Jimmy Graham: From a Group Home to the Seattle Seahawks

Last updated on: March 11, 2015 at 10:39 pm by Kate O'Hare

Jimmy Graham: From a Group Home to the Seattle Seahawks 2015-03-11T22:39:54-08:00 Kate O'Hare

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There’s been a lot of trading going on during free-agent time in the NFL, and today, former New Orleans Saints tight end Jimmy Graham just landed at my team, the Seattle Seahawks (click here for reactions from his new teammates).

From a story at ESPN:

Graham, 28, is regarded as one of the best pass-catching tight ends in the NFL, a player who often lines up as a wide receiver. He has 4,752 receiving yards and 51 touchdowns since entering the NFL as a third-round pick in 2010. In his five seasons with the Saints, Graham had more receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns than any other tight end in team history. …

Graham is starting a four-year, $40 million contract that will pay him $10 million this season and has $20.9 million in guaranteed money.

Other than knowing he’s a topflight player — and has striking ginger looks — I didn’t know much about Graham. But, wow, what a story.

It’s similar to the real-life story of NFL player Michael Oher (who just got $2.5M to sign with the Carolina Panthers) — which inspired the hit 2009 movie “The Blind Side” — and a testament to what Christians can achieve when they live according to their highest principles.

From a broken home, largely abandoned by his mother, physically abused wherever he went, desperately poor and hungry, Graham sought help at a church, and he found it. But unlike “The Blind Side,” the woman who reached out to Graham was not from an affluent family but instead a struggling single mother studying to be a nurse.

From a 2010 story at Yahoo! Sports:

Graham’s thirst for emotional support as a child was quenched through his literal hunger. When he was a freshman at Eastern Wayne High School, he started attending a small church run by the family of a school friend.

“They were giving out food and I was hungry,” Graham said with a smile and a chuckle. “Hey, free food, I’m there.”

At the church, Graham met Rebecca Vinson, a youth counselor. As time passed, they talked and Graham shared tidbits about his life. Other clues were obvious.

“He’s showing up in the middle of winter in a tank top, shorts and shoes that had a bunch of holes in them,” Vinson said. “No one would choose to dress that way.”

The tipping point in their relationship was a prayer meeting the kids had one day. There were the typical requests by one kid after another: Say a prayer for my sick grandmother. Keep my aunt in your thoughts. Hope God looks over my cousin.

Then came Graham: Keep me from having to go back to a group home. My mom is thinking about sending me back there.

“He was petrified,” said Vinson, who quickly offered to take him in. “It was one of those moments that just snaps you up. How do you hear that, close your eyes, pray and then go home and think you never heard this and don’t do something?

“You could see potential in Jimmy. It was there. He just needed somebody to tell he could do it, that he was capable.”

It put me in mind of Matthew 25:40:

‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

And of these, part of the Catholic way of charity …

The Corporal Works of Mercy

Feed the hungry

Give drink to the thirsty

Clothe the naked

Shelter the homeless

Visit the sick

Visit the imprisoned

Bury the dead

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