I can create as many programs and mentorships and scholarships as I want, but it doesn't change the environment in which our youth are growing up in.

I'm learning the process of changing things. I'm not really sure where this is going to take me. But I know what I want before my career is over: I want people to remember me as someone other than a guy who just tackled people.

To be in a situation where you have another year on your deal and the team still wants to extend that - they see your value, they want you in the building, and they want to build around you - that speaks volumes. That's very, very important to a player like me.

My goal is to use football as a platform to speak out on things that need addressing.

Music has always been in my family, but it was mainly keyboards. I learned to play classical piano, but when I first heard the amazing bass guitar of James Jamerson, who played on all the big Motown hits of the '60s and '70s, I knew bass guitar was my instrument.

Food not only connects us at the idyllic dinner table setting with family and friends: it is also part of our mundane, daily transit to and from work.

I think it's easiest to teach by example. My dad didn't tell us to work hard; we just saw how hard he worked. I know I have shortcomings - like a short fuse - but I've learned you can't come home from a long day of work and snap at the kids.

Immigrant parents dream that their children will find a place in their new home, and they willingly suffer hardships in service to that dream. That was certainly true of my parents.