RESERVE – It may seem a long way from the Football Hall of Fame to the gym at East St. John High School, but given his humble roots, finding former Dallas Cowboys linebacker D.D. Lewis in that setting should come as no surprise.
The former gridiron star was in St. John Parish this week to speak to local students about his life after the Cowboys. Lewis, who has been retired from football for about three decades, now works as the manager of customer relations for Potash Corp. In that capacity he travels the country teaching elementary school children about the importance of crop nutrition.
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The owner of two Super Bowl rings and three NFC Championship rings grew up in Knoxville, Tenn., the youngest of 14 children. As such, he said the only way he could get attention was to act out, and that behavior became habit.
He said he felt as though people thought he could never amount to anything, so he lived down to those expectations.
Only through the coaxing of a cousin did he enter the world of football, where he excelled and was eventually drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in 1968.
Despite his success on the field, Lewis struggled off the field with his inner demons, and after retirement he spiraled into a world of excessive partying.
“I had found a foe I couldn’t defeat,” admitted Lewis.
He had begun his presentation with a highlight reel from his football career, so to hear him relate such tales made him seem more human.
He told the assembly everyone struggles with the same problems. “We’re all in this together,” he said.
He then coached the students on tactics to avoid the traps of peer pressure and emphasized the importance of having a friend to keep them on the right track.
One of his main themes was preparing for the future. “If we don’t look into the future, how are we going to know where we’re going?” he said.
He ended his presentation with an outline of what he called the “building blocks of character.”
The exclamation mark at the end of his speech to the students was “You have no excuses.”
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