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By Root 210 0

for him. I admired General Manager Ozzie Newsome, who was the first African American GM in NFL history and one of the most well-respected men in the league. And I couldn't help but smile a little that after all of my struggles in school, I was going to be playing for the only NFL team to be named for a work of literature. (The Ravens are named for the famous poem "The Raven," by Edgar Allan Poe, who lived and died in Baltimore.) Everything was coming together--it just all felt right. I was absolutely grinning in all of the pictures as I held up the purple and gold jersey while my family clapped proudly and brushed away tears.

After the big announcement and the photos, I had a lot of interviews. In one I said:

I'm just blessed to be here. I came from a neighborhood where no one makes it out--zero people make it out. Just to get invited to New York and be a part of all this type of stuff--it's amazing to me. I still can't believe it. . . .

One thing I always did was stay true to myself, and when you do that the people around you are going to stay the same. I've always been a good guy, a guy who cared, and nobody will look at me differently because I'm going to the NFL. Everybody still acts the same way--we don't change who we are.

They throw everything at you--a lot of things. But I took everything head-on. . . . You've got to make sure you take every small step when you're getting ready to go to the NFL because if you don't, that one small step can hurt you.

LATER, DURING THE SEASON, I had an interview with NBC commentator Bob Costas, and he pointed out how emotional I looked when Roger Goodell called my name that day at the draft. I agreed with Costas and told him, "I had had dreams about that moment coming years before--dreaming about having my name called and waiting for that moment. Because I know how hard I worked to get to that point--for so long--and had to go through so many things. It was just unbelievable and I couldn't wait for it."

But my dream wasn't just about getting there--it was about staying there. And I knew that day wasn't the end of a dream. It was just the start of my next stage in making it all come true.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

On Raven's Wings

People like to talk about "Cinderella stories," but Cinderella didn't get her happy ending without lifting a finger. She had to show up at the ball, be charming and smooth, and win over the prince. Of course she had help along the way, but ultimately it was up to her to make the fairy-tale ending happen.

When I was drafted in the first round by the Baltimore Ravens, I knew I had done the impossible. I hadn't just beat the odds; I had blown them out of the water. But the story isn't just about arriving at the pros. My goal had never been just to get the offer, or to sign the contract, or to get the paycheck. I wanted to do something, to know that I was working each day to do something with my potential, pushing myself to make sure that I was always giving my all. Making it to the pros wasn't the finish line for me. The world is full of people who got their big shot and then never did anything with it. I had come too far to just let being drafted be the end of my story.

I'D NEVER BEEN TO BALTIMORE. I'd never even been to Maryland. All I knew about the city was that it had some great sports history and some of the best seafood in the country. I didn't get to see much of it when I first arrived, either. I landed at Baltimore-Washington International Airport after it was already dark, and the Ravens representatives picked me up and drove me straight to the Castle, which is the team's training center and headquarters. It is a gorgeous building that really does look like a castle (both on the inside and outside--stone fireplaces, wooden halls, surrounded by acres of forest), but it also has a number of state-of-the-art workout facilities, including the NFL's biggest weight room. It blew me away. I was so excited to get to work, I wanted to start training right away!

But I wouldn't be able to jump into things immediately. I had to travel back