AFTER OUR SON, Cristian, was born, we didn’t do any family planning. Whatever happened was going to happen, and Tina became pregnant again. She started spotting, and the doctors were sure she was going to have a miscarriage. She was ordered to do bed rest, and she did that, and in 2005, twenty-three months after Cristian was born, I was blessed with the most beautiful girl in the world, Christina.
“I don’t want any more kids,” I told Tina, and I was serious about that.
I was blessed with two.
Tina understood, but every once in a while she’d say, “Just one more.”
One night we went to a Bible retreat for pro athletes with Packers defensive lineman Ryan Pickett and his wife, Jennifer; and another teammate, defensive tackle Colin Cole, and his wife, Kay. For whatever reason, on the last night of the retreat I said to Tina, “I’m okay if you want to have another baby.”
She was so excited.
She told Jennifer and Kay what I had said.
The pregnancy was easy and smooth. Tina worked out a lot and stayed in great shape. Our daughter Charity was born right before the first game of the 2011 season against the New Orleans Saints. Coach McCarthy allowed me to stay in the hospital with my family.
How many blessings can I get? I asked myself when I looked at Charity.
I realized that when God said “Be fruitful,” He meant it in a special way. To bring kids into the world is a gift. It makes you a better person by having them. You learn what matters most in your life.
Everyone figures that because I play football, the sport is the most important thing in my life. I breathe, sleep, and eat football. I love the game, but I live for my family. When I’m home, people ask me, “Are you watching football on TV?” I don’t, and it doesn’t matter who’s playing or winning. When I’m home I turn off the TV and play with my wife and kids.
You don’t find many men who come home at night from a hard day’s work and want to play with the kids or help clean up the house. I do that. It’s a legacy from when my mom used to clean hotel rooms. If the kitchen is a mess after Tina cooks, I clean it up. I can put the babies to bed as easily as she can. I try not to add any burdens to her life if I can help it.
I had a ritual before every home game with my family. Cristian, Christina, Charity, Tina, I, and whoever else from our family was there, took part. Before I walked out the door to head to Lambeau Field, we all came together and said a prayer.
And whoever wanted to ride with me to the game could.
The fellowship also extended during the ride to the ballpark. I lived in De Pere, ten minutes from the field, and often I got caught up in the traffic snarl trying to enter Lombardi Avenue. I just rolled down my window, found a car or truck with Packers decals all over it, rolled down my window, and asked, “Hey, can I get over!”
The reaction was always the same. They did a double take, their eyes got wide, and they waved me over. The seas parted, and I drove right to the stadium.
I’ve never had any dreams about what I was going to do after football. I had a singular focus: It was always football, football, football.
“You can go on and do anything,” my friend and agent Brian Lammi said to me. “You can be a commentator on ESPN. You can be a coach.”
I wasn’t sure I had it in me to become an analyst on a TV sports channel full-time. I also didn’t think I wanted to be a coach.
When Brian asked me what I wanted to do, I said, “Nothing. I want to sit at home, relax, and know that I’ve done everything that I could do as a football player.”
Then on a Friday in January 2012 I received a phone call from a producer in Hollywood asking if I would be interested in becoming a contestant during the fourteenth season of Dancing with the Stars, one of the most popular shows in all of television. The way the show works, twelve professional dancers are paired with celebrities from all walks of life in a dance contest watched by some thirty-five million viewers on TV. Among the celebrities who won in the past were two NFL stars, Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys and Hines Ward of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Among other athletes who competed and won were the figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, and Formula 1 race car driver Helio Castroneves. Other winners included the singer Donny Osmond and the actress Jennifer Grey, the star of Dirty Dancing. I’ve been a longtime fan of the show, and I wasn’t surprised that Jennifer won. She and the late Patrick Swayze were absolutely electric in that movie. The girl can dance.
I sat down with Tina and my kids Christina, six, and Cristian, who was eight. (Charity was six months old.) We had to make a decision literally in a couple of hours. I felt it was a great opportunity for bigger and better things, not just for me, but for Tina and the kids as well.
“We should do it,” I said.
