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Health & Fitness

Monday Morning Motivator: Overcoming Obstacles – Jimmy Graham

No matter what obstacles are placed before you, strength and determination will lead to success.

The following post was taken in part from an article that originally appeared on Yahoo! Sports.

“You may think you’re trapped...Fight for it.”

TE Jimmy Graham, New Orleans – Here’s the scary part to consider about Graham, who in his second season in the NFL is on pace for 99 catches, 1,400 yards and 10 touchdowns: This is only Graham’s third year of organized football. Graham didn’t play in high school and played at the University of Miami for one season after his eligibility in basketball ran out. That’s just part of what is an amazing story of overcoming obstacles.

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"Try as he may, there is no blocking out the memory of him falling asleep in the backseat of his mother’s car when he was 11 years old, then waking up at a group home to find his mother signing the papers to give him away, his older sister crying and yelling for his mother not to do it.

"There’s no forgetting his mother leaving after dropping off his clothes and belongings in a pair of garbage bags.

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"Or the picture etched in his mind of him trying not to cry that night as he stayed in a room with two boys who were both at least two years older.

"Or how he was beaten again and again by the other boys, all of them older and some well on their way to delinquency."

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