Your Greatest You

I SAT ON THE BED IN MY OLD ROOM IN my parents’ house in Fort Worth, looking at the pictures on the walls, the trophies lining the shelves. Football. It had always been about football. In high school, in college at Baylor, where I’d been a star wide receiver, dreaming of making it big in the NFL. Now those plaques and trophies seemed to taunt me: “You’re a failure. You’re a loser.”

I didn’t get picked in the NFL draft. So I’d started out as an undrafted free agent with the Indianapolis Colts. They were fresh off a Super Bowl title—this was 2007. I figured I’d be there to help them get another ring. Peyton Manning and I would be making big plays all over the field. Big plays.

In training camp, I turned heads, balling out. I told myself. Yet the Colts didn’t play me. “They’re just trying to hide you,” veteran