ZSW [C M Y K] C8 Sunday, Jul. 21, 2013 ZSW [C M Y K] C9 Sunday, Jul. 21, 2013

C8 • SPORTS • S TA R T R I BUN E • SUNDAY, J U LY 21 , 2 0 13 SUNDAY, J U LY 21 , 2 0 13 • S TA R T R I BUN E • SPORTS • C9

KEY VIKINGS DATESThursday: Reporting date for training camp atMinnesota StateMankato.Friday: First walkthrough at 10:30 a.m.; first practice at 2:30 p.m.Aug. 3: Evening scrimmage at Blakeslee Stadium, 7 p.m.Aug. 9: First preseason game, vs.Houston atMall of America Field, 7 p.m.Aug. 14: Camp breaks.Sept. 8: Regular-season opener at Detroit, noon.Sept. 22:Home opener— the last one at theMetrodome—vs. Cleveland, noon.Sept. 29: vs. Pittsburgh atWembley Stadium in London, noon.

Survival instinctHow many times should Floyd’s

journey have detoured, seeminglyalways at risk of becoming a tragictale of unfulfilled promise?

Floyd was 6 when his mother,Tonya Scott, lost custody, her lifeswallowed by the demons of drugaddiction, depriving her of any con-sistent influence in his upbringing.

Throughout his childhood, Floydlived in both Frankford, Pa., and inthe rougher quarters of North Phila-delphia, where poverty, violence anddrugs reigned. Temptations loomedaround every corner for kids left vul-nerable by their anger and despera-tion.

“A hundred doors, a hundredtraps,” Floyd says.

Adds Mike Wallace, a Floyd con-fidant: “Unfortunately that fast lifeenvelops so many kids. Because theysee that fast money. Nobody wantsto take the time to go to school anddevelop as a person.Why would youwant to do that when you see guysrolling around your neighborhood inBMWs and Benzes?”

All the while, despite the con-stant discipline, encouragement andunconditional love Sharrif receivedfromhis grandmother, Lucille Ryans,his upbringing also was overseen byAnthony Floyd, the man listed on hisbirth certificate as his father.

Who would have thought to ques-tion otherwise?

Anthony, Sharrif says, was a bullymore than a dad. His punishments,Sharrif says, were startling for boththeir unfairness and their frequency.

If Sharrif didn’t get into the showerfast enough …

If toomany dirty dishes piled up…If he sat on the couch in thewrong

place or at the wrong time …Sharrif was belittled. Scolded.

Beaten regularly, he says.If his room wasn’t cleaned prop-

erly, he’d suddenly be absent fromfootball practice.

Then in December 2008, Sharriflearned through his stepsister thatAnthony Floydwas not his biologicalfather. All those years of torment hadcome from a man who was never ablood relative.

And so the final time that Sharrifwalked out from under Anthony’sroof, at age 17 with his grief and reliefwrestling, he responded to one finalrequest to do the dishes.

Hastily, he says, he packed all thebelongings he could grab, then piledevery plate, bowl, cup, fork and knifehe saw into the sink.

Hesousedtheminsyrupanddustedthemwith hot chocolate powder.

Away he went, not certain wherehe was headed.

“I had to break it down to twochoices,” Floyd says. “Because anymore than that and I’m just killingmyself. I was either going to go for-ward or I was going to go backwards.Sowhat I put in front ofmewaswhatI wanted — to move out. And whatI put behind me was staying andfighting through all that I was goingthrough, all I’d been through.

“When I steppedback, itwasn’t forlong. Because I knew I was going togo forward.”

• • •Emblazoned down Floyd’s left

forearm are the two words he usesmost often to describe himself:“Humble” and “Hungry.”

Sure, he acknowledges the peril ofhis upbringing. Butwhat he endured,he believes, is far less important thanhow he emerged.

“If I let thewayIgrewupcontrolmeor sit onmy shoulders,” Floyd says, “Icouldbe theangriestpersononEarth.”

So how is it then that his charge tofootball stardomatWashingtonHighSchool, at the University of Floridaand now his entry into the NFL hasbeen propelled by an incredible com-bination of focus and ambition?

Choices, Floyd says. And a con-certed effort to surround himselfwith the sturdiest support networkpossible.

It’s no wonder that 28 peopleaccompanied him to New York inApril for the first night of the NFLdraft. In the inner circle, at Floyd’stable in the Radio City Music Hallgreen room, sat his grandmother; histwo agents; the couple who swept into adopt him in 2011 (Kevin and Tif-fany Lahn); and close friends GregGarrett and Andre Odom.

The Lahns became Floyd’s legalguardians when hewas a sophomoreat Florida.

