what happened to logic when he was young
This story is not about Vince Young.
You already know that story. I told it a one thousand thousand times.
Vince Young is the guy who walks into the huddle at the Rose Basin, 4th-and-five. Everything on the line. Whole dang country watching, all 10 guys in the huddle looking him expressionless in his eyes, similar.…
What's the temperature of VY right now?
What'south his vibe?
Is he nervous?
And honestly, VY is scared as shit.
Only he can't be showing it. Vince Young is the guy who looks at them dudes in that moment, the biggest moment of all their lives, and says, "Let your nuts hang."
This story is non nearly Vince Immature.
Vince Young is the dude who took the shotgun snap, looked left, looked correct, saw the seas role.Run, Forrest, run. Like we on the sandlot. Touchdown. Jump over the cameraman. National champion. Whirlwind. BET. MTV. Jay Leno. Agents. Managers. Managers on managers. Whole life changes.
Lord have mercy, did it change.
But I'm telling y'all at present, this story is notabout Vince Young.
Vince Young is the guy who gets on a airplane to Las Vegas the mean solar day after the Rose Basin, walks through the anteroom of the MGM M, gets escorted to the hush-hush elevator, to the secret flooring, to the super-secret BALLERS room — I'thousand talking the super-secret ICONS suite, the kind of matter y'all simply see in the movies — and he sees some dude eating a plate of food in the corner.
Vince Young is the guy who looks at them dudes in that moment, the biggest moment of all their lives, and says, "Let your nuts hang."
It'south Tiger Forest.
Another dude is sitting on the couch, just chilling.
It's Derek Jeter.
Afterward on, another dude comes by.
It'south MJ.
It'southward Michael Jordan.
Mike.
It's the GOAT, in the flesh.
Reallythere.
And all these guys actually come over to Vince Young, in the super-secret VIP suite, the kind of room you but see in the movies, wanting to talk tohim.
Tiger says, "Fantastic game, Vince. Fantastic."
Jeter says, "Astounding chore, boyfriend."
Optics so pretty they make you want to cry. Walking and talking similar Jeter. Reallyin that location.
"But a astounding job."
So MJ says, "We were all at the game, Vince. We were all there."
Similar it's a dream. Like maybe Vince Young died or something, and this is really heaven.
Yous were all at the game?
MJ says, "Oh aye, young fella. We were all in that location, watching you."
And so MJ wipes the grinning off his face and says, "Now, why are my people telling me that you lot don't desire to sign with Jordan brand?Reebok, Vince?Reebok? Shhhiiiiiitttt!"
But this is your last warning, alright?
This story is non well-nigh Vince Young.
This is well-nigh Bubba.
This is about the Infant Male child.
This is about Vincent.
Y'all never heard this one earlier.
Momma was strung out.
Let'southward get that out of the way right now. And let's besides acknowledge that my momma is a cute adult female and the rock of our family unit and somebody who trounce those demons. Somebody who has been sober for 20-plus years. Circular of adulation for my momma.
Only to appreciate the light, nosotros gotta admit the darkness. And when I was a kid, I saw a whole lot of things a kid shouldn't see. Sex, drugs, drinking, shootings, stabbings, you proper noun it.
Ten or xi years old. Somebody banging on our front door.Banging. My momma opens the door, and the guy falls right into our living room, bleeding to decease. Shot iv or 5 times. Blood everywhere.
My sister's boyfriend.
Regular, everyday life.
Then I started sleeping past the front door. I used to put a wooden pallet down on the floor and just doze off. If anybody came, I knew what I had to practice to protect the women of the business firm. My dad wasn't around, so what was I supposed to exercise? I got my momma, my grandmother and 2 sisters in there.
Nothing else to practise. I had to protect them.
My uncle was strung out, too.
Twelve years old. He stole something from somebody. They offset chasing afterward him, shooting. So where does he call up to run? He runs into our business firm, slams the door. What they exercise? They get-go shooting rounds right into our business firm. I'm peeking out the window of my bedroom, and the dudes are standing right in our front end yard. I call up thinking,Maybe if I go out there and let them get me first, at least my sisters could get away.
They ran out of bullets, I approximate. They left. Y'all don't have fourth dimension to remember when information technology'south going down. Yous're but a kid. Y'all're only in daze. Then it'southward over. And you lot don't ask why. Ain't nobody to ask but God.
Welcome to Houston.
In that location was a time when I was trying to exist hard. In middle school I wasn't acting right. It was my way of dealing with the situation. I wasn't selling drugs, I wasn't in the streets like that, but I was just … drifting. All I saw was people getting shot, people going to jail. What I'k supposed to practise? Can't be soft.
