Problems, pain have never held Dockett back
TAMPA, Fla. -- The body was in the casket, with relatives and friends moving forward to pay their respects.
Way in the back of the room, a rather large man, one of the biggest and most macho in the room, couldn't bring himself to move to it, even though the person in the box was his grandfather, a man he had respected and loved and admired his entire life.
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| Arizona's Darnell Dockett survived childhood tragedy and some legal troubles. (US Presswire) |
Not after what he has been through.
"He told me at the funeral that ever since he found his mother he just can't stand to see another dead body," boyhood friend Marcus Shealey said.
Finding your mother shot to death at the age of 13 will do that to a kid.
"I couldn't go see him," Docket said. "I just couldn't. It was weird. He was at the Pro Bowl watching me play earlier that year (2008) and then he was gone. And I couldn't go up and say goodbye."
Dockett, who will play a big role for the Cardinals on Sunday in Super Bowl XLIII against the Pittsburgh Steelers, walked into his Atlanta house as a teenager on July 4, 1994, and saw his life altered forever.
As he scurried through the front door with groceries in his arms, he was shocked when he walked in and saw his mother on the ground in a pool of blood, shot execution style.
Dockett has admitted since that his mother might have been involved in drugs, maybe even selling them. Even so, nothing warranted that kind of ending.
But the end for Cheryl Hambrick was actually a beginning, of sorts, for her son.
The Darnell Dockett of that time, a kid his relatives and friends called a "real troublemaker" is now a courteous, respectful and well-liked NFL player.
"He was a wild child before Kevin got him," Shealey said.
Kevin is his uncle, Kevin Dockett. He took in Darnell after the death of his mother and the subsequent death of his father four months later because of prostate cancer.
Kevin Docket lived in Maryland. So he took Darnell from Atlanta and gave him a home, even though the uncle was struggling to get his trucking company going. Money was tight, really tight, Kevin Dockett said, but he had to take in his brother's son. He couldn't let him return to Atlanta.
"He wasn't a good kid then," Kevin Dockett said. "Things changed after I gave him the hickory stick to his behind a couple of times. I had no problems with him anymore after that."
Giving a kid a whipping isn't politically correct these days but it was essential for Darnell Dockett.
"I owe everything to him (Kevin)," Darnell said.
Kevin Dockett had a son of his own, but that didn't stop him from treating Darnell like his own, too. If one got new sneakers, which wasn't often, they all did. If one got a haircut, they all did. Darnell was always included.
"We didn't have a lot, but we made sure he had what we had," Kevin Dockett said. "Times were tough. We didn't have Frosted Flakes, we had frosted animals or something. You know what I mean, the imitation cereal. And we had a motto around our house. It was 'One bowl and roll.' We didn't have enough to have more than that. It might not fill you up, but you didn't go hungry."
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| Dockett found a perfect outlet for his rage: the football field. (US Presswire) |
"You have been spending time with my people," he said.
Yes, because it's an amazing story. It's the loving story of a man taking on a child of a dead brother and nurturing him from troubled youth into an admirable grown man. And that child now has a name for that uncle -- Dad.
"I've always treated him like he was my kid," Kevin Dockett said.
At the end of the NFC Championship Game two weeks ago, Darnell Dockett ended up with the football in his hands as time ran out, after picking up the botched lateral play by the Eagles. He gave that ball to the man he calls dad.
"I wouldn't be here without him," Dockett said.
When Darnell Dockett was brought to Maryland, he also left behind a police record. He said when he left Atlanta he had three arrest warrants. Nothing major, but that's a pretty good rap sheet for a 13-year-old.
A year with Kevin helped erase those problems. If he went to Maryland and had any problems, he said he was going back to Atlanta to face the charges. That would have meant juvenile jail and a pathway into the penal system.
"If he stayed down there, he would have been locked up," Kevin Dockett said.
Darnell Dockett eventually found his way onto the football field. All that aggression from his troubled years became an asset. At first, he didn't even know how to line up. Kevin said he wanted to quit; Darnell preferred baseball. Eventually, he learned the game and learned that his anger could be let out on the field.
He became a force and eventually landed a scholarship to Florida State, where he developed into a quality defensive tackle. But that didn't mean trouble didn't follow him. Florida coach Steve Spurrier ripped him for what he thought was intentionally trying to hurt running back Earnest Graham.
Dockett also had one minor scrape with the law when he was charged with theft for paying $100 for goods valued a lot more than that. It was the same type of trouble Peter Warrick and Laveranues Coles had at FSU, a clerk at a store undercharging for merchandise.
He was labeled a problem kid again. Dockett pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, sentenced to 30 days community service and had a lot of explaining to do to NFL scouts. That could be why he lasted until the third round of the 2004 NFL Draft. Since then, he has become a Pro Bowl player, a quick, penetrating tackle who can be quite disruptive. He plays with a fury you'd expect from a man with his background.
Off the field, he is easy-going and laughs a lot. You spend 10 minutes with him and it's hard not to like him. It's also hard to imagine this is the same kid who found his mom murdered at the age of 13.
How did he succeed?
"You know, with losing my mom when I was 13 and then losing my dad like four months after that, it made me become a real tough person," Dockett said. "I just felt like I could overcome anything. I don't really have any down days. Everybody that knows me, they come into the locker room and they know I'm happy, they know I'm cheerful, and I just look at life right now as though I've already had my misery days.
"But I honestly believe that my mom and my dad are still here. You know, there's no way you're supposed to catch a fumble recovery or an interception at the end of a game by just running to the ball; I think sometimes they're still throwing me plays from up top."
Of the 200 tattoos on his body -- that number is his total -- there is one on his back that is a portrait of his dead mother and father. They take the field with him every game. They're with him every moment of his life, too, even if they aren't there in the flesh.
As he readies for Super Bowl Sunday, he does so knowing that his mother's killers are still on the loose and might be watching. The crime, strangely, has never been solved.
Surprisingly, Dockett isn't filled with hate toward those whose did it. That would be too much of a burden, he said.
"I'll let God deal with them," he said.
He did say he would eventually like to sit down with those responsible and ask them why. How could they have taken something so dear to him at such an important time in his life?
"I forgive them," he said. "But I would like to find out what happened, why they did it."
Tampa Bay running back Warrick Dunn met his mother's killer face-to-face. Dunn said it was cathartic. Dockett would like the same chance.
"If my mom was here she'd be like Allen Iverson's mom," Dockett said. "She'd be going crazy."
She certainly has to be smiling down on him. Seeing the change in her son, from a kid destined for prison or, worse, death, to now playing in the Super Bowl, is an amazing story.
It should be a lesson to all that, even in the toughest times, change is possible. When his mother died, the Darnell Dockett we see today was born, thanks to an uncle -- I mean dad -- who just couldn't turn his back on him.