Garrettwas Floyd’s strength coachatWashington High School.

Odom, six years Floyd’s senior,became his mentor, hand-selectedby Washington coach Ron Cohen asa survivorwho could relate to Floyd’sproblems and offer direction.

If Floydhad ever felt the oddswerestacked against him, he foundboth anempathetic listener and a tell-it-like-it-is role model in Odom.

With raw emotion, Odom brokethe ice by telling Floyd about his ownharrowing past. The drug addict par-ents who were never a consistentpresence in his life. His roller coasterthrough foster care. The night hisdad, a felon, came home drunk andhigh, didn’t like the way Andre hadfolded the clothes and began wailingaway.

That violence escalated so quickly,Odom says, that his brother had tointervene, knife to neck, so both boyscould escape.

Odom’s emptiness chewed at himlike a famished hyena tearing at agazelle.

“I was so misunderstood by peopleinschool,misunderstoodbyolder folkswhodidn’tunderstandwheremyangerand fury came from,”Odomsays.

Then, through Cohen’s magneticleadership in theWashington footballprogram, Odom found structure andvalues and an emotional release thathe says “savedmy life.” He turned hispassion for football into an opportu-nity to play in college. At Temple, heearned undergraduate and graduatedegrees and spent two seasons as agraduate assistant coach.

“I always wanted to be a some-body,” says Odom, now a scoutingassistant with the Chicago Bears. “Inever knew exactly what that wouldbe. But I alwayswanted to be a some-body. Because I see the way some-bodies are treated. Somebodies aretreated with respect. They’re treatedwith love. They’re embraced.

“I wanted to be like that.”That’s exactly how Floyd felt,

which explains why the duo’s bondstrengthened so quickly.

Says Floyd: “Andre took his adver-sity and overcame, froma youngmanto a teenager to a grownup.He pavedit the right way. He wasn’t going bea product of his environment. Heknew what he wanted and how hewas going to go about it.”

Floyd continues emulating hismentor, a loyal subscriber to Odom’sphilosophy that all success “comesfrom the muscle.”

• ••IfOdomprovidedFloydwith com-

passion and inspiration,Garrett’s titleas strength coach had double mean-ing. Yes, his guidance in the weightroomhelpedmold theyoung linemaninto a wrecking ball of power andagility. But Garrett also pushed Floyd

to understand that his indefatigablework ethic and desire to get bettercould obliterate whatever anxietiesbubbled within him.

On so many days, Floyd finishedschool andwent straight to theWash-ington weight room, a windowless,dim and mirrored laboratory that heaffectionately called “the dungeon.”

In that cavern Floyd grew mania-cal about getting stronger, feeding off

an environment that required fear-lessness.

“We jumpout thewindowwithouta parachute,”Garrettwould often say.

Itwas the strength coach’smissionto challenge players’ limits. Or whatthey thought were their limits.

“You don’t know unless you try,”Garrett says. “If there’s somethingyou can’t do, you get mad and startprepping yourself to make it happen.

We jump out the window without aparachute. And on theway down, wefigure out how to land.”

Which is why when Floyd cameto work out for the first time as afreshman, the strength coach wasundeterred when the young line-man announced hismaximumbenchpress at 200 pounds.

“Then we’ll start today at 225,”Garrett told him.

End of discussion.And somehow, within a blink,

Floydwas benching 275 pounds, then350, then 405.

He continued elevating his goalsand accepting every challenge Gar-rett threw at him.

“There’s a difference betweenwanting to get better and getting bet-ter,” Floyd says. “Don’t talk about it.Show it.”

Excelling in high school, Garrettconstantly told Floyd, wasn’t theend goal. A standout college careerwould only be a pit stop. The NFLwas waiting.

During Floyd’s junior year, at a

recruiting showcase event inNew Jer-sey, Garrett saw Floyd “going throughthe motions.” In came an old-fash-ioned tongue lashing. The soft-spo-ken kid with the huge heart, Garrettsensed,needed todevelopsomenasty.

So right in front of the offensivelinemen Floyd was battling, thestrength coach declared his protégéthe best player there and insistedFloyd flip a switch to start giving hisquiet confidence waymore volume.

As much as the trash-talkingapproach wasn’t in Floyd’s DNA, heunderstood Garrett’s goal.

“That’s not natural for me,” Floydsays. “But I canopenupandget it.Andit takesme to another levelwhen I do.It’s one of those things, if I’m going totalk it, I know I have to back it up.”

Imagine Garrett’s delight whenFloydbeganbarking at every linemanhe faced. He would tell them not toclutch and pull his jersey so much,that he needed it neat to frame andhang on his wall.