"Hey, go beat this person up. I'll give you $100."
Sound pretty good when you're hungry.
But even dorsum then, people saw potential in me as an athlete.
Even when I was effectually that stuff, people were ever telling me, "Vince, take your asshome, man. Nosotros got this."
But I couldn't run across a mode out, really.
In fact, I still don't think you're getting it.
Thirteen years onetime. Bound break coming upwards. These two gangs had information technology all prepare up. The Browns and the Vi Nines, I think it was. I don't even know why, but it was most to popular off at dejeuner. Everybody knew information technology. Back in the day, yous didn't need no alibi. The gangs were crazy dorsum then, fifty-fifty in eye school. Not but the real gangs, but everybody. Cliques, teams, whatever.Everybody was about to fight. Girls, boys, everybody. I'grand talking Royal Rumble.
So everybody gets to the deli during lunch period, and a couple minutes become by, people are getting their lunch trays….
And it goes down.
Somebody throws a chair.
Dick Dowling Middle Schoolhouse was a state of war zone, bro.
Wait, I don't know what fights were like at your middle school, but I'm telling yous it wasn't likethis. Whatsoever trivial bullshit food fight you got in your mind, plow the volume upwardly to 100. It was people getting their asswhupped. Chairs, tables, trays, claret on the flooring, people slipping on the blood, dudes knocking over the vending machines, throwing soda cans, taking the coin out, teachers throwing punches, security guards throwing punches, fire alarms going off, police sirens …chaos.
Man, somebody gear up a instructor'southward apparel on fire.
Onfire.
Chairs, tables, trays, claret on the floor, people slipping on the blood.
She was running downwards the hallway screaming for the burn down extinguisher.
I'm talking chaos. Not one of them stories you tell when you're with your boys, laughing about it. I'm talking scary, scary, scary. When you're in the centre of a state of war, what can yous do? Yous go to war. And then I went to state of war on some dudes I didn't like.
When the cops showed upward, they started putting people in handcuffs. They weren't playing. I got cuffed. They took us over to this little belongings area and started questioning us. Then finally they say, "O.Grand., that's enough. We're calling ALL Y'ALL MOMS."
I'm thinking, Ohhhhhh,shit.
Any platitude you have in your mind almost my mother, that wasn't her. No matter how much partying she did the night earlier, she'd wake up at half-dozen a.m., pick my grandmother up from her graveyard shift, and so drive u.s.a. to school. Every morning. She never missed. Sometimes I would look at her like,How in the earth are y'all still standing?
She was a woman who had her demons, simply she loved her babies more than annihilation, and she wanted them doingcorrect, doinggood. So when they had me cuffed, I wasn't scared of going to jail. I wasn't scared of the police. I was scared of my momma.
So she finally gets to the school and she sees me sitting there in the cuffs, and I'1000 thinking she's virtually to beat my donkey in front of everybody. But she simply turns to the cops and says, "Have my son out of those handcuffs. I'll deal with him."
And theylistened. Remember about that for a second.
They uncuffed my ass! They knew she was theconstabulary, man.
We went out and got into her car, and that was the moment that changed my life. She all but disowned me right there. She didn't sugarcoat it. She said, "Son, let me tell you something. Your ass is going to cease upwardly dead, bedridden, or in jail if you go on living this lifestyle."
That life was all I wasseeing around me, though. In the moment, when she said it, I kind of brushed information technology off. It didn't sink in correct away. And so we got home, and she gave me the whupping off my life, and then she gave me my real penalization. I had to rake upward the leaves in our front yard every day that I was suspended from school.
It don't sound bad, I know, but we had this big oak tree out there, and information technology was the autumn, so it was similar an all-day job. One day I was out there raking, and my schoolhouse motorcoach came rolling down the street, and all the windows were down.
All my homeboys hanging out the windows, waving and laughing at me.
All the girls hanging out the windows, pointing at me.
I'll never forget somebody yelling, "Aaaahh-haaaa! Vince gotta do the leaves!"
Man, the mode kids sayAaaahh-haaaaa! You know what I'grand talking nigh? Everybody laughing. I don't know why, but that messed me up. I was humiliated. I just felt similar … I don't know….
I'k never going tobeannihilation.
I'm never getting u.s.a.out of here, you know?
That'southward really when my mom'due south words hit me. I thought about that conversation in the auto. I thought about everything she was going through. I idea about all the shit I was seeing in my neighborhood. And for whatever reason, I was similar, "O.M., I become it. I have to brand a change. Allow's try something different."
