TAMPA ? Warren Sapp will not mosey into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
He will crash through the gates, lumbering large, as always. Sapp's deep bass voice will resonate through the halls that include all the greats in the business of organized mayhem. That was Sapp's greatest skill set.
He crushed people for a living, bashing into backfields for 13 seasons as a tower of power for the Tampa Bay Bucs, and later with the Oakland Raiders. He collected a bunch of neat stuff along the way, besides the heads of quarterbacks. Sapp was a seven-time Pro Bowler, the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1999, and a Super Bowl champion.
The resume demands that he receive the highest honor that can be bestowed on a professional football player in Canton, Ohio, on Saturday night. But this is unquestionably a team effort.
The kid from Plymouth, Fla., had a lot of help along the way: A single mom who worked four jobs to provide for her six children. A high school tutor who pushed him academically. A soft-spoken NFL head coach who found an unlikely ally in the boisterous big man.
They all nudged him in the right direction, providing a compass from Plymouth to Canton. Sapp took care of the rest.
"I get more pride from my people around me," he said recently, chatting with a group of reporters after a Bucs practice." I never thought of the Hall of Fame. I never dreamed of the Hall of Fame. I played the game for the love and respect of the people I played with and against."
Sapp will become only the second NFL Hall of Famer from Central Florida. David "Deacon" Jones, from Evans High School, became the original rowdy sack specialist after he was selected in the 14th round (186th overall) by the Los Angeles Rams out of Mississippi Vocational (now known as Mississippi Valley State).
Jones, who died in June of natural causes, was enshrined in 1980. Sapp comes in 33 years later, sharing a bond beyond the boisterous soundtrack.
Jones grew up as a black child Eatonville in the 1950s, reading from hand-me-down textbooks from the white kids in Maitland and Winter Park.
"It made me defy education,"' Jones once told me. "At that point, I saw no need to go any further. When I went further, it was because that was the only way for me to advance my career."
Sapp channeled a similar negative-drive-into -positive-energy vibe as a kid growing up in Plymouth, cooped up in a house on the corner of Monk Avenue and Barrett Drive. It was a ominous intersection, a dead end for children of poverty.
Sapp's mom, Annie Roberts, raised four sons and two daughters on her own after Warren's father left the family when Warren was a baby. Roberts paid the bills through a variety of jobs, from cleaning houses to working at a nursery.
The road in front of Sapp's home was eventually paved sometime around 1991, but Sapp has always stayed true to his working class roots.
"In every walk of my life I remember 26 Barrett Drive," he said. "I remember 3319 Barrett when they changed the number, but we still had a PO Box. No mailman is coming to my door, no air-conditioning, no cable, So that's the foundation in which I woke up every day. That's something that never leaves you."
Sapp would grow up to star at Apopka High, where he played tight end, linebacker and punter. Sapp had great hands, even made the Sentinel's Super-Senior team as a tight end for the 1990-91 season.
"He was a tremendous athlete," longtime high school sports guru Bill Buchalter said. "Whenever he was given a challenge, he was on it."
Sapp piqued the interest of a bunch of schools, but eventually the University of Miami and Florida State University emerged as his remaining options. He picked Miami, only having to retake the ACT in order to qualify academically.
He was blessed to have one of those compassionate safety nets, Janice Carlton, the wife of Apopka assistant football coach Wil Carlton, came to Sapp's home two or three times a week to tutor him, making sure he was academically fit to take his football skills to the next level.
"The U" and Sapp made a perfect fit. Sapp beefed up from 215 to 270 pounds, giving him enough muscle to move to defensive tackle. He won a bunch of awards as the nation's best defensive lineman in 1994, as Sapp raised his game ? and his fame ? with the high-decibel arrogance that defined Miami's program during its heydays.
Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/os-george-diaz-warren-sapp-0802-20130801,0,2381041.column?track=rss
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