WHILE A STUDENT at Alcorn State I met Tina, the love of my life. We had met several times before we began dating. She was a freshman who had won a scholarship for her skill playing the clarinet. She was also trying out for the dance team. During two-a-days football practice the band would be practicing nearby in an area we called the Yard, and one day I noticed this beautiful girl with short hair in white tights marching with the band.
I knew some of the other members of the dance team, and I asked one of them to hook me up with her. She wouldn’t, saying the girl already had a boyfriend who went to Jackson State.
“Tina loves her boyfriend,” she said. “She doesn’t want to deal with you.”
I wasn’t giving up.
Not long afterward I saw her walking from class up a hill to her dorm.
“Tina!” I hollered at her. “Come here, girl!”
Smooth I wasn’t.
She turned around, looked at me, and kept walking.
I had friends walking with me, and I was embarrassed.
“Nobody wants you anyway!” I yelled at her.
After that I didn’t see her for a long time.
I had been engaged to Alandra for a year and a half at the time, and it was right about this time that she left me for her high school sweetheart. I was heartbroken because I did love her. But God put it in my heart that she wasn’t the right person, and from there we moved on. She is married now to her high school sweetheart. I have to think she has said to herself, at least once, I messed up. I had a good guy.
A year went by, and I was playing the field. I wasn’t looking to be attached to anyone. Then I saw Tina again. By now I was a known quantity, a player on the football team. I had enough status for her to stop and talk to me.
She had a tomboy haircut.
“Why did you cut your hair?” I asked her.
“You like it?” she asked.
“It looks real cute like that,” I said. “You look like Halle Berry.”
“Do I?”
She asked if I would help the dance team train at the gym.
I don’t want to train them, I thought, but I certainly will work out with you.
She and I and a couple of other members of the dance team met at the training center every day at a set time. Tina was never late. I was friends with one of the other girls on the dance team, and I didn’t realize it, but Tina was jealous. She started not showing up for training.
I had to call her, and when she asked me about my interest in the other girl, I told her I only had eyes for her, Tina.
I asked her what she was looking for in a man.
“I want somebody who’s going to love me for me,” she said. “I want someone affectionate and passionate.”
I couldn’t help but note the difference between Tina and Alandra. All Tina wanted was someone to love her, a man who loved only her, a man who just wanted to be with her.
“You’re looking at your man,” I said. “I’m your guy.
She still had that boyfriend, who had graduated and was living in Monroe, Louisiana, and I convinced her to choose me instead.
“I don’t know what the future holds for me,” I told her, “but I promise to give you everything you ask for.”
I met her dad, mom, and brother, and we all fell in love. I realized this was going to be something special.
I was still selling drugs, but I didn’t want her to know that, so I figured this was no time to show off that I had money. On our first date we went to McDonald’s. After we ate, we went to the movies to see The Nutty Professor, starring Eddie Murphy. She fell asleep in the middle.
Things were going so well between us, and I knew it would be only a matter of time before she found out about my drug dealing. All my life I had played both sides of the fence. I was a good person, and I was a drug dealer. I was a Christian, and I was a car thief. I was one and the other. Until Tina came into my life.
One day I asked Tina to hide a large duffel bag for me in her room.
She was hesitant.
“Don’t open it,” I said. “Just put it in your dorm room. I’ll get it later.”
“What is it?” she wanted to know.
“Just … put … it … in … your … room,” I pleaded.
Tina wasn’t like the girls from my neighborhood who would have said, “Oh, I’ve got ya, baby. You’re good. Go do what you have to do.”
If Tina had been that girl, I’d still be the same guy playing on both sides of the fence. If Tina had been that girl, who knows if I would have made it to the NFL.
Tina came from a Christian middle-class family. She had a mom and dad who were very supportive, who taught her that school and education came first and that hanging out with the bad boys could only lead to misery. She gave me an ultimatum.
“If you want to be with me,” Tina said, “you’ve got to stop this.”
Meaning I had to get out of the drug business.
“God is testing you,” she said. “You have to make a choice.”
The choice was not an easy one. After Tina told me she wasn’t going to hold my stash of drugs for me, my first reaction was not to be with Tina anymore. That was my mindset.
