The Beginning

This book isn't just about my life's journey to Canton and beyond. I also wanted to write this book in the hope of inspiring fans like you to go out and fulfill your own dreams. If you're not doing everything you can to live your dream, you have to ask yourself, "What am I waiting for?" Life is not a dress rehearsal. It's the only one you get. And while fulfilling your dreams is a thing of beauty, the commitment and sacrifice necessary can be daunting. I know. I'm not here to tell you how easy it is. I'm here to share with you how hard it can be. Life is hard. It's not easy. Dying is easy. Before you meet your Maker, make sure you've squeezed every last drop of life out of this world. When your time is up, you want to leave completely fulfilled, at peace, knowing your loved ones will carry on your proud legacy.

I was a 25-year-old rookie running back. A bowlegged, 5'10", 195 pounder soaking wet. Critics said I was too old and too small to make it in the NFL. When I was drafted by the Denver Broncos, a last-place AFL team, the so-called experts stacked the deck against me even more. They said I was just a scatback, a shifty little guy who might make it as a kick returner but definitely not an every-down back. So I went all-in against the naysayers.

I played with a fury for nine seasons, became an every-down back, a 1,000 rusher, a perennial Pro Bowl player, and I retired as the seventh-leading rusher in NFL history. That wasn't by accident. That was pure will. In 2010, I was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In a sense, being enshrined in Canton now gives me a sense of immortality. Did I fulfill my dream? Yes. Did I do it by myself? Hell, no. I needed a cadre of supportive family, friends, mentors, coaches, teammates, fans, competitors, and naysayers every step of the way. No one travels life's journey alone. The one thing I did have was an uncommon will — a non-stop drive to achieve everything people said I couldn't.

Here's the thing: God only gives you drive or talent. You don't get both. In the history of sports, God has only made two mistakes: Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard. Somehow they were both given generous heaps of drive and talent.

Sometimes you don't know what you've been blessed with until something happens in your life and you discover it for the first time. For me, it happened when I was 14 and everything in my life seemed lost. A vision appeared that changed my life. After that, I made a promise that I never stopped striving to keep. A promise that drove me to achieve things that I never thought possible. Along my life's journey, I've been asked to keep more promises. I believe a promise is your word, your bond. That's what defines me, and that's all I have. This is where those promises begin.

My Family

My father, Frederick Douglas Little, died when I was six. He was named after the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. When he passed, my mom, Lula, was left to raise six kids in Waterbury, Connecticut. My mother was a saint. But at the same time she was a disciplinarian. You couldn't get anything past her. If you did something wrong, she would find out and you'd get a beating. She worked many jobs to support us. Because she was so busy, I was able to keep one secret from her for many years — my athletic talent on the football field. She thought I was too small to play football and didn't want me to get hurt. Consequently, my older sisters Betty, Rosa, and Priscilla helped me hide my secret gridiron life for years. They stitched up and cleaned my clothes when they were ripped to shreds. My mom didn't find out I was a pretty good football player until I got my scholarship at Syracuse. By then, what could she say?

I was the second youngest. Along with my three older sisters, I had a younger brother, Charles, known as "Jitty," and an older brother, Frederick, known as "Ranger." My father gave him the nickname from his favorite radio show, The Lone Ranger. Ranger got into trouble a lot. But our family always pulled together. We worked hard. I was shining shoes when I was six. And when I wasn't working, I was tagging along behind the skirt of my oldest sister, Betty. I was shy and self-conscious. My skin was darker than other black kids, and they called me Cheetah.

By the time I was 13, we had moved from the projects in Waterbury to a small apartment in New Haven. We had no choice but to move. Ranger got us evicted. Think about it — you have to be pretty bad to get evicted from the projects. Ranger was. He and some other boys got in trouble for continually beating up other kids. Our entire family got tossed to the curb because of it.

At first life didn't change much for us in New Haven. We continued to take odd jobs to bring in money. The pressure of constantly working and doing badly in school started to weigh on me. I was an angry young man. It took a watershed moment of pure frustration and angst for me to finally change my ways.

The Vision

By the time I was 14, school had become too much for me. I could barely read, and then one day I was asked to read aloud and mispronounced a word. All the kids laughed at me. I got mad and refused to read in front of people again. I was challenged every day because of it. I failed tests, and my homework was always wrong. Some older kids teased me that I was stupid. So I got in a lot of fights. Most kids, though, were afraid of me. They'd see me and cross to the other side of the hallway. By the time I got to the eighth grade, I was just going through the motions. We were on social security. We all had more than one job, and I was always tired. My clothes were shabby. My shoes had holes. My hair was uncombed.

Then one day I snapped. I beat the crap out of some kid for basically no reason. Then I punched a teacher. When the kid's parents showed up, I fought with them, too. I was just mad at everyone. Mad at my life. Mad that every day seemed worse than the day before. It's no surprise that I got tossed out of school that day. The principal threw me out. I was outside, sitting on a curb, sobbing, afraid to go home because my mom was going to beat me. Hyperventilating, I didn't know what I was going to do. I felt beyond helpless.

All sorts of terrible things entered my head. Should I just run out into the street or rob a store, just to get this miserable life over with? Those thoughts had never entered my mind before. I wasn't a depressed kid. I was just seething with anger and frustration.

Then in the midst of all these tears, I heard my father's voice and I looked up. There he was, standing before...