[VIDEO] Plaxico Burress is happy to be back on the ground, have his life back and be surrounded by his family every day when he wakes up. Burress says, “If you stay grounded, be patient, have faith and believe in yourself, you never know what might happen.” For him, that obviously includes a return to NFL football.
He understands that not everyone is cheering for him and that’s okay. “It doesn’t bother me because I have been everyone’s pin cushion for the past twenty months. I know me the person, and I know the people that are surrounding me, and I know my drive, and I know what it takes to have success and play at [the professional] level.”
For some people, he says, no matter how good you are, you’re never going to be good enough, especially when you’re a professional athlete. “Here I am, I played in the Super Bowl and led a team to a world championship and I got more publicity for carrying a gun, shooting myself and going to jail than I did for winning one of the greatest Super Bowls ever played.”
The public support and encouragement Burress receives from some of his former teammates means a lot to him. “The greatest compliment you can receive in this game comes from the players that you have played with. They know the person you are, in the locker room, outside of all the glamour and glitz that goes on Sunday. It feels good to know that you are wanted, especially from guys that have all the accomplishments in the world.”
At the end of the day, Burress knows what it takes to play professional football. “It’s a business and it’s not about love and affection. It’s about you performing and going out there and making plays. Taking care of yourself and performing is the only way to stay on the roster.”
While playing football is in his blood, his family is of utmost importance to him. While Burress was away, his wife was a rock and he was moved by “how she handled the household and the love she had for the kids and me. It just shed so much light on what is really important and hardened our love.”
What will success mean to him ten years from now? “Having my health and my wife by my side and raising [my] two children. I call that success.”