Equally a 36-twelvemonth-former man, it sounds like nothing. Sounds simple, don't information technology? When you're a 13-year-sometime kid growing upward in the environment I was in, it's non so simple. It's more than like a fucking revelation, man.
Let'southward try something unlike.
Football.
Here's the thing about football game, man. I don't know how it is for everybody else. I don't know what they felt like when they put that helmet on in high school and they ran out onto the field. I don't know if they were nervous or scared or excited, or if they felt nix at all.
But for me?
Bro, when I put on that helmet? When I was with my boys? When I crossed them white lines? When I had the ball in my easily? When I was scoring touchdowns?
It was the funnest shit e'er, bro.
At home, I'm eating syrup sandwiches. I'm seeing my friends become shot. I'grand seeing my uncle and then high he's just stuttering. I'thou seeing nothing merely real life.
But when I crossed them white lines, that was my playground. That was my fourth dimension to forget about all the stress I was dealing with and just have fun.
Sometimes people phone call football an escape. I looked at it a little differently. That football game field, it was almost like my dormitory. That wasmine. It was my room. I lived at that place. Fully fucking furnished. Everything was exactly how I wanted information technology.
When I cross them white lines, I'm not poor. My mom's non strung out. Our lights aren't getting cut off.
I'thou not Vincent, raking up them leaves.
I'm VY. I'grand Vince Motherfucking Young, and guess who's laughing now?
That was the blessing of football. Not just for me, but for all of u.s.a..
I'm VY. I'thou Vince Motherfucking Young, and approximate who'due south laughing now?
But in that location was notwithstanding something missing for me. I didn't accept a dad at my games similar some kids, you lot know what I mean? I e'er had the women of the family, for sure. That'southward who I looked up to to run into in the stands after every touchdown. And that was cool, but I was missing that father figure.
Sixteen years old. I get invited to Steve McNair'due south football army camp.
And that'south SteveMacNair, where I'yard from, for the record.
When we retrieve of Steve McNair, the Tennessee Titans aren't the first affair that comes to heed.
The first affair that comes to mind is Steve in that all-white Houston Oilers uniform, baby blue number ix, looking like a 1000000 bucks, running wild in the Astrodome. That's SteveMacNair. Houston legend, man.
So when I got the invitation to his army camp, I was hype. Only there was like 50 other QBs at the camp, and I'thou thinking, "Alright, how tin can I say what'south up to Steve? Like,really say what's upwards."
Camp starts, and Steve comes over to say hello to me or any.
I'm similar, "Steve, man, information technology's an award. I was at that place that day you first played in the Astrodome."
He was like, "For existent?"
I said, "Yeah, I snuck in through a side door with my boys!"
He thought that was funny, so I told him the whole story. The rodeo is huge in Houston, right? Well, I used to work at the concession stand in the Astrodome selling turkey legs during the funfair. When you lot're doing that job, y'all and your boys know all the side doors. All the loading docks, the exits, everything. So, 1 day, nosotros put that cognition to skillful use. It wasn'tMission Impossible. It was easy, man. Loading door pops open. Delivery boys in the building, baby! Fresh bread! Blindside, we inthere.
Oilers vs. Lions, I think information technology was. So of course y'all gotta become seat surfing, because y'all don't have tickets. Upper decks are obviously the best. Merely eventually, you're gonna get caught. That's simply part of it.
"Excuse me, son. Can I see your—"
Bye! You're already running to Section 600, bro. By the time they're on the walkie-talkie, you lot're moving again.
I vividly think — and I don't know if itreally went downward similar this, and honestly I don't care considering it's this way in my mind — I remember running from security through the concession surface area and hearing, "Coming into the game for the Oilers at quarterback … number nine … Steve …Mac …Naaaaaaaaiiirrrr."
We spent that whole game playing hide-and-seek in the Astrodome. I told Steve that story, and how I used to e'er watch him on our raggedy TV with the tinfoil for the antenna. Could barely make out anything other than that infant blue number 9 running around like crazy.
Steve McNair became similar a father to me. I don't know why. Couldn't tell you what he saw in me. Maybe he saw himself. Just he completely took me under his wing. There was no ulterior motive. No goose egg. It'south still crazy for me to think about.
Steve was my hero before he became my pops.
When I was coming up through loftier school, getting all this attention all of a sudden, I could ever call him up: "Pops, what you think? What should I practice?"
And any time, mean solar day or dark, Pops would answer.
In the off-season, whenever he was in boondocks, I was like his designated credit card swiper. At the mall, at the restaurant, at events, it was always, "Give the bill to my son. Oh, yous want some shoes? You lot want a fresh T-shirt? Go talk to my son." I was similar his right hand. Steve would take care of everybody, man. I got to meet what he was living. I got a forepart-row seat to a different life —literally, front seat.