I talked to my boys in Houston and on campus, and they were telling me, “There are more fish in the sea. Tina isn’t the only fish out there. Don’t worry about her. Just keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t let this girl change who you are.”
I don’t need her, I told myself. I can do this by myself.
But as time went on, I realized how much I loved her. The more I was with her, the more I realized how honest she was and how passionate. Tina didn’t care how much money I had. It wasn’t about what I could buy her, because I wasn’t buying her anything. It wasn’t about what I had or what I was doing. All she cared about was loving me. And that’s when I realized she was the one. The drug thing is over, I told myself. I’m out of the game.
This was a crossroads. But quitting the drug business isn’t the same as quitting your job at McDonald’s. When I went back to the Fifth Ward and told my suppliers I was getting out of the game, they tried hard to talk me out of it.
“Noooo,” they said, “you can’t get out. Once you’re in, you’re in.”
For three days they kept me hostage trying to get me to change my mind. They didn’t pull guns, but they broke out every trick and mind game they could think of to talk me out of quitting. When they saw I was holding my ground, their final words to me were “If you’re not part of the game, we don’t know if you can hang out with us anymore.”
It was a sad moment. I was leaving behind the life that I had known since I was a boy living next door to J.R.
“I’m always going to be part of the hood,” I told them, “but I’m going to have to separate the hood from where I want to be.”
In a way I was heartbroken. But I knew it was a small price to pay. And now when I see these fellows, they say, “Hey, Quickie, come around with us,” and I say, “Oh no, you be good. See you later.” I don’t want the police to think I’m involved with them. As long as I’m just hanging out, I’m just Donald Driver back in my neighborhood.
When I finally screwed up the courage to tell Goree White I was getting out of the drug game, he felt betrayed.
“Man,” he said, “you can’t let a chick change who you are.”
But I felt with Tina I would have a better life for myself.
Later, after I had made it in the NFL and was making decent money, an uncle of mine who was a big drug dealer in Houston called and asked me if I would be interested in going back into the business.
“You know,” he said, “this is a great opportunity for you to make some good money. With the money you have, you can go back into the drug game. You now have the finances to buy a lot of drugs.”
I thought about it. I was sorely tempted. It was also an opportunity to help my uncle, who once had a Corvette, a Mercedes, and a fine house. He had never put money away for tough times, and he needed the money to get back on his feet. I loved my uncle to death, and I wanted to help him.
I talked to Tina.
“I think I’m going to take my first paycheck and give it to my uncle,” I told her. “He’s going to pay me back, but I’m also going to make a significant amount of money.”
“No,” Tina said. “God don’t like ugly.”
She pleaded with me not to jeopardize my football career by making a loan to a drug dealer.
“Donald, no. It isn’t worth it,” she said. “We’re not doing that. God has blessed you to be in this position. If you help out your uncle, and it’s discovered, it could be alleged that Donald Driver was the supplier. Even if you have nothing to do with the transaction, even if you aren’t doing anything illegal, someone could always say you financed the deal.”
I went back to my uncle, and buttressed by Tina’s strong will, I told him I couldn’t do it. Oh, it’s hard to turn down your family. But I believed it was a test, and I’m not sure I’d be where I am today if I had done that.
TINA AND I started dating in July, and I proposed to her in September. You know how you know when it’s just the right person for you? I knew Tina was the one for me.
I proposed to Tina twice. The first time was in my brother’s closet. Don’t ask me why. I was nervous. I had stopped dealing drugs. Like most drug dealers, I had spent all the money I made on my lifestyle, booze, parties, expensive things I didn’t need, and by the time I proposed to her I was broke like every other normal college student.
“Tina, will you marry me?” I asked, and I handed her a ring that looked like it might have come from a Cracker Jack box. It had a chip of a diamond, never mind a diamond.
“Yes,” she said, “I will marry you, but what is this?”
She looked at the ring.
“Okay, thank you,” she said, but I knew she didn’t really think much of it.
I had received a Pell Grant worth $1,650, and I decided to put my Pell Grant money to a very good use. I drove to Vicksburg, Mississippi, to search the pawnshops for a suitable diamond engagement ring.
They had a nice, big one-carat diamond set in gold that I could have for $1,200.
I returned to campus, and later Tina and I headed by car for Houston. We stopped at a McDonald’s in Lafayette, Louisiana, where I got on my knees and proposed for the second time. This time I had a ring more worthy of her. She loved it.