And after one turbo-fueled blastpast an offensive tackle, Floyd turnedback and shouted at his overmatchedfoe, “You’re going to need a GPS sys-tem to track me today!”

Garrett laughs.“He hasn’t shut up since.”

•••Floyd stares into the tattoos up his

left arm,near “Humble”and“Hungry,”and explains the significance of thedice, the flamesandthebrassknuckles.

“When you gamble, you don’tknow which way the dice are goingto roll,” he says. “The brass knucklesare a reminder that life is a fight. Andthe flames are because it’s going toget hot. But staying humble and hun-gry, grounded and focused takes careof all that.

“It doesn’tmatter howmydice roll.It doesn’t matter how hard the fightis. And I don’t care howhot it gets. I’llkeep a bottle of water withme.”

So on that December 2008 daywhen Sharrif learned Anthony Floydwas not his biological father andimmediately bolted, he knew thegamble, knew the fight ahead, knewthe heat of that moment.

He quickly headed toward thehomeofDawnReed-Seeger, the guid-ance counselor for the Washingtonfootball team.

“Seegs,” as Sharrif calls her,knew Floyd’s home life wasn’t rosy.But she never knew the extent ofAnthony’s intimidation. That’s whyReed-Seeger was shaken to findSharrif sweaty and tearful and ram-bling so much that after he gushedout his entire story he quickly fellasleep.

Says Reed-Seeger: “This was akid who clearly didn’t feel safe. I’verarely, in all my experience in educa-tion, seen a male adolescent reactingthe way he was reacting.”

Seeger says she made the call toPhiladelphia’sDepartment ofHumanServices that expedited Floyd’sescape.

As the massive football starsearched for safety and stability,Seeger offered shelter at her home forseveral months. Floyd also bouncedaround between friends’ couches andduring his senior year took up resi-dence in the basement apartment of ahouse rentedout by a teammate’s dad.

He was on his own. But uncer-tainty felt better than staying in anenvironment that had created somuch disquiet.

“That was freedom for me,” Floydsays. “The day I left that house wasthe day I knew now I had to reallygrow up.”

Sharrif ’s real father, he says helater learned, was Timothy Roberts,gunned down allegedly in a disputeover drug money. The Philadel-phia Inquirer documented Roberts’

murder as occurring Nov. 5, 1993,when Sharrif was 2, the 353rd homi-cide in the city that year.

Meanwhile, while Sharrif has triedto permanently cut off all ties withAnthony, his presence loiters.

In late March, with the NFL draftnearing, Anthony posted a seven-minute YouTube video — title:“Sharriff [sic] Floyd’s Life Story” —in which he asserts that Sharrif “hasbeen spreading tremendous liesaboutme”with accounts of his child-hood falsified and exaggerated.

“He was never abused,” Anthonysays. “That was never true. I neverbeat my son or whatever he mightthink is abuse.”

Sharrif points out that, in thevideo, Anthony gets Sharrif ’s birth-date wrong and misspells his firstname.

Most bewildering is Anthony’sproclamation that he still caresdeeply for Sharrif.

“I love him with all my heart,”Anthonysays intheYouTubeclip,evenas a banner below promotes a web-site called sharrifffloydthefraud.org.

Sharrif can only shake his head.“[He says] ‘I love my son but I wantto show everybody he’s a fraud?’OK. Shows you how people think,right.”

That website Anthony set up —“to expose the LIES of Sharrif Floyd”— is filledwith photos fromholidays,family gatherings and football ban-quets designed inAnthony’swords to“tell thewhole truth because picturesare a thousand words.”

Any punishments he adminis-tered, he says, were in the regularcourse of parenting.

Still, SharrifwonderswhyAnthonymakes no mention of all his legalwoes. Anthony’s lengthy rap sheetdocumented in Pennsylvania courtrecords includes more than a dozenarrests on charges ranging from theftto arson to possession of controlledsubstances to weapons possession atthe scene of a crime.

The Pennsylvania Departmentof Corrections confirms a convic-tion on felony drug charges, withAnthony sentenced in 1994 to amax-imum of 10 years in prison. He twiceviolated parole, stuck back behindbars for large chunks of Sharrif ’schildhood.

•••Without the context of Floyd’s

back story, it’s easy to understandwhy somanyoutsiders ask himabouthis stress on draft night, anApril eve-ning that began with most expertspegging him as a top-five lock and acandidate to go No. 1. But then camea surprising slide out of the top 10,through the teens anddown toNo. 23.

Sharrif insists that freefall neverate himup, that his predominantNFLgoals were never going to be acceler-ated or impeded by his draft position.

