Story of Falcons’ top pick is worth hearing
What was your childhood like? Could it be described as “Father Knows Best”? Mother knows best? Only grandmother knows?
What about your early school-age years? Were they full of joy? Tension? Fear?
Did you fall asleep each night to the sound of crickets and gentle breezes? Or sirens and gunfire?
And when you slept, was it in your own bed? Or was it on the floor? Or in the back of a car?
When the Atlanta Falcons drafted former UCLA defensive end Takkarist McKinley with the 26th pick of the first round last Thursday, as much was made of McKinley’s reaction to being picked as his talent.
Carrying a large framed photograph of the deceased woman who almost single-handedly raised him
— his grandmother, Myrtle Collins — McKinley allowed his emotions to momentarily get the best of him during an interview on the NFL Network with former Falcons defensive back Deion Sanders immediately after he was picked.
He screamed. He dropped the F-bomb. He used a second inappropriate phrase that included the word “God.” Naturally, a few people took to social media to condemn such language, which is sort of the role of social media, regardless of its worth or wisdom.
And this column is in no way meant to support his word choices or even excuse his demeanor in a general sense. McKinley is 21 years old, which is plenty old enough to know better than to express himself that way on national cable television. Beyond that, he’s had the benefit of college, including — as is the case with almost all major college athletes from Power Five conferences — significant tutoring on how to conduct yourself around the media.
But McKinley is also a case study in what far too many of our young athletes in all sports must overcome. That’s especially true for those in football or basketball, trying to reach the NFL or NBA.
Let’s start with the fact
he never knew his dad. His mother abandoned him when he was 5. That left Collins. Oh, and all of this took place on the outskirts of Oakland, Calif., in Richmond, which isn’t exactly Mayberry.
Or as McKinley later noted in describing the hopelessness of his neighborhood: “A lot of guys don’t make it that far (to college). A lot of guys don’t make it out of middle school here. They get killed.”
Collins lessened that threat. While others his age were on the streets, possibly getting into the kind of trouble that could damage their futures or end their lives, McKinley stayed inside, watching pro wrestling matches with Grandma.
He said the dreadlocks he wears today are a nod to his grandmother’s favorite wrestler, Booker T. And though he was homeless for a time — and never had his own bed to sleep in until he got to college — McKinley had a roof over his head for the years that he did because Collins did everything in her power to keep the rent paid.
“She basically paid her bills by collecting water bottles and cans,” McKinley told reporters. “That’s a lot of bottles to collect. Paying rent was $1,000, or whatever. That’s a lot. It just shows how much grind, how much determination she had.”
The grind took its ultimate toll, however. Multiple strokes left Collins on her deathbed in 2011.
Rushing to her side in her final minutes of life, McKinley — his voice raised and emotions raw as he recalled that moment to Sanders — said: “I told her! Before she passed away, I told her I was going to live my dream! I was going to go D-I! I was going to get out of Richmond, I was going to get out of Oakland! I was going to go to the NFL! I made that promise to her, man! Thirty seconds later she passed away!”
Then, holding up the photo, he shouted: “And this is who I do it for! This is who I do it for, man!”
If you watched the interview live or have watched it since without a lump forming in your throat, you may have the emotional constitution of a lump of coal.
Sadly, there are too many stories out there that too closely mirror McKinley’s. Most of them have far less happier endings, given that he’s expected to make more than $2.5 million annually in a four-year contract with the Falcons.
Even that half of one percent of college players who are lucky enough to make the NFL are too often unable to handle the jump from having nothing to having everything.
Or don’t you remember former Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young?
Yes, few men have handled their business worse than Young, who basically threw away his talent by partying too much, working too little and trusting the wrong people. But just for a moment, consider his childhood. It was not only devoid of a father (or father figure), it included living with a mother who was not only a prostitute but conducted her business in a room right next to his — then used her pay to buy drugs.
How’d you like to have lived that childhood?
McKinley swears he will be different.
“I could’ve easily given up,” he told the media Thursday. “I could’ve easily gone the street route — the gangs, the guns, the drugs. I stuck with it. I did it for her.”
On Friday, someone at ESPN asked McKinley what he thinks Collins would have said of his draft night interview.
“Don’t you curse on TV no more,” he said with a grin.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t all do more than merely curse the childhood that McKinley, Young and so many others have been forced to endure. Somehow, some way, we need to find a way to eliminate such conditions for the children of our future.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfree press.com.