Seahawks receiver and special-teams ace Ricardo Lockette officially retired from the NFL, after suffering a neck injury that hasn’t healed. In a press conference announcing his retirement, Lockette said he doesn’t think he ever will fully recover.
“There’s a lot of things that I can’t do, but what I can do is inspire and motivate,” Lockette said, via quotes distributed by the team. “That’s what I will do. I will inspire someone and motivate them to be great in a time of need, as well as my family did. I think the greatest thing you can give someone is confidence. Because if you give someone confidence, there’s nothing that can stop them. If you believe that you can start a business and it’ll work 100 percent. If you believe you’re going to go out and do this and that, you’re going to do it. But if you’re, ‘Uh, maybe, I don’t know,’ that’s it.”
Even though Lockette’s football career is over, he wasn’t upset.
“It’s not a sad day for me,” Lockette said. “Life goes on. I never really wanted to be an Olympic track star or an NFL player – I just wanted to be great. I wanted to be great at something. I wanted to make my family proud. Hopefully, I’ve done that. So whatever the next step for me is, I’m not quite sure what it is and I’m not embarrassed to say that because I feel like I have time. I’m only 29. But I know what I will do. I will dedicate my time to helping those in need – the homeless, battered women, domestic violence [and] fighting against that, and speaking to as many kids as I possibly can because I think that’s where it all starts. It starts with the kids. People wonder why this is going on in the world and why that’s going on in the world? It starts with the kids. It starts with their mind-frame. What if you grew up and no one ever told you no? What if someone told you if you worked all day, you wouldn’t overwork yourself? Then everyone would be great. So that’s kind of my goal.”
With that mindset, Lockette will be great at the next phase of his career and his life. We wish him well.
