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My Journey In The Game Of Football And Beyond
Harper Entertainment
November 2008
On Sale: November 1, 2008
Featuring: Warrick Dunn
288 pages
ISBN: 0061432644
EAN: 9780061432644
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
NFL running back Warrick Dunn is truly one of the good guys
in the world of sports. And in this revealing autobiography,
written with New York Times bestselling author Don
Yaeger, Dunn tells his incredibly moving, inspirational
story of courage and determination in the face of
devastating loss, a story that makes his achievements on the
football field that much more amazing. Warrick Dunn
and his five brothers and sisters all idolized their mother,
Baton Rouge police officer Betty Smothers. As the oldest,
Dunn was the closest to her, and the man of the house. On
January 7, 1993, while the single mother worked a second job
as a supermarket security guard, Betty Smothers was
ambushed, shot, and killed while making a bank deposit.
Dunn—then a high school senior just weeks away from choosing
among his college football scholarship offers—was
devastated. Dunn was only eighteen when circumstances
changed and he had to look after his five siblings, but
somehow he managed to enroll at Florida State and, in only
his freshman year, help their team quarterback, Heisman
Trophy winner and roommate Charlie Ward, win the National
Championship for the 1993?94 season. And this was just the
beginning of Dunn's successful career as a student athlete,
which resulted in his selection to the FSU Hall of Fame.
Despite his modest size, Dunn's athleticism,
incomparable drive, and personality convinced Tampa Bay
Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy to select Dunn in the first
round of the 1997 draft with the twelth overall pick. During
his career with the Bucs and, subsequently, the Atlanta
Falcons, Dunn amassed five 1,000-yard rushing seasons, was
selected to the NFL Pro Bowl three times, and became one of
only twenty-three running backs to exceed the 10,000-yard
career rushing mark. In 2008, he returned to the Bucs
seeking to continue his success. But perhaps his greatest
achievement during his time as an NFL player came off the
field when he started a foundation called Homes for the
Holidays, a charity that helps single parents become
homeowners. To date, he has placed 74 single parents and
their 192 dependents in fully furnished and outfitted homes
in Tampa, Tallahassee, Baton Rouge, and Atlanta. But
there was one person Dunn neglected in his drive to help
others—himself. He spent all of his emotional energy on his
siblings and their pain, and never focused on his own. His
only solace was the football field, where he truly was
running for his life. It wasn't until a Falcons teammate
suggested psychological counseling that Dunn began to battle
the demons still haunting him from his mother's death.
Uplifting and thought-provoking, Running for My
Life is the story of an athlete's drive to help his
family and ensure that his mother's legacy and values
continue—the story of what it really takes to be a man.
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