Seventeen years onetime. I'm driving this homo's Bentley around downtown Houston. Steve'due south passed out in the passenger seat,sleep. I was Uber Blackness before Uber Black. I mean, picture me — I'one thousand from the 4700 block, Tidewater Drive, the TWT, driving the Benny. I'm rolling the windows down, like, "Y'all see me, baby!"
Information technology still doesn't feel real to me. Do you lot understand how much that meant to me?
Not driving the Bentley. I hateful, that was cool, yeah. That was fun.
But what meant the world to me was this NFL legend, this MVP, this skilful man….
… calling me son.
At present, I told y'all this story was not nigh Vince Young.
Texas? UT? All the glitz and the glory? That's Vince Young. That's VY. That'south just me on my playground. I'll never forget my momma dropping me off at Jester dorm my freshman yr and proverb, "This is your life now, son. What areyou about to do?"
I hateful, the opportunity to be in college, in a stable environment, playing for UT, with all my brothers, in front of 100,000 people … whatI'm about to do?
I'm nearly to go off. I'm about to whup Texas Tech's ass. Whup OU's ass. Whup Ohio Country's ass. Forsurewhup A&M's ass. Whoever'south lining upward across from us.
Sometimes when I'm back in Texas, people come up to me like, "What's upward, O.G.? Man, how come y'all guys were so electric back in the day?"
They're looking at me like there was some kind of magic formula or something.
I just explain it to people like this: At Texas, we didn't merely whup donkey. Weenjoyed whupping ass. In that location's a deviation. Information technology wasn't no job. Information technology wasn't no pressure. It was an opportunity. It was a blessing.
Whupping ass? It wasfun.
Even the night before the Rose Bowl confronting USC, we knew the pressure we were supposed to be feeling. We hadn't won a national championship in 36 years. And USC were someballers, for sure. Every bit a Houstonian, as a Texan, I knew what the moment meant. But we were just some kids having fun, man. Truthfully. It was similar some Night Earlier Christmas shit. We wereexcited, human being.
Me and Selvin Young shared a hotel room, similar usual.
And y'all know what we did?
We did what wealwaysdid.
Nosotros stayed upwards tardily eating cereal and watchingLooney Tunes.
Mannnnnnn, I used to eat so much cereal, I should've had a Fruit Loops sponsorship orsomething.
That goes all the way back to Tidewater, homo. My grandmother would not allow me touch that Television receiver whenThe Young and the Restlesswas on. The whole lather opera block. All the style throughFull general Hospital. I'g trying to swallow my after-school cereal and sentryX-Men, yous know? I'm trying to watch my man Bugs Bunny and the crew, and if I took one pace toward that Television receiver, it was—
"Vin-cent!"
And then, existence in higher, and having unlimited milk? Unlimited hotel Television set? Come on, bro. It was Fruit Loops all day, baby. That was heaven. That's me, human being. That's Bubba. That's Vincent.
When the lights come on, and we strap upwardly? When we put the helmet on? When we see McConaughey on the sidelines? When we hear that canticle? Now it's VY. Now it's Vince Immature.
Alibi my French, but now we gonna allow our basics hang on 'em.
The moment everybody remembers Vince Young for is the 4th-and-5 touchdown.
The moment that Vincent remembers? The moment that Bubba from the 4700 block remembers? That'south different. Y'all probably wouldn't understand. Maybe it would fall apartment for you. Seem similar information technology'southward nada.
But it was when Pops came down to the field later on the game, when we were all out there jubilant. SteveMacNair, coming out to see me play in the national championship game. Afterwards all those years of just my grandma and my momma and my sisters. Finally had a dad in the stands to lookout man me, you know?
Pops pushed his mode through security and got downwards onto the field, and he just tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Male child, you was a whole different animal today."
I'll never forget that until the day I die.
Steve MacNair, coming out to run across me play in the national championship game.
You know … everybody always asks me, "Homo, what did yous do after that game? You musta beenon one, VY."
I recollect McConaughey fifty-fifty threw a party for us, and I retrieve all my teammates asking me, "What we doing, VY?"
And I said, honest to God, "Whatwe doing?"
They said, "Yeah, VY."
I said, "Exercise you know what I just did? I just went for fourhunnid. I'm going toslumber."
That's All, Folks.
I went back to my hotel room with my time to come wife and later about —mmmm, let's say 12 good, wholesome minutes — I wasdreaming, baby.