But Tina wasn’t on board. She didn’t want to leave Dallas, where we lived in the off-season, for three and a half months. She didn’t want to pull the kids out of school.
“There’s a lot of things to think about,” she said.
Christina also wasn’t on board at first.
“No, daddy,” she said. “I don’t want you to do it because you will be dancing with another woman.”
“Oh Lord,” I said, “I was thinking your mom was going to say that—but you said it.”
The only member of my family in my corner was eight-year-old Cristian, who said, “Dad, this happens once in a lifetime; you should do it.”
Tina finally gave her okay, though very reluctantly. She could see the good it might do for me. But she also saw the angst that my dancing with a beautiful professional dancer might bring to her. In the end she chose to put my feelings first.
“This could be good,” she said finally, though I wasn’t sure she meant it. Once she was on board, we all crowded around the phone, put it on speaker, and called Brian, my agent and friend.
“Let’s do this,” I said.
“Yes!” he yelled. “I love you guys!”
I was going on Dancing with the Stars. I just didn’t know who my dancing partner would be. I was told she would be coming over to my house and introducing herself. It was all so unreal. In football you are one of eleven players on the field. In Dancing with the Stars it’s just you and your partner putting everything on the line in front of a worldwide audience. In a way the pressure of performing on this show approached the pressure I felt playing in the Super Bowl.
I was sitting on the couch in my living room when the doorbell rang. Tina and the kids started screaming. Tina and I had been watching the show since season one. This was season fourteen. Brian and Tina thought I’d have the best shot at winning if I danced with a partner who had won in the past.
I preferred to dance with an underdog.
I opened the door and greeted professional dancer Peta Murgatroyd, a native of New Zealand.
I can’t believe it’s Peta, I said to myself. I had hoped it would be someone like her, an underdog who one season lost the championship dancing with NBA star Ron Artest of the Los Angeles Lakers. The season before this one she had been eliminated in the very first round.
I was elated, because I knew she could dance. She had choreographed and performed with great artists including Rod Stewart, Taio Cruz, Enrique Iglesias, and New Kids on the Block. But for most of the time on Dancing with the Stars she had been relegated to chorus line status. Victory, I knew, would be so much sweeter if we were underdogs who then went on to win it all.
Peta, blond and shapely, walked into the room, followed by a camera crew, and introduced herself with her heavy New Zealand accent.
“I know who you are,” I said.
She asked me if I could dance and I said, “Yeah, I can shake a leg, I can hold my own at a bar, a club, or at a party.”
Then I heard, “Cut!” The producer asked us if we would please tape it all over again. It was my welcome to the world of live reality television.
She asked me if I could do the cha-cha.
“Yes, of course.”
We went and danced together that first night at a studio in Dallas. When I rolled up my pants legs, she said, “Oh. My. God. You have some of the skinniest legs in this world!”
I acted offended.
“What? Look, these things are strong,” I said. “These legs have made me a lot of money.”
“You have chicken legs.”
That’s how the whole relationship started. It was very much a brother-sister relationship. She had a boyfriend, and I was married. We could tease each other and still get our work done.
Tina decided she was going to stay behind in Dallas with the kids. I could see she was very unhappy that I was going away, even unhappier that I was going away to dance with a good-looking woman who was going to teach me how to dance and whom I was going to hold close to me for the next three months.
Tina needn’t have worried. If I had wanted to play the field, I wouldn’t have gotten married. I tell people, “I married my best friend. I can tell my best friend anything.” When I said “I do,” I promised to love Tina the way God wanted me to.
Before I met her I was always that guy who said, If I can get this girl, it would be awesome. But when I met Tina, that changed. God brought her to me to save my life. I was selling drugs, and without her I would have continued to go down that road. She made me stop, and I owe her everything.
I always told Tina, “You never have to worry about my messing around, because I married you for a reason. It wasn’t just your looks. You have everything a man could want.”
There are women out there, beautiful women, who want to sleep with you for the adventure of it. There are others who want to do it just so they can call your wife on the phone and ruin your life. Others do it so they can get you to pay their light bill or their rent. And I know guys who have said, “Let’s go.” And I know other athletes who have had to pay these women so they don’t tell their wives. Sometimes the woman messes up the marriage anyway—it’s why some of these athletes get divorced.
