Monday, November 30, 2009

Vince Young Is Back



I thought I’d write about something other than sports this week, but I really just couldn’t resist another great sports story. I’m very passionate about sports and I feel like I can relate to them better than anything else. Having grown up playing many different sports, I have experienced both the glory of success and the misery of failure. I understand how it feels to lose a game. And I understand how bad it feels to let your team down. Nothing is more frustrating than trying as hard as you possibly can to help your team win, but still coming up short. Since I relate to the pain that so many professional athletes go through, I have come to have a great respect for those players who are able to persevere through tough times and become successful once again. Vince Young is an ideal example of a professional athlete who has been able to bounce back from some tough times in his life both on and off the football field.



It would be a huge understatement to say that Vince Young experienced great success in his college football career. He dominated the college football scene. He always received lots of attention in the media and high praise from his fans. He played quarterback for the University of Texas and during his final season, he led his team to the national championship game. On the final play of the game, he scored a touchdown to win the national title for his team. As if that were not impressive enough he finished second overall in the voting for the Heisman Trophy. Considering that the Heisman Trophy is given to the best player in college football, second place was an amazing accomplishment. He also received the Davey O’Brien Award which is given to the best college quarterback each year. In recognition of his great success, ESPN named Young the 10th best college football player of all time.



After his national championship season, Young entered the NFL draft in hopes of achieving more fame at the professional level. He was the 3rd overall pick in the draft. He was picked by the Tennessee Titans. He wasted no time achieving more success. He played very well in his first season as a professional player and was named the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year. This award is given to the best first year player in the NFL. Young also started at quarterback for the Titans the following year and led the team to the playoffs. However, he was injured in the first playoff game and his back-up, Kerry Collins became the starter. After Collins played extremely well in the game and led the Titans to a win, he became the starting quarterback for following season in 2008. Vince Young suffered a knee injury near the beginning of that season which kept him from having a chance to earn the starting job at quarterback.



It was during that 2008 season that Young began to come upon some difficult times. He experienced the misery that comes with failure as an athlete. It is extremely frustrating for athletes when they go through times in which their performance is not as good as it has been in the past. I know from my experience in playing tennis that it can be very frustrating to play extremely well for a few months and then go into “slump”. A slump is a period in an athlete’s career in which he or she performs way below their normal level. It has always been hard for me when I don’t play at a level that I know I am capable of. Therefore I know how Vince felt when his level of play dropped to an all-time low. He had always been used to great success, but after recovering from his injury that year, he was never able to play as well as he had before. Due to the frustration and sadness caused by his poor play, Young went into a state of depression. Although he strongly disagrees, many of his close friends feared that he was going to commit suicide on one particular night. His mother became alarmed at his friends fears and called the police when she was unable to reach her son by phone. The whole story turned into a big ordeal in the media in which it was proposed that Vince Young was suicidal. Young encouraged the public that these accusations were very false, but it is still apparent that he suffered greatly.


In 2009, the Titans coach once again named Collins the starter. He said that if Young wants to be the starter, “he is going to have to earn the job back”. After Collins started the season off by losing the first six games, Vince Young was called upon by his head coach. He started the next game and helped the Titans earn their first win of the season. To many peoples’ surprise, Young continued to have success and went on to four straight wins. It was on November 29, that he would face his biggest test. The opposition was one all too familiar. The quarterback for the opposing Arizona Cardinals was Matt Leinart, the same quarterback that he had competed against in the national championship game. Ironically, Vince was faced with the same situation that he had experienced in the national championship game almost four years before. With two minutes remaining, he would have to lead his team on a drive 99 yards down the field in order to win the game. Young produced one of the most magical drives I have ever seen. He converted on fourth down three different times in order to keep the drive alive. Even more ironically, the game came down to the very last play, just as it had in the national championship game when Young was in college. From ten yards outside the end-zone, he had to find some way for his team to score a touchdown. As the last second ticked off the clock, Young found wide receiver, Kenny Britt, in the back of the end-zone. He launched a pass straight toward him and Kenny caught it for the win. After seeing Vince Young go through a lot of tough times in the last year, I was very happy to see him achieve greatness once again.

3 comments:

  1. I enjoy how you write about sports a lot! It shows that you are passionate about what your writing about and you clearly know a lot about sports. This was another interesting blog about sports to read because I did not even know who Vince Young was. You had a lot of good information about his football career and who he was.

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  2. I say stick to sporst this was amazing! I'm not much of a sports watcher on t.v but I enjoy reading and I found myself getting anxious wanting to know what happened and what the outcome of the game was. This was good! GREAT post.

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  3. I always enjoy reading your sports posts! I am definitely not up to date with all of the professional and college sports happenings so its nice to read about the latest news in sports! It's nice to learn about the different athletes that you write about as well. Nice job!

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