LOCKER-ROOM BLOG

WATSON: Learning from the past

June 19, 2009

After being out of football for going on three years, I’m so grateful to get this opportunity with the Stampeders.

I’ve been sitting at home and day-dreaming about this opportunity to be on a good team like Calgary. Now I get a chance to be with these players and to prove that I belong and that I can play at the professional level. This gives me a chance to show that I can be a man as well and a professional.

I’m at a point in my life where I realize I’ve made mistakes in my past and I accept full responsibility for it. I’m not making any excuses but I’ve changed my life since then. I could have been a superstar somewhere but I got into a lot of trouble. I’m at peace with what happened and now I’m starting a new life. I’ve been working on that new life for about three years now and everything is fine. I can’t go back and undo the past. All I can do is change the future for myself and my family and my kids.

I know I still have to answer for the things that I’ve done in my past, even if they did happen many years ago, but I don’t let it drag me down because if I let that happen, if I think about it too much, it will get to me. I was Mr. Football in South Carolina, I went to college at South Carolina, I had a dream scenario and I messed up a good deal like that. I went from having the whole world in my hands to sitting on the couch and trying to call around to see if anyone would give me an opportunity to play football.

There was a point in my life that instead of learning from my mistakes, I let it depress me and get me down. But now that I’ve turned my life around, I look at those mistakes and I’ve learned from them. I can’t say that I would change anything because I’ve learned a great deal from the mistakes that I’ve made.

I’ve been training and calling teams and trying to get a shot at any level. When nothing happened, I would stop working out and stop running and just give up on it. Then I’d get that fire back in me and I’d want to do it again. It was a real roller-coaster. It didn’t look like it was going to happen but I told myself I was going to ready and the prepared whenever the opportunity presented itself. And by the grace of God, it happened. It’s something that I just can’t completely understand right now — that as many years that I didn’t get a call, to finally get one now? It’s a blessing. It really is. I’m just going to seize the moment and make the best of it. I’m going to be the best player I can and the best man I can.

I got to the point where I thought it was time to move on to other things. I’m still about a year away from graduating college so I thought about going back to school and getting my degree. But then I got a call and now I’m here. I feel good — I just can’t explain how good I feel about getting this opportunity.

Regardless of what happens with football, I still would like to finish my degree. I love talking with kids and mentoring them. I tell them my story and explain to them why it’s so important to go the right route in life. I look forward going back to school and then getting involved in anything that will allow me to work with kids.

Being a father is the most important role I have in my new life. Early on, I wasn’t part of my children’s life. I was in Florida, I was here and there trying to play for this team and that team. I just wasn’t there for them like I should have been. But being home these last three years or so, I had a chance to get that relationship with my daughter and my son that I always wanted to have. I see the twinkle in their eyes when I walk into the room and I realize that no matter how bad I feel and how much life beats me up, that look from my children is enough to put a smile on my face. It pushes me to try and make a future for them so they won’t make the same mistakes I made.

Derek Watson, #43
>> Watson bio

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