Nirvana
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Well written article from last year on Rolando McClain.
Excerpt:
Full article:
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9...linebacker-rolando-mcclain-self-imposed-exile
Photo gallery that goes with article:
http://espn.go.com/espn/photos/gallery/_/id/9895245/image/1/gone-fishing-gone-fishing
Excerpt:
McClain was raised in a single-parent household in Decatur, surrounded by drugs, guns and violence. He describes a mother, Tonya Malone, who worked three jobs and constantly battled with him. At one point, McClain filed a restraining order against her after she allegedly threatened him with a knife. He says his father, Roland Ervin McClain Jr., was largely absent. At age 15, he ran away -- couch-surfing, getting into fights and "being a little gangster."
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Chris Carlson/AP ImagesMcClain was named a consensus All-American when Alabama won the BCS title in the 2009 season.
Football became the easiest, most acceptable way to vent. He emerged as one of the best linebackers in the country, earning a scholarship to Alabama. But as he says now, "Football was my mask. It was the cover-up. You got problems -- go break something, work it out that way. I never really dealt with the problem."
His problems followed him to Tuscaloosa. In practice early in his freshman year, McClain -- already starting at middle linebacker -- got upset that a defensive scheme asked him to cover two gaps. So he changed it, and as he tells it now on the dock, head coach Nick Saban exploded. "What the f---?" Saban screamed, throwing his hat. "Who the f--- do you think you are?"
"Why don't you shut the f--- up?" McClain fired back. "I fixed the problem."
They shouted back and forth, and Saban benched McClain for five games. At first, McClain pouted. Then he came to appreciate Saban standing up to him. Over the next few years, as McClain became the best linebacker in the country and won a BCS championship in 2009, Saban and McClain got closer. They'd watch film together, just the two of them. For the first time in his life, McClain felt stable. He loved the college bubble: class, football, class, football. He became a two-time dean's list student. He'd always eat breakfast at Rama Jama's and then get his hair buzzed by Tate, his barber at Fatheadz on Paul W. Bryant Drive. "It was home," he says.
He left after three years, expecting NFL money to solve his family's problems. He got drafted, went to Oakland and almost immediately wished he'd never left Tuscaloosa.
Full article:
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9...linebacker-rolando-mcclain-self-imposed-exile
Photo gallery that goes with article:
http://espn.go.com/espn/photos/gallery/_/id/9895245/image/1/gone-fishing-gone-fishing
