‘You Know There’s a Draft Every Year, Right?’
By T.J. Graham
A standout wide receiver at NC State, T.J. Graham played for the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets and New Orleans Saints in the NFL before joining the Montreal Alouettes in the CFL.
“I had a unique upbringing,” says T.J., whose father was a renowned track coach and won a silver medal as part of Jamaica’s 1988 4x400-meter relay team, and whose mother was a college track All-American. “I was always around pro athletes. I got to see how detailed they are, how consistent they are, and how serious they are.”
Here are the top three lessons he learned while becoming a pro himself.
Don’t Tone Down Your Ability to Fit In
Just starting out, in high school, I was fast—fast enough that I played varsity as a youngin. And then as I got older, I started to separate myself from my teammates. I was so fast I didn't have a quarterback who could throw it far enough, so I toned down my route running. But that was detrimental to my recruiting, because college coaches would say, “You don’t really do this.” Well, I can, but I’d be running by myself.
At the time, I talked with Alvis Whitted, who played receiver in the NFL. We had a close relationship because my dad had privately coached him when he was a football player and track athlete at NC State. I talked to him, shared my frustrations. He said, “If you can run by everybody, just run by them. Don't worry about it. They’ll find someone or some way to get you the ball.”
So I just started rolling, and our quarterback started throwing three-step go routes. Any more steps than that and I was going to be down the street.
That was the first lesson that stuck with me: always show your ability.
As BreakAway’s head of performance, T.J. worked with quarterbacks and receivers at the Elite 11 regional in Atlanta this spring.
‘Achievements Can’t Sustain You Forever’
I realized in high school that I was on a different track than everyone else around me. I was not doing the same things as my friends and peers. I started to find myself very alone a lot of the time—and I had to be OK with that. My parents were both elite sprinters, and my dad was an Olympic coach, so I had the genetics and I had the nurture. And I could lean on them for advice because they had experienced the same thing.
I learned early on that this is part of the game. As you go to college, as you turn pro, you're in a different space as you keep elevating—you're going to be spending a lot more time alone and no one who has experienced that is going to be able to relate to it.
If I’m being completely honest, I don't know how to be social. My only thought process ever was to just work and get it done. If I didn't have anything to do as a high school or a college kid, I would go catch balls, run routes, do sit-ups, push-ups, go work out, go recover, go after my goal of playing in the NFL.
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That way of doing things helped me greatly right up until the point I wasn’t playing football anymore. After you reach your goal, you realize how important that social aspect is. So the real question is: How is your mental stability going to hold up? How are you taking care of yourself?
Once I reached the NFL, I started to work on myself as a person and not just an athlete. And it gave me relief from that mentally of, “Go, go, go, go, go and sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice.” I started to have friends outside of football, engage in different things, and create more hobbies like art. So my advice to athletes is to have something you love to do outside of your sport. You have a goal to make it to the NFL? Great. Go after it. Get it. Win. And keep winning. But know that’s not who you are as a person. Accolades and achievements can’t sustain you forever.
Your skills will diminish one day, you will stop playing the game one day. You can’t get caught thinking that your value as a person has diminished or that you no longer have an identity. It’s one thing to keep getting lonelier as you keep elevating to different levels in the game. If you don’t have a plan for after football, you’ll eventually feel abandoned by the game and entirely on your own. There's life after football, and there’s life off the field. Live it.
‘What Do You Dream About When You’re Living Your Dream?’
As much as I say there’s life off the field, the point is to find the right balance.
After I got drafted, I was so excited, so ecstatic, just smiling every day. I remember one of my first interviews after the draft, the reporter was like, “Hey, you made it to the NFL. How do you feel?” Honestly, I was giddy. As a kid I used to lay on a blanket comforter that had all the NFL teams on a map. I asked the reporter, “What do you dream about when you're living your dream?” Like, what's next after you achieve that goal?
If that sounds like I may have been less focused than I should have, well, that’s true. I had been so focused on making it to the NFL that I felt like I could finally relax for the first time in 10 years once I made it there.
One day in the locker room my rookie season, Tashard Choice, a veteran running back, came to me and said, “Hey, man, what's up? Let me tell you something. You know there's a draft every year, right?”
He asked me how many guys I had been drafted with were still on the team—and the answer was not that many. I had been drafted in the third round, so I was going to make the team no matter what. But suddenly I was like, “Oh, shit. They're looking at me now.”
The lesson: Take advantage of every opportunity because they're looking to replace you and level up every time. So whether you’re in the NFL, or if you’re in college, or you’re in high school, remember that there’s a draft every year and someone is always trying to replace you.
Question? Comment? Want to chat? You can reach T.J. Graham at tj@breakawaydata.com