After I married Tina, I never gave myself the opportunity to give in to temptation. I could be anywhere—a grocery store or a club when I was younger—and a beautiful girl might ask me, “What are you doing tonight?”
I’d tell her right out, “I’m married.”
“I know how athletes are,” she’d say.
“Let me ask you something,” I’d say. “What can you do for me that my wife can’t? And don’t answer right away. Take your time.”
I got different answers.
My answer was always the same: “No, no, no.”
I will never say “I do” to another woman. If something ever happened to Tina, I would not remarry. I’m like the swan that mates for life. It’s Tina to the final whistle.
TWO DAYS AFTER Peta arrived at our house, she and I left for Los Angeles for the big announcement of who would be on Dancing with the Stars during its fourteenth season. Peta and I were on the same plane—but the producers told us we couldn’t talk to each other. They didn’t want anyone to know in advance that I was to be a contestant. She was with her boyfriend, and I was sitting behind her. I sat in my seat and didn’t say a word to her. We passed notes to each other.
“I can’t believe we can’t talk to each other,” she wrote.
“I know,” I wrote back.
The next day, we arrived in Los Angeles at the studios of ABC, the host of Dancing with the Stars, for our introduction to the public. I was starstruck the first day. I was starstruck the whole time. As a Packer I had met numerous celebrities, but being on Dancing with the Stars gave me the opportunity to spend significant time with a group of celebrities I had come to admire during my life. I got to see them as real people, another part of the experience that I very much enjoyed.
One of the first celebrity contestants I saw was Maria Menounos, the host of the TV magazine show Extra.
“How are you doing, Mr. Driver?” she said. “I want you to know, I’m a Patriots fan.”
“We’re starting this already?” I said. “You’re competing on the show, but I’m going to win. I’ll bet you my Packers are going to beat your Patriots.”
I met the cast members, the dancers, and the new contestants. Among them were Jaleel White, who as a teenager played the geeky Steve Urkel (“Did I do thaaaaaat?”). Jaleel said he was a big Packers fan.
I met Sherri Shepherd, a panelist on The View. She didn’t know who I was, but I knew who she was. I was thrilled to meet music legend Gladys Knight.
“You’re so cute,” she cooed.
I melted.
I couldn’t believe I was getting to meet Gladys Knight, even without the Pips.
I saw an actor I recognized.
“Hey, you’re Roy from The Five Heartbeats,” I said. “You were the one getting dumped over the balcony!”
He laughed.
“I’m Roy Fegan,” he said. “My son Roshon is going to be a contestant.”
Roshon Fegan is an actor on the popular Disney show Shake It Up, which my kids watch on TV. I was sure Cristian and Christina would be impressed that I had met him.
Then I was introduced to Gavin DeGraw.
Who is Gavin DeGraw? I wondered. I’d heard that name before. What does he do?
By a great coincidence the song “Sweeter” happened to come on the radio while DeGraw and I were in the makeup room.
“You like that song?” he asked.
“Yeah, man. It comes on the radio every time I’m in Dallas. Who sings that song?”
“Gavin DeGraw,” he said.
“You’re Gavin DeGraw? Man, I love that song. You’re Gavin Degraw?”
I couldn’t believe he was the one who sang it … until he started singing it for me. I went out and bought his CD the next day.
They told us that William Levy, a Latino actor, would not be at the introductions. They showed his picture on the jumbotron.
“Uh oh,” I said. His dance partner was the talented Cheryl Burke, who had been on the show since the beginning and had won twice in a row with Drew Lachey and Emmitt Smith as her partners. I knew right away William and Cheryl were going to be very good. Then I met Jack Wagner. He starred for years in the soap operas The Bold and the Beautiful and General Hospital.
“My mom and my wife watch you all the time,” I said to him.
I couldn’t believe all the stars I was meeting in one place. I was sitting there thinking, That’s Melissa Gilbert from Little House on the Prairie! I couldn’t help but reminisce about all these people and these shows that we all grew up watching.
For me the one celebrity who stood out more than anybody was Martina Navratilova, the tennis legend.
