Earnest - The Patient Man

Earnest Graham has arguably the most fitting name in sports and in life for that matter. I stumbled upon this story as I was looking through ESPN the Magazine. I used to watch Earnest play, six and seven years ago, for the Florida Gators, my favorite college football team. Last season, in the NFL, he got his first opportunity to start for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, because of injuries to Cadillac Williams and Michael Pittman. He was first introduced into the league in 2003 as rookie, and was cut three times in that one year. The most I ever new about the guy was the college he played for, the number he wore and that in watching him in college, I thought he was a pretty good running back. Today, I am very thankful to have been properly and fully introduced to Earnest Graham. I am always touched, and I guess, just happy to know and find more examples of good, honest, hard working human beings, with inspiring attitudes toward life and it's challenges. Of course I don't overlook the importance and beautiful spirits of the people who supported Earnest(his girlfriend(now wife), friends and family). Please take the time to read this story. Earnest Graham is a great example for all of us, as so many of us struggle with the virtue of patients. I love how he says, "patience is a form of open-mindedness." So true, I had never really looked at it that way. This strong character man epitomizes the true meaning of patience, perseverance and earnest.

TEN MIL THE HARD WAY

Like a lot of NFL journeymen, Earnest Graham had to go for broke to get his big break.
by Justin Heckert

The patient man comes home to another hotel room. In a borrowed truck, he comes home to his girlfriend and baby girl; to suitcases with clothes that used to hang in the closet of the apartment from which he was recently evicted. He comes home in a borrowed truck because his car has been repossessed. His mom and his friends lend him money, while his girlfriend covers the diapers, groceries and $10 drive-through dinners.

He can scarcely afford the $150 per week for his daughter's day care. But the patient man pays it, because if he were to look after her himself, he would have to wave good-bye to those long workouts at Bally's and the dream of playing in the NFL. The time in the gym doesn't pay a dime, but his girlfriend, patient woman that she is, drives him there anyway. He has to borrow a phone to call her to pick him up, but he is not ashamed. He has blind faith in his ability, although sometimes he wonders if what he's doing is for the best.
He and his girlfriend move again and again, out of Tampa, beyond the infinite strip clubs and gas stations. They follow hotel signs that stretch high above the road, taking the cheapest deals they find. His first big pro paycheck—$25,000 from the Buccaneers—is long gone, and since he has been cut three times in his short career, the patient man, Earnest Graham, will live this way until his family has nothing to fall back on but the virtue of patience itself, nowhere to go but the two-bedroom apartment of a friend who's agreed to let them live there, with three other men, for free.
In these spring months of 2004, Graham drives his girlfriend, Alicia, and daughter, Aiyana to the beach, away from their problems. To Clearwater, where they sit, still as sand dollars. Sometimes he and Alicia don't say a word. They just watch the dwindling sunlight as Aiyana sleeps in her stroller.
The NFL is not a place for patient men. It's not a league anxious to give players their first big chance five years down the line. There are no guaranteed contracts, only 16 regular-season games for men who have something to prove.
Graham talks about this in June 2008, drinking a cream soda, his legs dangling from atop his pool table, while he watches his children swim outside his brand-new house in suburban Tampa. The 28-year-old running back is medium-size, stocky, with a cleanly shaved head and a pointy goatee. A short-sleeve tee exposes ink on his left forearm: "Struggle Builds Character."

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