NFL Super Bowl champion Tony Hargrove to keynote banquet for state champion Warriors

The rewards of winning a junior high Class "L" state championship just keep coming for the Du Quoin Middle School Warriors coached by Aaron Wright.

"I was wondering if you could put a LITTLE article in the paper about our basketball banquet to honor the state title team, 7th grade team and the cheerleaders," coach Wright's eMail to the newspaper began.

The banquet will be Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at the Du Quoin Elks Lodge just off Rt. 51 behind radio station WDQN. Its a fried chicken dinner with sides for $10.

Oh, by the way, the keynote speaker for the banquet will be a member of the New Orleans Saints Super Bowl championship team Anthony "Tony" Hargrove.

What! Oh, my God how did you get Tony Hargrove to come to a banquet in Du Quoin.

"You remember (former Du Quoin basketball coach) John Kretz, don't you?" asked coach Wright in a phone conversation after the eMail.

Well, sure.

John's daughter, Amy Kretz, who lives in Christopher, is Hargrove's girlfriend. "He's in Mount Vernon now working with kids and writing a book," said Wright. "I talked to John Kretz and he (Hargrove) said he would come to our banquet. He will talk about 30 minutes.

Please RSVP to Coach Wright at 618-318-2506.

Hargrove is a storied NFL player who went from being a National Football League dropout to a Super Bowl ring holder. What follows is not the newspaper's writing, but instead is edited from some great stories on Hargrove.

The journey to the National Football League is different for each player. Most can appreciate the sacrifice it takes to have the opportunity to play on Sundays.

But for defensive tackle Anthony Hargrove, his road to the NFL was different than most.

When he was six, the Brooklyn tenement he lived in with his mother and two siblings burned down, leaving them homeless for several years before his mother died of AIDS when he was nine. Shortly after his mother's death, Hargrove and his two siblings were adopted by their aunt from Florida.

With the change of scenery, Hargrove gained a love for football where he played quarterback and free safety for his high school team in Port Charlotte, Florida.

He played well enough to be offered a scholarship to Georgia Tech, where they moved him to defense full-time. After starting every game at defensive end during an impressive sophomore season, Hargrove was declared academically ineligible for his junior year.

He spent his lost season parking airplanes at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airport and staying in football shape at a local sports performance facility. There, he got the opportunity to perform for multiple NFL scouts and was immediately recognized as one of the most promising defensive players in the draft.

Hargrove was selected by the St. Louis Rams with the 91st overall pick in the 2004 draft, having played only a year-and-a-half of football in college.

"When I got to the NFL, I personally thought that all my problems and my answers were solved," Hargrove said. "But they weren't."

Early in his third season with the Rams in 2006, Hargrove had an unexplained two-day absence that caused him to be made inactive by the team. The glamorous lifestyle of a professional athlete was starting to take over his life.

"You knew when I was in the building because you could smell me come in," he said.

The Rams traded Hargrove to the Buffalo Bills shortly thereafter, where his off-field problems continued to plague him.

"When you finally leave somewhere you think it's the people, places, and things," explained Hargrove. "I was out of St. Louis, you know it was everybody else's fault, and I wasn't being honest at that point with myself. When I left for Buffalo, I thought I left that person in St. Louis. But I was wrong because everytime I looked in the mirror that person was still there."

Before the 2007 season began, Hargrove was suspended for the first four games of the regular season for breaking the NFL's substance abuse policy. Also during training camp, Hargrove was arrested for beating up several cops.

Immediately following his fourth season in the NFL, Hargrove failed another drug test. Due to past violations of the substance abuse policy, Hargrove was suspended for the entire 2008 season.

Anthony Hargrove won a Super Bowl with New Orleans a year after leaving rehab.

"That was a changing moment in my life, because at first when I was suspended from the NFL I felt that I could do whatever I want - I don't have to worry about people checking in on me, I don't have to worry about answering my phone or going to practice, I can now party and I can do the things that I really wanted to do - but those were all lies," said Hargrove.

"As everybody was going back to work, I realized that I wasn't going back to work. Money was getting low, no agent was calling, no teams were calling.

"My life was going nowhere."

Hargrove knew his life was spiraling out of control, so he entered himself into rehab.

"One of the things they tell you in rehab is that you have jails, institutions and you have death. I had already been in jail, I'd been in several institutions so my last place was death. And that's what I was facing, and that was my reality - that I was going to die."

Hargrove spent 13 months in treatment: three months in a phsychiatric hospital in South Carolina, and ten months in a treatment facility in Miami. It took over a year to rehabiliate him back to health, and on Valentine's Day 2009, Hargrove was finally reinstated back in the NFL.

A few months later the New Orleans Saints took a chance on Hargrove, and signed him to a one-year contract. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams saw Hargrove's potential at defensive tackle, where he flourished during the 2009 season.

The Saints went on to win their first Super Bowl in Miami, the same city where Hargrove rehabilitated himself a year earlier. His New Orleans teammates appreciated his story enough to award him the Ed Block Courage award, given to the player who exemplifies commitment to the principles of sportsmanship and courage.

"For so long in my career I was the guy in the locker room that you always had to worry about," Hargrove explained. "The coaches would say 'You can't count on this guy because you don't know if he's going to show up for work. You don't know what state of mind he's going to be and you don't know the condition this guy is going to be.' So, for my teammates to honestly vote and say 'Hey, we see what you're doing. We believe in you and we trust you,' it meant the world to me."

From the lowest of lows to the highest of highs, Hargrove finally got his life back in order. It's a journey no player chooses to take, but it has made Hargrove a better person all around.

"On Sundays, all you have people see is your last name and I wanted the legacy for 'Hargrove' to be more than just a guy who threw away his NFL career for drugs and alcohol.

"I wanted to be something my children could be proud of, that my brothers and sisters could be proud of, and for my mom in heaven watching down right now to be proud of."

Hargrove can find solice knowing that his journey to the NFL has made more than just his family proud.