Those around him agree they feltthe draft-night frustration far more.

Garrett, for example, plowedthrough eight bottles of water and ajar ofM&M’s, his irritation elevatingas phones rang and applause eruptedat so many other tables across thegreen room.

It was only at night’s end that Gar-rett realized Floyd had yet anothersetback to convert into fuel.

“It was, ‘All right. We’re used tothis. Everything has to be done thehard way.’ ”

A few days later, after finallyreturning to Philadelphia, Floydheaded straight to Garrett’s weightroom, quickly unleashing all his pent-up energy.

“It was like a hurricane wentthrough there,” Garrett says.

Floyd knew there was work to bedone. He also appreciated his landingspot inMinnesota,wherehe isnotonlyan ideal fit in the Vikings defense butalsoamatch forwhat coachLeslieFra-zier is trying to build character-wise.

“When things get tough, Sharrifisn’t going to be a guy pointing fin-gers,” Frazier says. “He’s going to belooking at himself asking, ‘What canI do to help our situation?’ ”

Floyd wants it known he has yetto exhale. In his world achieving onebig goal only opens the door to thenext one.

“Ihavenoplansonbeingaguywhojust comes in and passes through,” hesays. “I want my name to be known.Longer than three years. Longer thatsix years. Hopefully 10, 12 years.”

With that comes a vow to be activein the community, both in the TwinCitiesand inPhiladelphia.Floydwantsto empower kids, hoping his odysseyprovides proof that even the mostdaunting obstacles can be overcome.

Says Garrett: “Truth be told, if youteardownallof this footballstuffandallof this fameandall of thismoney rightnow, Sharrif is a kid who just wantsto be part of something. He wants tobe loved. He wants to be embraced.He wants to do the right thing. And Ithink that’s the side of him that sepa-rates him from everybody else.”

Floyd has long wanted to be anNFL star. But he also longs to have apositive and lasting impact on thosearound him.

“Who do you trust when youtrusted nobody?” he says. “I was abig believer in leading myself. I don’tfollow. I never looked for a crowd. Inhigh school, I walked the halls alone.If you were coming with me, thencome on. I’m moving. I’ve got placesto go. I’mnot going to detour becauseyou want me to.

“It all boils back to choices. Whatdo you want to do with your life?”

ø FLOYD FROM C1

File photo by BEN LIEBENBERG •Associated PressSharrif Floydwas surrounded by friends and family at the NFL draft in April at Radio CityMusic Hall in New York: from left, Andre Odom,Greg Garrett and grandmother Lucille Ryans.

Photo courtesy of CURTHUDSONLegal guardianKevinLahn,middle,andhigh school strength coachGregGarrett, left,are twoof thepeople inwhomFloydconfides.

File photo by GARYW.GREEN •Orlando SentinelFloydwas a first-teamAll-Southeastern Conference selection as a Florida junior in 2012.

BRIAN PETERSON • brianp@startribune.comFloyd loosened up his big frame at the Vikings’ rookieminicamp.Hewas draftedas a possible successor to defensive tackle KevinWilliams.

JASON DECROW •Associated Press fileFloyd, the first of the Vikings’ threefirst-round draft picks, posedwith NFLCommissioner Roger Goodell.

VIKINGS PRESEASON SCHEDULE

AUG. 9( F R I DAY )vs.Houston,7 p.m.

AUG. 16( F R I DAY )at Buffalo,6 p.m.

AUG. 25( S U NDAY )at San Francisco,7 p.m.

AUG. 29( T HU R SDAY )vs. Tennessee,7 p.m.

OTHER NFC NORTH CAMPSKEY NFL DATESAug. 3: Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement, Canton,Ohio. Vikings great Cris Carter(pictured at right) and six others will be inducted.Aug. 4:Hall of Fame Game:Dallas vs.Miami, 7 p.m., Canton,Ohio.Aug 8-11: First preseasonweekend.Aug. 31: Clubsmust reduce rosters to amaximumof 53 players on the active/inactive list.Sept. 5, 8-9:Week 1 of regular season. Thursday night opener is Baltimore at Denver.

« There’s a di≠erence between wanting to get betterand getting better. Don’t talk about it. Show it. » Sharrif Floyd

CHICAGO BEARSReport Thursday at OlivetNazarene, Bourbonnais, Ill.

DETRO IT L IONSReportMonday, Lions train-ing facility, Allen Park,Mich.

GREEN BAY PACKERSReport Thursday at St.Nor-bert College,De Pere,Wis.

New coach Marc Trestman New running back Reggie Bush Rookie running back Eddie Lacy