We were married two years later.
IN MY FOUR years of playing football at Alcorn State, we had our best team my freshman year, when Steve McNair led us to an 8-2-1 regular season record. In his last regular season game against Jackson State, Steve completed 29 of 34 passes for 533 yards and five touchdowns. Unfortunately, we went up against Youngstown State in the playoffs, and we were clobbered 63–20. Even though Steve threw for the three scores, our shellacking cost him the Heisman Trophy. He finished third in the voting behind Colorado running back Rashaan Salaan.
After McNair left, the Alcorn State team had mediocre records the rest of the way. We won only four games each of my last three seasons. Even so, we were an exciting ballclub on offense. We played against the bump-and-run, as most of the all-black colleges did. We spread the receivers, and when the ball was hiked, we ran like the wind. The cornerbacks would bump you hard, trying to knock you off course. They played man-to-man all day. With my speed and jumping ability, I was able to catch 88 passes for 1,932 yards and 17 touchdowns.
A few of those touchdowns were particularly memorable. We played Southern University at Southern on a rainy day when the rain was just pouring down. As the half was coming to an end, our QB, Mose Lemon, threw a Hail Mary from around the fifty-yard line. I jumped up and made the catch in the end zone, and as I celebrated I wondered why our fans were so quiet. The penalty flag lay on the ground. One of our linemen had been caught for holding. There was a ten-yard penalty, and the play was called back.
We went back into the huddle, and Mose called for the exact same play. He threw it up again, and again I made a leaping grab, getting in front of the defender and wrestling it away for a touchdown. As I ran into the locker room I was floating on air.
Toward the end of the season in my senior year we played Mississippi Valley State, Jerry Rice’s alma mater. At the end of that game I made a diving catch in the back of the end zone and scored the touchdown that won the game 23–18.
In the final game of my college career we played powerhouse Jackson State. Playing for Jackson State were two touted juniors, wide receiver Sylvester Morris and defensive back Rashard Anderson. Morris would be taken by the Kansas City Chiefs and Anderson by the Carolina Panthers in the first round of the NFL draft. I had a better game than both of them, and I was hoping that my senior-year play would be good enough to attract attention from the pros.
The highlight of the Jackson State game came after it was over. There to greet me was my grandfather, George Lofton, who hadn’t attended a single game of mine in either high school or college because of his stubborn insistence that my education was more important than my playing sports. Yes, I resented him all through my high school and college years, but when I became older, I came to understand him. Today when I visit schools, I tell the kids, “Get your education. No one can take that from you. Sports can be taken away in a split second.”
I always took what my grandfather had said very seriously. I got good grades, kept up a 3.0 average, and earned an accounting degree at Alcorn State. I was in the middle of pursuing a degree in computer science when the 1999 draft rolled around.
MY SENIOR YEAR I began looking at my competition to see which college players were entering the NFL player draft, especially the top receivers in the draft. I remember watching David Boston of Ohio State, and I also watched Torry Holt of North Carolina State. Another receiver, Troy Edwards of Louisiana Tech, had 405 yards receiving in a game against Nebraska. I figured my 1,932 yards and 17 touchdowns were comparable to theirs, and so I figured I should have been at least among the top eight receivers to go pro.
We held scout day at Alcorn State in front of a group of pro scouts, and I ran a 4.49, 4.5 and 4.48 forty. I ran great routes and caught the ball well. Fourteen NFL scouts were there, and all of them talked to me. Two days later the Green Bay Packers actually sent Alonzo Highsmith, who had once starred as a running back, to work me out.
The San Francisco 49ers called me to say they were going to pick me. The receivers coach called and spoke to my dad.
“We’re thinking about Donald,” the coach said.
“The Forty-Niners have a fourth-round pick,” my dad told me, “and that’s where they’re going to pick you.”
The Kansas City Chiefs flew me in for a tryout, and they told me they were considering taking me in the fourth or fifth round. I was cool with that.
I said to Tina, my fiancée at the time, “Most likely I’ll be drafted on the second day.”
I, MY DAD, Tina, my future father-in-law, and ten other family members sat around my dad’s house in front of the TV the first day of the draft waiting for the phone to ring.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Dad said to me. “Wait here.”
