Who is Demetrius Byrd? A CERTIFIED Fighter and down right amazing! Like many of us, Demetrius has endured things that most would have given up on life. But for Demetrius, he allowed his mishaps to fuel his future and is never giving up. During our interview, Demetrius was very mannerable and passionate about his life and others.

ChristieOhh: You’re an LSU guy, how do you feel about the game that’s coming up?

Demetrius: It’s big for LSU because we are home! We are in the stadium playing in the dome. Our fans have to travel but and we take over when we show up. The team is definitely ready. I was down there on Friday night at a boxing match and its crazy all ready.

ChristieOhh: You have a very inspiring story to tell. Tell us about what happened?

Demetrius: Everything was looking good for me, I was leaving LSU, went to Combines, did Pro Day, looking to get drafted second round for the NFL. Things were really looking good, I probably lost a little bit of humbliness because of how things were going. On April 19, 2009 I remember dropping a friend off at home and getting into car accident. I feel like God kind of easily allowed things to happen because he saw what road I was going down. So God had to humble me and show me. I was in a coma for 7 days, I remember waking up and saying, “The draft is this weekend” and my mom said, “The draft happened.” The San Diego Chargers had last pick in the 7th round and drafted me. I did not remember to much but I knew no one had gotten drafted in hospital or being in coma.

ChristieOhh: How did it go with The Chargers?

Demetrius: I wasn’t released immediatedly from the hospital, once I was I did some signing and therapy in Miami. Then I was able to go to San Diego, I wasn’t able to go up until the 4th preseason game. I stayed briefly for almost 1 year before being released. A lot of people thought it was because of blogs; they had put out some negative stories and I began to get bad press because of a tweet that was taken the wrong way against Justin Beiber. I tweeted something about being gay, but not negatively at all and it was only a figure of speech that we had started saying with some friends.

My release was due to my injury and not being able to play. During that time I was being seen by doctors and they couldn’t keep me because of my injury not a tweet. I deleted the twitter account because it was an old situation and I have positive things going on in my life now. I have matured a lot.

ChristieOhh: What have you been doing since being release?

Demetrius: I went home. My mom said, “Do you remember your contract?” I didn’t know what she was talking about, but it was to go back and finish school. So, I went back to school and I’m in school now and set to graduate in May.

ChristieOhh: That’s great and good for you! Are you playing football now?

Demetrius: No, not right now. I’m training and in therapy. Everything has healed in my brain and I’m working on getting it all back together. I’m doing good and as long as I stay consistent with it. I believe God didn’t bring me this far to leave me.

From my first week of therapy to my 8th week it was a total change. I had a huge improvement. I ran a 4.7 about 2 weeks ago, I’m getting back to what I was before. So, I’m on the right track!

ChristieOhh: How has your accident impact your life?

Demetrius: I am much more mature and I know how to live one day at a time. When I wake up I am thankful for today. I needed to slow down and stop living life too fast. This experience has made me a better person. I was humble but I wasn’t humble, now I’m positive that I’m more mature and not doing the things that I use to do. I’m on to bigger and better things.

ChristieOhh: Do you still have hopes to be in the NFL?

Demetrius: Absolutely, I want to be there in May. I want to be in the free agent pool.

ChristieOhh: What does your mom mean to you?

Demetrius: My mom is my heart, she’s my everything. We have a best friend type of relationship. My brother, sister, mom and I are very close. When we were younger my mom was on drugs and we had to keep it together. My mom is clean now so we have to show her more love now. Despite, it all she raised us as good children. she raised us all by herself. she handled us three without our father and battling drugs. She’s very strong to me.

ChristieOhh: What keeps you focused on your dream?

Demetrius: I know that I can do all things through Christ that strengths me, as longs as I believe this who can be against me. And me coming back to the NFL is possible because God is on my side.

ChristieOhh: What words of encouragement can you offer someone that may be battling something or trying to bounce back from a misfortune?

Demetrius: Don’t give up, don’t let anybody tell you, you can’t do it. The other day I had a kid watching me train and workout and he said, “Byrd, if I would have went through what you went through I would have given up.” I told him to never say that its a sin. I live my life like that and will never give up. I had a follower tell me that they want to be just like me I told him to be better then me. I look at my story and I don’t have a problem telling it because I want people to know that I will never give up and I’m going against the odds. I shouldn’t be doing what I am doing and if I keep at it I’m going to comeback.

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Tags: chargers, comeback kid, demetrius byrd, lsu

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2012 at 1:03 pm and is filed under CERTIFIED Interviews, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.