“Martina, I love your story,” I told her. “You were the first athlete to come out and announce that you were a lesbian. Awesome. You’re great! That doesn’t bother me at all.
“I’d love to go to a tennis match with you,” I said.
“I’d love for you to come,” she said.
I was in the same studio with these people for three and a half months. I couldn’t wait to talk to them and get to know them better. We all felt we had a bond—every single person on the show felt that way. That was an amazing experience. We became like brothers and sisters.
I also got to know all the professional dancers. I already knew who they were from years of watching the show. We all became real close as the show went on. We started exchanging phone numbers. I never would have thought I could call Gladys Knight at home on the phone. Not in a million years did I ever think I would be able to just call her up and talk to her or that I could call Gavin DeGraw while he was performing in Milwaukee at Summerfest. I was supposed to be there, but I had to go back to Dallas from Los Angeles, so I wasn’t in Wisconsin. Right before Gavin went onstage, he texted me and said to call him on his cellphone in about twenty minutes. He was onstage when I called him.
“Hold on,” he told the crowd, “hold on, I have to answer this.” And he said, ’Wisconsin, guess what? I have on the phone here my good buddy from Dancing with the Stars, Donald Driver!”
I yelled into his phone for all to hear, “Milwaukee, show my boy some love!” The crowd just went nuts. I could hear the screaming and yelling. Even now, it still shocks me that I can pick up the phone and call Melissa Gilbert and say, “Hey, sweetheart, how’s it going?”
Then there were the other celebrities I’ve met from being on the show. I met Academy Award winner and movie star Marlee Matlin. Her son is a big fan of mine. She and I text each other all the time. I also text with talk show host Ricki Lake. I would have never met all of these people had I not gone on the show.
ABC made Dancing with the Stars a first-class production. The contestants were treated fabulously.
I was in great shape to do this. I had gotten down to 2 percent body fat, the lowest I’ve ever been. People say that’s unhealthy. Part of that is my metabolism.
Once I arrived in Los Angeles, I could hear from our phone conversations how unhappy Tina was. She was lonely. On the phone she would cry. I needed for her to come to Los Angeles to be with me so she could see that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Sometimes your fears are far worse than the reality, and she was so unhappy, I was finally able to convince her to bring the kids with her to Hollywood.
“That way we can be together as a family,” I told her. “That way you can come to rehearsals and see that nothing’s going on.”
After ten days she and the kids flew to Los Angeles to be with me.
I’d awake early and do my workout for football, and then Peta and I would practice dancing all day. At night, when it was nice and cool, Tina and I would go jogging along Wilshire Boulevard. We would take off from our apartment and just run. I reassured Tina that this was a job, that nothing was going on, that she was the most important person in my life, and after a while she warmed up to Peta. She got to know her, and they became buddies. We all would double date. Cris and Christina would call her “Aunt Peta.” They would go see her in her trailer.
As for the actual dancing and competing: Did you see the smile on my face the whole time? Well there you go. The work was grueling. I would practice dancing in a studio for hours, but the satisfaction I got from my improvement made it all worthwhile.
The challenge of the competition was great, and Peta quickly saw that if we were to have any chance of winning, I would have to control some of my macho tendencies. As a proud male who didn’t want to be thought of as feminine, I wanted to act macho. I didn’t want to get up there and shake my butt and move around. When the coaches and judges told me I had to move and sway my hips or my arms a certain way, initially I refused.
“That looks too feminine to me,” I would say. “A tough guy doesn’t do that!”
“You’re not supposed to be tough,” I was told by the coaches. “You’re supposed to have fun. This is all about having fun.”
From the beginning I learned I had to stop judging myself and just let go.
“Relax,” Peta would say. “Quit being so tight-ass. Shake your body a little, move your hips. I know you can move—you’re black. I can’t believe my partner is the only black man who can’t move.”
She would not let up until I started to do things her way.
“You can dance,” she would say. “I’ve seen it. You can shake it.”
She would say things like “I want you to ‘give it’ to Carrie Ann Inaba,” one of the show’s judges. “When you get down, I want you to roll your whole body, roll your hips, and you better be looking straight at Carrie Ann in our first cha-cha. I want you to make Carrie Ann say, ‘Oooh yes!’ ”
“Okay,” I said, not meaning it.