I watched on ESPN as a group of wide receivers were taken in the first round. The St. Louis Rams took Torry Holt, the Arizona Cardinals picked David Boston, the Pittsburgh Steelers took Troy Edwards, and in the second round the Cleveland Browns took Kevin Johnson of Syracuse and the Buffalo Bills took Peerless Price of Tennessee.
I was disappointed but not crushed, because both San Francisco and Kansas City said I would probably go the second day of the draft.
I was back at my dad’s house the next day when I watched more wide receivers get drafted. The Chicago Bears took two wide receivers, D’Wayne Bates of Northwestern and Marty Booker of Louisiana-Monroe.
Louisiana-Monroe? I thought.
Then the Seattle Seahawks took Karsten Bailey of Auburn. He was the eighth wide receiver taken before me. What was going on?
Denver took Travis McGriff of Florida, and then in the fourth round Craig Yeast of Kentucky went to Cincinnati, Dameane Douglas of California went to Oakland, and Brandon Stokley of Louisiana-Lafayette went to Baltimore.
Louisiana-Lafayette?
I was beginning to panic.
When the Kansas City Chiefs, the team that had invited me for a tryout and said I’d probably be taken in the fourth or fifth round, took Larry Parker of USC instead, I couldn’t take it any longer.
“Bye, Pop,” I said, and I fled his house and drove over to my grandparents’ home to wait out the rest of the afternoon.
Two other wide receivers, Wane McGarity of Texas and Na Brown of North Carolina, were then picked by Dallas and Philadelphia, respectively.
At the day’s end I was undrafted and devastated.
My mind was awhirl.
I was thinking, I played football all these years to better my life. All this time I was thinking this would be my opportunity. Teams were telling me something was going to happen, but nothing does.
This is it, I told myself. Thank God I have an accounting degree. I might as well get ready to start sending my applications to accounting firms.
Round five went by, and three more wide receivers were taken, and then round six, when three more went, including MarTay Jenkins of Nebraska-Omaha.
I was feeling very low.
I let my family down, I was thinking. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do.
I tried to think of why I had fallen so low. Maybe it was because I was twenty-four years old. Maybe it was because Alcorn State had had such a mediocre record and the scouts didn’t think I had played against top competition. Maybe …
Outside my grandparents’ house I was playing football in the street with my brothers and cousins. My dad had asked them to be with me, to calm me down. I was feeling really miserable, certain I had failed everyone.
“Hey, Quickie, the Green Bay Packers are on the phone!” yelled my dad.
“Yeah, right, whatever,” I said, thinking he was pulling my leg.
“Boy, I’m serious,” he said.
It was Ron Wolf, the Packers’ general manager.
“We have the 212 and 213 pick,” he said. “We’re going to take you at 213.”
“Take me at 212,” I pleaded. I was feeling so underappreciated I was fishing for any sort of leg up.
“No,” he said. “We’re going to take a guy you played against at 212, Chris Akins from Arkansas–Pine Bluff.”
“Why don’t you take me at 212 and him at 213?” I said. “I’m way better than he is. Go back and watch the game we played against each other. I killed him in the game.”
“He’s not a better player than me,” said another voice.
I didn’t realize it, but Chris Akins was on the line, too.
“Don’t worry about it, Donald,” Ron Wolf said. “It’s not going to change anything.”
I was fussing because I felt I should have been an early-round pick.
“Your name is going to come across the TV screen any moment,” Wolf said.
After it did, I said, “Thank you,” and I hung up the phone.
The Packers called right back.
“You have to talk to the media,” I was told.
On the phone I told the reporters, “I’ll get an opportunity to play in the National Football League, something I’ve always dreamed about doing. I intend to come in and work hard in the hopes that I can make the team.”
I said all the right things, but I was mad at the world. I felt I should have been drafted much higher. Not only that, but I was mad when I found out I was going to Green Bay, a town where I was going to freeze my butt off. I knew they had won a Super Bowl, that Brett Favre was there, but I had never been much of a Packers fan. Being from Texas I had rooted for the Houston Oilers and the Dallas Cowboys.
Where the hell am I going? I wondered.
But in the end, I was indeed looking forward to playing in the NFL.
“We just might get the dream I was always looking for,” I told my family.