I didn't realize the magnitude of that game until the adjacent day, when I was on a airplane to 50.A. to go onThe Tonight Show. Then on a plane to Vegas, and suddenly I'chiliad standing in front of Jeter and Tiger and MJ, and they're the ones tellingme great game. Cyclone, man. Surreal, man.
Goose egg can prepare you for that. Particularly when y'all're a kid growing up around what I did?Nothing.
Y'all know, I hear people talking sometimes, like, "What the hell happened to Vince Immature? What happened with Jeff Fisher? What happened with the Titans? What happened with this dude's career?"
Well….
Lemme tell it to you similar this….
And if it don't brand any sense to you, don't worry about it.
Retrieve that oak tree I was telling you about? The one in my front end yard that was shedding all them leaves that I had to rake upward because I was being a dumbass, punk-ass little kid?
Well, that tree was correct outside my bedroom window. Sometimes, whenever my momma was having one of her parties, and all her friends were coming over eating all our food, making all kinds of noise — or whenever I was just too stressed out virtually whatsoever was going on at school, or whatsoever was going on in the streets — I would climb out my window and sit up in that tree.
Yeah, human.
Unproblematic as that.
I'd sit up there in a higher place everybody else. Above the front yard. To a higher place the block. Above the neighborhood. Higher up the arguing and the fighting and the noise. And I'd just recollect.
Recollect and dream.
Sometimes my momma would exist walking in the yard right beneath me, yelling out, "Vincent? VINCE? Where y'all at?"
I'd be upwards in my tree, man. At peace, you know? Dreaming about what I could be. Dreaming well-nigh it just existence … different.
You lot know what I saw?
I know what you probablycall up I saw.
Merely, nah, it wasn't me beingness an NFL quarterback. Information technology wasn't me playing for UT. It wasn't me driving a Bentley. All that is absurd. I did that. I lived that.
Merely, nah, that wasn't what I would remember nigh upwardly there in that tree. I would see my family, all of the states, just being in a different situation. Existence able to live a different lifestyle. No more syrup sandwiches. No more than lights cutting out.
It wasn't anything to do with football, really.
Information technology was only about beingness at peace.
Then what the hell happened to Vince Young?
Well….
I don't know. Sometimes information technology seems like that life was a meg years ago, when I was yet an NFL quarterback. It really does. Like, "Was that really me? Did that happen in this lifetime?"
Jeff Fisher. Bud Adams. The mistakes I fabricated. The mistakes they fabricated. Nosotros could talk almost it all day, and I don't think I'd convince anybody to think any differently than they do now.
You see Vince Young the way y'all see Vince Young.
The NFL, it's not fun in the same way that playing with your boys in high school is fun. It'south non fun the aforementioned manner college is fun. It's not the playground anymore. Perchance it's non supposed to be.
Fact is, I had a difficult time finding the same joy in the game when I got to the NFL.
And just every bit a human beingness, I never actually saw the game the same way after Pops died in 2009. What people don't understand is that I didn't only lose a mentor or a friend. I lost a father.
Heroes are not supposed to die.
And I still miss the shit out of you to this day, Pops.
That's a pigsty that'due south never going to go away.
So that'southward what the hell happened to Vince Young.
But as far equally Vincent Young goes, every bit far as Bubba goes, as far as the Baby Boy goes, I'chiliad not taking any of those NFL memories to my deathbed.
I'1000 taking February 2006 to my death bed. New York City. This was a few months before the NFL draft, and I didn't know where I was going to go picked. There was a lot of uncertainty. Lot of stress. Like I said, whirlwind.
My whole family is out in that location in NYC with me, and we were coming back from dinner, driving through Central Park. And it started snowing really heavy. Being from Texas, we were just in awe, you know?
Whenever you come across Manhattan at nighttime, with the snow coming down, you experience like you're in the movies.
At least we did.
Then I told the limo driver to pull over.
I'm like, "Everybody out!"
Nosotros come up climbing out of this white limo, in the middle of Cardinal Park, running around in the snowfall. My sisters are making snow angels. We're throwing snowballs at one another. Granny gets i correct in the back —whap. She's laughing. She's coming to whup my ass, though.
We're all laughing.
It'south all practiced. It's all going to exist alright.
Snow's coming down in NYC.
At that place'south zilch to worry nigh for a minute.
Expect at us, human. Nosotros're just at peace.
That'due south what I used to dream about when I was upwards in that tree, looking out over my neighborhood.
So what in the hell happened to Vince Immature?
I don't know. You tell me.
I know what happened to Vincent from the 4700 cake of Tidewater Drive.
He slept in front of the door. He sabbatum up in the tree. He visualized information technology. He made it happen. He protected his family unit. He got 'em out.
Source: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/what-the-hell-happened-to-vince-young
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