- Lookin' to the future helps me
drive to what's goin' on now.
'Cause there's some days where you feel like,
"Man, am I really gonna get through it?
It's startin' to get tough."
But you gotta remember the reason why you're doin' it.
Those thoughts and those dreams and that imagination
that I see, that we could possibly have in the future,
makes me go harder on those days
where I feel like, "Man, I just feel like I can't make it."
I feel like that comes with
controlling the things you can control.
So, focus on the task at hand, each day - day by day.
And that's the bein' the best football player I can be.
I feel like that's gonna set me up for a better future.
Starting in Little League my dad would write down
all the notes of everything that we could've done better,
or what he felt like should be fixed.
So goin' to college, he wasn't there
to write down the critique. So from now on,
I would do it myself.
And now, today, I still get that same notepad,
and at the end of the season
I write down everything that I could've done better
or could fix for a better outcome for the game.
I'm pretty tough on myself, you know,
but I feel like I shouldn't let no one
set a standard that's higher than mine.
Even my coach felt like I was a little hard on myself.
But after lookin' at all the film,
play-by-play, and takin' all those notes on my pad,
that's the main reason why I gave myself a D-
at the end of the year.
I go into my first year thinkin', "I gotta get my own.
I gotta think about myself, worry about myself."
And it hooked the total opposite.
So, Richard Sherman takin' me under his wing my first year,
and teaching me everything I could know.
Then, second year, he's leavin' and I gotta be the one
that fill that void.
I felt like I was tryin' to follow his footsteps
and do everything the way he did it,
instead of doin' it the Shaquill Griffin way.
It wasn't thinkin' it for the team.
And our minds had changed where, "O.K.,
now I gotta start to evolve a little bit more."
And then my third year, now, I have to be more of a leader.
My first couple years was more about,
"O.K., how many picks can I get?"
It's all about stats and accolades.
And I felt like I should veer my focus more on
what can I do for this team.
Football was supposed to be a backup plan.
So, football was our plan B.
Plan A was go to school, go to college, graduate.
But my dad, the way he preached it to us was,
"If you don't make it in football,
it's fine. That wasn't your first plan anyway.
If you do? It's just an add-on, it's a blessing."
So I made sure I did everything I could
to put my best foot forward and to have the best opportunity
to make it to the NFL. And that happened.
Thirteen years old, we ran on this AAU track team
with this coach - and I remember I threw an idea out.
It was like, "Maybe we should start our own track team."
Next thing you know, we got St. Pete Nitro.
Me and my brother was the founders of the team.
We started off with 13 kids, and now we got over 150.
But it definitely was a blessing.
We try to continue to keep that going and growing.
This is like my home now.
I see Seattle as my home so I will want to have a camp here,
but I also want to have a camp back in Florida.
What motivates me to continue to strive and be my best
is the ones that look up to me.
I feel like if I give up, I'm givin' up on that kid.
Hopefully one day he gonna try to imitate everything
that me and my brother may be doin'.
We are actual role models, and I think
that's what pushin' me the most to get up in the mornin'.
It's like these kids are our future.
The dreams continue to change
'cause we actually have our ultimate goal,
which is to go back in our city
and start our own headquarters,
where it's our own trainin' facility.
But it does more than just train people.
Their dreams are so hard to try to come by,
but when you have your brother,
who's been through so much, or accomplished so much,
that's the person I continue to lean on
when it comes to achievin' something
that's greater than me and football.
And like I said before, football was plan B.
This wasn't even the first plan.
The NFL is just the beginnin'. But after the NFL
is when we really gotta put our dreams into effect.
You got one goal down, you got so many more to accomplish.
And the ultimate goal is to be able to
change lives around the world.