I was thinking, I’m so out of my league.
“Judge Len Goodman is all about technique,” Peta explained. “He wants things perfect.” She said the other judge, Bruno Tonioli, just wanted me to take my clothes off for him.
“If you take your clothes off for Bruno, you’ve got him,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, not meaning it.
I was thinking, I’m so out of my league.
In time I learned to go with the flow, and I ended up having so much fun as a male figure on that show. Every other man on that show would tell you the same thing, that they loved it, and you’re talking about some of the most popular men in the world.
ANOTHER THING THAT I really liked about dancing on the show was becoming someone else onstage. They kept trying to bring my football career to the show. They would have me say promotional stuff like “It took Donald Driver thirteen years to win the Super Bowl, but he will only get one chance to win the Mirror Ball.” I would roll my eyes. I began to realize that football was not my entire identity. I began to think of myself more as an entertainer.
Judge Bruno Tonioli made the statement “You should be in show business.” He said he liked the way I expressed myself in my face. I would watch Mark Ballas, one of the professional dancers on the show, do that. I stole most of my shtick from Mark. He was always entertaining. He was always expressing himself. In my quick step, I borrowed one of his expressions. I saw how you get into character. I would go from being serious to fun to getting back into character.
Of course, part of dancing is being sexy.
Judge Carrie Ann declared that she wanted me to be sexy.
Okay, I wondered, how sexy do you want me to be?
“I want you to”—and let me paraphrase here—“have sex with Peta with your eyes,” she said.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“It’s what dancers do,” she said. “When you do the Argentine tango, I want you to make love to Peta on the floor. I want you to make everyone watching think, That’s hot.”
In other words your dancing has to have a little sizzle with it.
Cheryl Burke and Kym Johnson would say about me, “Oh, he’s so cute.” Or “He’s a handsome guy. Oh my God, look at him.” One time Sherri Shepherd said, “I am in love with Donald Driver! Look at this man! Kunta Kinte don’t have nothin’ on him!”
The whole thing was a huge ego trip. It was also part of show business. I had all these famous people saying they were attracted to me when none of it meant a thing to me. A lot of it was hype for the show. In interviews Peta would say, “He’s a good-looking man. He has all those muscles. Look at him. I’m going to work with this. That’s not a bad-looking body up underneath all these clothes.”
I was fine with all of it. Peta is a small woman, but she isn’t the featherweight that people think she is. I had to pick her up, and she was a load. I could tease her about that, part of our brother-sister bond and relationship. I have video of the two of us playing around in practice, hitting each other, kicking each other, when we were supposed to be doing the pasodoble—a lively style of dance modeled after the sound, drama, and movement of the Spanish bullfight.
She kicked me for real in my stomach.
“You’re just like my little brother who I used to beat up,” she said.
I thought Peta was cool. She was beautiful, but I was not attracted to her. But as Carrie Ann was quick to remind me, if the judges and the public didn’t think I was attracted to Peta while we were dancing, we weren’t going to win. When I did the waltz, I was sexy as hell, and we scored very well. When I did the cha-cha, I took off my vest and threw it to Carrie Ann, giving Bruno just what he wanted. I danced bare-chested, showing off my muscles and my tattoos, and he was smitten.
To win I would have to be even sexier when I did the Argentine tango in the final show.
After nine whirlwind weeks of practicing long hours and dancing for the nation to see, Peta and I were still alive. Martina Navratolova had been the first to be eliminated. Jack Wagner lost next. On consecutive weeks Sherri Shepherd, Gavin DeGraw, Jaleel White, and Roshon Fegan bit the dust.
Melissa Gilbert was next to go, followed by Maria Menounos.
For the final show, on May 22, 2012, three couples remained. William Levy and Cheryl Burke was one couple. Levy, who was born in Cuba, was a star on Mexican television. Kids knew him most from being Jennifer Lopez’s love interest in her music video “I’m Into You.” He certainly had his fans.
