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FIRST PERSON: History in the making by Joshua Cooley Date: Jan 29, 2009 |
GERMANTOWN, Md. (BP)--Super Bowl XLIII seems to be all in a tizzy about history.If we’re not hearing about how the Arizona Cardinals are in their first NFL championship game since 1948, we’re being reminded of how the Pittsburgh Steelers are hearkening back to their Steel Curtain glory years of the 1970s. Throw in some vintage footage of Kurt Warner during his heady days with the St. Louis Rams a decade ago, and Sunday’s big game seems to be as much about the past as it does the present. For one player, though, history is a touchy subject. Darnell Dockett, Arizona’s menacing, mouthy defensive tackle, grew up in a real-life nightmare in Decatur, Ga. One day, in July 1994, when he was 13, Dockett returned home to find his mother dead on the floor. She had been shot in the back of the head. Dockett moved to Burtonsville, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C., where his father lived, to stay with his aunt and uncle. Two months later, pancreatic cancer claimed his father’s life. As Dockett grew into an elite football player – starring first at Paint Branch (Md.) High School for former NFL player Bob Windsor and then at Florida State – he became known as a troublemaker. He’d change Windsor’s plays in the huddle, stand up college coaches on recruiting visits, and once got kicked out of a preseason camp for breaking some windows. In college, he was accused by then-Florida coach Steve Spurrier of taking cheap shots at several Gators during the 2000 season, and as a junior in 2002, he pled guilty to misdemeanor petty theft and was suspended from the Seminoles’ Sugar Bowl matchup against Georgia. Earlier this month, the NFL fined Dockett $20,000 for excessive celebration during the Cardinals’ wild-card playoff win over Atlanta. Clearly, the man has plenty of regrettable occurrences – ranging from poor choices to personal tragedies – in his past. But don’t we all? While few of us have experienced the horrors Dockett did as a young teenager, we can all point to a history rife with bad decisions and sinful tendencies. I don’t know the spiritual state of Dockett’s heart, but I do know mine. I am a sinner miraculously saved by grace. Because I was born into sin, I was once, to paraphrase Ephesians 2:1-3, dead in my transgressions and sins, an object of divine wrath because I followed the cravings of my sinful nature. Praise God, the chapter – and hence, my story – doesn’t end there. Verse 4 continues: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.” So while I have plenty of history to be ashamed of, I – kind of like all those involved in Sunday’s big game – choose to look ahead, not behind. You think Dockett and his teammates are going to be focusing on the Cardinals’ 1947 NFL championship team this Sunday? You think Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin has his players watching Terry Bradshaw highlight reels this week? Not hardly. Likewise, as a child of God, I’m not focused on my past, though Satan beckons me to. I choose to revel in Romans 8:1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” The rest, as they say, is history. --30-- Joshua Cooley, a regular contributor to BP Sports, writes from his home in Germantown, Md.
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