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Difference Maker, On and Off Field
When Cornelius Griffin returned from injury, the Redskins won their last five games of the regular season, including a victory over Philadelphia in their finale.
(By Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)
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"The first thing, I smelled alcohol," Willis said, "and I thought, 'I can't believe a drunk driver killed my dad.' "
Cornelius Griffin arrived home that night with Kimberly, then his girlfriend, to find a slew of cars near his family's home. "What's going on?" he remembers wondering.
The news of Willie Buck's death spread quickly through the fewer than 2,500 residents of Brundidge.
"Everybody knew Willie Buck," Ramage said. "He was just the type person, you just knew him. He had a radiant personality. He was a real big fella, like Cornelius. He always had a good laugh, and this was just real, real sad. He's the kind of guy you have in your community, and you never expect him to be gone."
He was gone. Cornelius Griffin, then 21, was to head to Alabama later in the summer. When he got in the car to begin the drive to Tuscaloosa, he so mourned his father's death that he turned around, turned back toward Brundidge. And then he heard Willie Buck's words: "Tighten up." He pointed the car back toward Tuscaloosa. He was, admittedly, "in a big fog" that first year. But his father's lessons drove him to complete his career, to develop into a second-round pick of the New York Giants in 2000. He had five sacks as a rookie, played in the Super Bowl following that season, and signed a seven-year, $30.8 million contract with the Redskins prior to 2004.
Those things -- sacks, Super Bowls, contracts -- tend to be the items that define football players. For Griffin, football has been the vocation through which he carries on Willie Buck's values, even though Willie Buck isn't around.
"I definitely think it made me who I am today," he said of his father's death. But how? "Because football's like life. You quit on a play in football, you might quit on things in life. You got to have great mental toughness to play football. [You have] got to do the same thing in life. If things aren't going your way, you can't feel sorry for yourself. You got to fight to get things turned around."
If Qwest Field gets to rocking this afternoon, if the Seahawks -- and Griffin's old teammate at Alabama, NFL MVP Shaun Alexander -- are moving the ball, there's a good chance Griffin, once again, will hear the words of Willie Buck. They are the words that help him fight through a block, the words that will help him raise little Mikalah. Tighten up .