My other competition was Katherine Jenkins, a singer of classical music, who was paired with the very talented dancer Mark Ballas. I knew the competition would be fierce. Winning required getting the most points from the three judges, but half the score came from the public voting in a national election. I liked my chances. William Levy and Katherine Jenkins were unknowns when they entered the competition, but their charm, charisma, and dancing ability brought them to the attention of the entire country.
Who did I have rooting for me? Only the entire Green Bay Packers fandom and the entire state of Wisconsin.
To win, both Peta and I admitted we had to work on becoming the passionate couple the judges and the public were expecting. It was a matter now of learning to act, learning to become a character in a play, only this play was based on reality.
We were working on the tango, and I was messing up deliberately just for the hell of it. I then yelled at her to get her feet right. I was after her constantly, relentlessly criticizing her. Of course she had no idea why I was doing this, and she just looked at me puzzled.
“Leave the building,” I ordered her. “We’re not going to win. I should get another partner.” I then pulled her close.
“I wish I had Cheryl as my partner,” I said. “This sucks. I can’t do this.”
All of this was filmed on camera, of course. I was acting.
When her eyes started to get watery, I couldn’t take it any longer.
“Peta,” I said. “They told me to stir up some drama.”
She hugged me but also said, “I could kill you right now.”
For the final performance Carrie Ann coached me on how to hug and embrace Peta.
“I’ll show you how,” she said.
She wrapped her arms around me, seductively, breathing in my ear.
“How does that feel?” she asked.
“Like sexual harassment,” I said.
In the finale we had to perform two dances, one the Argentine tango, the other a freestyle performance of our own choosing.
The first time I did the Argentine tango in front of Carrie Ann, who had been advising us, her reaction was that I was holding back my emotions so much that I didn’t have a chance to win.
“The tango is a dance of love,” Carrie Ann said, “and you aren’t showing the love.”
Carrie Ann knew her stuff. She said to me, “All the other women in the building probably think, “Oh my God, they’ve got something going on,’ but I could see you were looking at Peta like she’s your sister. You have to do it again, but this time you have to find the passion.”
There never was that attraction between me and Peta, but at the same time we knew we needed for it to look that way when we performed our last Argentine tango. There had to be that sexual tension between us. In certain dances, especially Latin dances, sexiness and sex appeal are what it’s all about. But up until this point I could only go so far.
“Why?” Carrie Ann asked me.
“Because I never want to make my wife feel uncomfortable,” I said.
“I respect that,” she said. “Not too many men come on the show and say that.”
She suggested I bring Tina in to practice with us and that I picture Tina’s face when I was looking at Peta.
“That way,” she said, “you will make love to Tina by making love to Peta—but just by dancing.”
I talked to Tina about it, explaining to her the importance of my looking like I was Peta’s lover. Tina had been coming to rehearsals and came to understand what was needed. She told me to go ahead. Her permission was wholehearted. Tina is a remarkable woman.
As Peta and I went out onto the stage on that final night to dance the Argentine tango, I said, “All right, Peta! You’re in trouble.”
I winked at the judges. I let go and became that sexy Latin lover Carrie Ann wanted me to be.
If I want to win, I told myself, I’m going to have to do this.
I had that smoldering look in my eyes. I seduced Peta with everything I had while we danced, and every line, every move, turned out perfectly. Peta and I were connected. We had that longing look in our eyes.
Dancing the Argentine tango, we just rocked the house being silly and having fun.
The final dance was a freestyle number. William Levy went first, and he and his partner did a Latin dance, and he scored 10, 10, and got a 9 from Len Goodman, who complained that Levy was doing the expected. Katherine went next. She opened up by singing—she sings beautifully—and she and her partner really nailed it, scoring a perfect 30.
Now it was our turn. We needed to be perfect to keep up. I chose to do something completely unexpected. We would dance to a country-and-western song, and we’d do a little hip-hop dancing at the end. We wore green and yellow costumes, harking back to my Green Bay Packers roots.
Peta and I just went out and had as much fun as we could. We swayed and shimmied and shook and boogied, and when we were done, I thought the roof was going to come off the building.
