Banquet last night in Savannah.Tennessee. It was a Grand Slam Home Run!!!! This is the 3rd year of existence for the Hardin County Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, and we have been very fortunate to have had Gene Stallings and Antone Davis as previous keynote speakers. Both of those guys were amazing and very inspirational with their stories and anecdotes. But Inky was spectacular. He spoke for about 40 minutes with not one note card. He articulated his life for us from about year 6 to currently...of his dreams from early on, of his dreams in his teen years, of achieving some of those dreams, and of how most of his dreams(even after his injury) still exist, save playing in the NFL.
He shared his humble beginnings, of choosing to stay and play at his inner-city crime ridden high school even when the 'hot shot' suburb schools wanted him to come play there. He shared, and I didn't know this either.....he had season ending injuries in the first games of both his sophomore and junior high school years. I could go on and on, but I can tell you today, he is one of the best and most impressive speakers I have ever heard, and even moreso, one of the best and most impressive people I have ever met.
EDITED TO INCLUDE THIS:
I failed to mention when i first posted this that Inky spent Monday morning with the high school football team in our neighboring county and Monday afternoon with our local Hardin County High team. .... giving both teams inspirational talks and obvious lessons for life.
He shared his humble beginnings, of choosing to stay and play at his inner-city crime ridden high school even when the 'hot shot' suburb schools wanted him to come play there. He shared, and I didn't know this either.....he had season ending injuries in the first games of both his sophomore and junior high school years. I could go on and on, but I can tell you today, he is one of the best and most impressive speakers I have ever heard, and even moreso, one of the best and most impressive people I have ever met.
EDITED TO INCLUDE THIS:
I failed to mention when i first posted this that Inky spent Monday morning with the high school football team in our neighboring county and Monday afternoon with our local Hardin County High team. .... giving both teams inspirational talks and obvious lessons for life.
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