to his younger self (I'm sure we all wish we could do that), how the hell can you squander 30 or 40 million dollars??? This guy never heard of a bank? Didn't Gronkowski just come out and say that he hasn't spent one nickel of his paycheck and is living off his royalties? I understand Albert came from a small town and might not have had a great education, but the NFL spends a lot of time and money to get these guys to understand their finances. You can lead a horse to water, but...
 

Akrasian

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Yeah, the two things I'd drum into a young kid coming into a bunch of money is

1) NEVER borrow money, live on what you actually have. If you can't pay cash, don't buy it.

2) Take part of each big bonus and buy an annuity that starts paying out in a few years, after your career is likely over. That way when you're in shock after the cash train ends, you'll start getting a smaller amount that you won't have had a chance to blow.

Yes, more or all of the income should be invested beyond that - but doing these two things means that they at least won't ever be broke.
 

12intheBox

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While I can appreciate Albert's mature self writing to his younger self (I'm sure we all wish we could do that), how the hell can you squander 30 or 40 million dollars??? This guy never heard of a bank? Didn't Gronkowski just come out and say that he hasn't spent one nickel of his paycheck and is living off his royalties? I understand Albert came from a small town and might not have had a great education, but the NFL spends a lot of time and money to get these guys to understand their finances. You can lead a horse to water, but...

While it seems incredible to spend that much - most of these guys have extended family coming out of the far recesses of the world to feed off of the gravy train. "Say no to them!" sounds easy but its easy to be generous when you have so much and its hard to say no. It doesn't take long to spend a lot of money when there are so many people with their hands out for clothes, food, drinks, cars, housing, business loans, etc. The financial course that the Rams put their rookies thru goes a long way towards coaching them thru all of that.
 

Merlin

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This is why the way the Rams round up the players and teach them money management is so great. If I'm Haynesworth losing that much money will eat at me my whole life. I am still pi$$ed about losing my wallet when I was 21 ffs. Can't imagine what it feels like to squander that much money, just unbelievable.

All that aside I don't pity these guys at all. They get a free degree, live like rock stars during college and even in the NFL, and whether or not they have money to show for it they've got memories in spades. Make your choices and live with them man.
 

TexasRam

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Hey older Albert,

How about stop blaming others and own up to your mistakes.

There are thousands of players that went through exactly what you went through but they controlled their anger. You did not.

You took cheap shots. You chose the road of the coward. And now you Are doing it again.

People forgive true humility but you are choosing to hold onto excuses.

Grow up man.
 

-X-

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My letter to my younger self:

Hey Paul, when you see the woman who is to become your first wife, RUN!
No, seriously.

RUN!
 

jjab360

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I found it an entertaining read. Haynesworth was always a controversial player, very interesting to get insight into the thought processes of such a figure.

I don't really care that he made excuses for his actions, I appreciate a man who can look back and be content with his lot in life no matter how much went wrong or what could have been.
 

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My letter to my younger self:

Hey Paul, when you see the woman who is to become your first wife, RUN!
No, seriously.

RUN!

Same here, that and get a restraining order if she keeps calling you and coming over to your house to get back together. I would tell myself to follow my gut instinct instead of a lower appendage.