Carrie Ann said it was her favorite dance of the night and gave us a 10. Len finally gave us a 10, and so did Bruno. It was one of the closest finals ever. It would all come down to the voting public. How many cheeseheads would call 1-800-868-3403 and vote for us? I had high hopes.
The three finalists sat on the stage to await the announcement of who won. First Tom Bergeron announced the third-place finisher.
“In third place with the judges votes and the fan voting, the third place goes to”—we waited and waited and waited—“William Levy and Cheryl Burke.”
We gave them a hug and wished them well. Now only two were left.
Bergeron announced, “When we come back, one of them will leave with the trophy.” My heart was racing.
Before the show I had told the producers that if we won I wanted Tina to bring my baby daughter Charity onto the stage. As Katherine Jenkins, Mark Ballas, Peta, and I were coming down to where they were going to make the final announcement, I looked to my right where Tina was, and I thought I could see Charity.
“Peta,” I said to her, “do you remember when I told you I wanted Charity here if we won?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Look to your right and tell me if you see Charity. If she’s there, we’ve won.”
“I’m not going to look,” she said. “What if she’s not there?”
“Then we’ve lost.”
We sat there, our eyes straight ahead.
After the commercial Tom Bergeron said, “We will now reveal the winner. The winner of Dancing with the Stars in its fourteenth season”—the pause was so long it seemed like it was all day, even though it was only perhaps thirty seconds—“Donald and Peta.”
I jumped up and started running. I fell to the floor and started rolling around. I came back and hugged Peta. It was like I had just won the Super Bowl all over again.
“How does it feel?” Bergeron asked me.
“Amazing,” I said. “Awesome.”
And that was how I felt.
Peta and I held up the beautiful Mirror Bowl as Tina, Charity, Christina, and Cristian rushed onto the stage to congratulate us. As the cameras panned the celebration I held Charity in my arms and I kissed and hugged Tina. I then hugged the other contestants.
It was one of the most amazing moments I have ever experienced.
OTHER THAN THE millions of cheeseheads, before I performed on Dancing with the Stars no one knew who Donald Driver was. But I couldn’t help but think how many Green Bay Packers fans watched the show because of me. And voted for me. I’m sure that Peta and I won the contest because of them. And because Peta and I can dance.
I had told Peta when I first met her, “Get ready, because all we have to do is dance well. If we do, the Packers fans are going to keep us in the competition.”
“There’s no way,” she said.
She had no idea.
“You don’t know Packer Nation,” I said. “Packer Nation is huge.”
She looked at me as if to say, Yeah, right.
She didn’t know football at all.
But it was a turning point for me. It told me how much I meant to the fans. They supported me throughout the show, and because of them I had 33 percent more votes than any other contestant.
It was a great experience. I’d have to say it was one of the best experiences of my life. I tell people that winning the Mirror Bowl and the Dancing with the Stars championship was as satisfying as winning the Super Bowl.
The show is a lot more than dancing. The viewers have to know the hard work the contestants put into it. Packers fans knew what I put into it. They saw all the work. And I’ve had more men tell me they’ve taken up dancing with their wives, or are taking dance lessons because of my being on the show. That’s big for me. It’s a great compliment. I was able to get these men out of being tough guys and off to a party where they can dance with their wives.
Tina and I dance at home now. We’ll dance, and I’ll be counting the steps, and she’ll say, “Babe, we need some work.”
But she’s having fun. She goes back on the Internet and watches the dances to learn to do certain moves.
“Can we kick our feet like that? We’ll have to figure out how we can put that into our routine.”
Because of Dancing with the Stars, the world now knows who I am. Yes, they know I played football and they know I’m a dance champion, but more important, they now know this guy is a good guy. He’s a good Christian man. He believes. He loves his family dearly. He loves his kids. People saw all of that on the show, and now I have a bigger fan base than ever.
I don’t know what the future holds for me, but because of Dancing with the Stars my world has opened for me. Now I’m not too shy to say, “I want to be in a movie.” Or to say, “I can work for Good Morning America.” Before I went on the show, I would have been too fearful. Now I have the confidence to be a correspondent for a news show, where I can report important stories about sports.
Thanks to Dancing with the Stars, the world is my oyster.