One-handed Abbott ‘big fan’ of Griffin.
Being a loyal Michigan alumnus, Jim Abbott tuned into the opening football game in 2016 eager to get a look at the Wolverines. Then No. 18 made a tackle for UCF.
“My eyes were glued to the TV the rest of the way,” Abbott said. “It was apparent he was a ferocious football player and hell of an athlete.”
It was also apparent that Shaquem Griffin didn’t have a left hand. People around Orlando were used to that, but it was eye-catching in Ann Arbor.
After this past weekend’s NFL Combine, everybody has caught on. Griffin ran a 4.38 40, benchpressed 225 pounds 20 times and became America’s latest folk hero.
“There’s a real passion there,” Abbott said, “a determination and a burning desire to show people what he can do.”
He can recognize those traits. Thirty years ago, Jim
Abbott was Shaq Griffin.
He was born without a right hand but became a major-league pitcher. Abbott’s legacy is far more than tossing a nohitter for the Yankees and winning 87 games over 10 seasons.
He was a blueprint for kids like Griffin. It would be nice to say the 50-year-old Abbott made it easier for them, but the fact is, we’ll always fixate first on what such a person is missing, not what they have.
“His journey reminds me of things,” Abbott said. “It reminds me of growing up in Michigan and being able to move a little beyond the label, the ‘One-Handed’ label, which I didn’t enjoy very much and I’m sure he doesn’t.”
Griffin wants to benchpress the label into oblivion. It’s quite a lift.
The label even affected Abbott’s parents, who encouraged him to play soccer at first. But their kid loved baseball, so Abbott’s dad helped him spend countless hours learning how to flip a glove from his right stub onto his left hand in order to field a ball.
In a St. Petersburg garage 30 years later, Griffin’s father built pulleys and other contraptions that helped his son lift the weights needed to chase a football dream.
“What a lot of people think is really difficult or improbable really comes down to being creative and finding different ways of doing things,” Abbott said.
Such creativity didn’t impress at least one youth-league coach, who told Griffin he shouldn’t play. How could a kid tackle, much less catch a ball with one hand?
Griffin ended up making a game-saving interception that day.
It was like the time Abbott took the Little League mound and an opposing coach had the first six batters try to bunt. The first one got on, then Abbott retired the next five batters.
He became a high school baseball star and played quarterback and punted for the football team, but few colleges recruited him. Same with Griffin, who languished mostly on UCF’s scout team for three years.
Then Scott Frost came in and switched Griffin from safety to linebacker. Griffin bought an air mattress to sleep on and moved into UCF’s football facility during the 2016 preseason. That way, he could lift weights and study film deep into the night.
By the time the season kicked off at Michigan, a star was ready to be born.
“I was like, ‘Wait, how come I’ve never heard of his story before?’” Abbott said.
Now he’s become one of the dominant stories of the draft. When NFL teams look at Griffin, will they see what he’s missing or see what he has?
If they need guidance, you know who they should ask.
“I’m a big fan of his,” Abbott said.
And this is one guy who knows a label destroyer when he sees one.