O.J. Brigance Continues To Inspire

http://blogs.nfl.com/2009/06/29/latest-from-the-nfl-rookie-symposium/

My personal best moment thus far was having a brief chat with Ravens’ director of player development O.J. Brigance. I covered O.J. back in the mid-90s when he was a special-teams player with the Dolphins and I worked with The Miami Herald. O.J. and I would chop it up back in the day about some football related stuff but mainly, we’d talk about our families. He would jokingly refer to himself as a wise man, citing his “grey beard of wisdom,” as his status symbol.
O.J. is in a wheelchair now, having been stricken with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 2007. He’s been featured in several television and print pieces and is probably more known now then he was as a player. When we saw each other, we both smiled and he said, “Long time.” Then, referencing the old days, he said, “I shaved.”
His body may be a shell of what it once was but O.J. Brigance is still a special man.