A Football Life Fighting Battles
An all American in basketball, baseball, and football player, Michael Basnight was destined for greatness. He signed as a free agent for the Cincinnati Bengals. Basnight was excited to be in the NFL. Growing up he looked up to Walter Payton as one of his role models in the NFL world and he strived to be someone like him. Like everybody though Michael was fighting battles daily in his life.
Michael Basnight was selected by the Houston Texans. Now, I know what you’re thinking, didn’t you just say Cincinnati Bengals? Well, he was signed as a free agent, but the Houston Texans picked him in 2001 and here’s a fun fact, Michael was the first Texan to be selected to the team… and subsequently the first to be cut by the expansion team. Right off the bat Michael was fighting battles of self doubt.
Ironically, Basnight’s favorite sport was basketball not football. Basnight in the interview jokingly said, “I thought I was going to be Shaq, but then I stopped growing. Basketball is actually my favorite sport and then tennis.”
When asked who his favorite players were Basnight responded that Shaq (Shaquille O’Neal) and Michael Jordan were his basketball idols. If he could’ve gone a different route here’s what he would’ve done, “I probably would’ve played tennis… (“Laughing”) If I was smarter I would’ve stuck with Tennis, I was really good at it, but in high school I had been on my own since I was like 15 or 16, football was like the norm, Tennis wasn’t the norm, and I didn’t really have a lot of guidance so football felt right. So, I chose football, but if I had to do it again, I’d choose Tennis.”
A Change of Heart Fighting Battles
Michael recalls that he was dominant on the court and believes he would’ve won Wimbledon. “My hand eye coordination and foot speed were amazing, but I feel like I would’ve been the first Serena… “Laughing”.” He went onto say that he would play tennis if his knees weren’t as bad as they were.
Michael played running back in the NFL for the Bengals. However, in high school since they had so few players, he didn’t come off the field for the entirety of games from 7th to 11th grade. Michael went to North Carolina A&T State University, there he found a coach that would become his mentor in Coach Bill Hayes.
“He was the first African American Coach in the ACC. He’s a hero in my book, he had polio until he was nine years old and he couldn’t walk, and he became an all-American football player on both sides of the ball. When I met him, it changed my life forever, I wanted to play for him, he was like a father to me. A father, a brother, an uncle, a coach everything all in one.”
A Career Cut Short Fighting Battles
Even though he was there for a brief time, Basnight considers Texas to be his second home. Unfortunately, surgeries ended Basnight’s career early after suffering another knee surgery, he was in the midst of fighting battles but he says, “I was thankful for the opportunity, I met some wonderful people there, and Texas is my second home now.”
Many athletes have made professions of faith. Tim Tebow, Carsen Wentz and Nick Foles are the most recent ones that come to mind. Basnight says, “When an athlete expresses their spirituality it’s a good thing no matter what their faith is.”
In a less serious and more joking matter, when asked who would get the number one draft pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, the Miami Dolphins or the Cincinnati Bengals, Basnight simply said, “The Dolphins, the Dolphins will get the number one pick (“Laughing”).” Of course, this was before the Bengals had only won one game and the Dolphins had won three.
The Real Dream Fighting Battles
Something interesting about Basnight, was the fact that he designed his own car. “I would have to say the fact that I designed a Bentley, Rolls Royce SUV about 19 years ago. Rolls Royce & Bentley told me they’d never make an SUV, and then they said I could pay them 5 million bucks and they would make some prototypes, and they ended up building those SUV’s they said they’d never build.
Basnight is also a writer at heart. He wrote his first book in his second season called Deeper than the Game, A Book of Poetry. Not only did Michael talk about the book he has written and will write, he also gave information and advice on how to write a book. “What I would say is, a few things, first you want to really hone in the theme of your book, what do you want to portray to your readers?
Then collect that into a collective binder or notebook and then from there really get with, now it’s easy with e-publisher. But getting the idea really knocked out on paper, what you want to display and then create bullet points and write under those bullet points what you want to do.”
Everyone needs a strong support system in life whether you’re a believer or not or writing a book or not. Michael went into detail about how everyone needs a support system in their life, “Anything you do in life you need a strong support system, whether you’re a customer, client, or business, or owner, or whatever you need a strong support system. I think more importantly we got to try to support ourselves.
Depression and Anxiety Fighting Battles
I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety and different things like that and Coach Rick was there when I couldn’t get out of bed. He really motivated me so having a good support system is really the key to success. Also knowing you must be your own support system as well, but sometimes we need people like Coach Rick to help us with stuff like that.”
A lot of people in America struggle with depression and anxiety. Even NFL players struggle with it as well. Just like you and me Michael had to be fighting battles through out his life.
Michael had some advice for people fighting battles who struggle with these diseases, “The biggest thing I would say is don’t be afraid to admit you have a mental illness, because I think that’s one of the issues is that people don’t want to come out and talk about it.
So, they live a life that they don’t want to live and that they don’t have to live if the reach out to someone. Because other people have been through it before, and maybe have some familiarity with someone and can help them.
There are a lot of people in America who go unreported with a mental illness and they don’t get help for it and they deal with it day to day. So, I would say do not be afraid to talk about your mental illness, or whatever it may be you’re feeling on the inside and just open up to people. People who have been through what you’re going through who can help you walk through that fire you know?
Support Systems
Support systems are important for everyone, even the non-believer so you have help when fighting battles. Michael dove in and had this to say, “I would say one thing, if you don’t believe in God, look at the trees, look at the ocean, look at the skies, look at the earth. There’s got to be an immaculate design behind it. You must find something, if you wake up and you’re breathing every day, somebody is giving you that breath. The almighty God is giving you that breath.
“If you are an unbeliever, if you’re alive than you should be a believer because you’re alive. You didn’t give yourself breath, you didn’t make your heart pump, we have trillions of cells in our body that have to operate together every day. We don’t really have a clue about how the body operates. I think that understanding that God is the overall, the master of the universe. If you are an unbeliever you probably believe, you just don’t want to believe.”
Michael’s dream is to own his own line of vehicles and own a professional football team, “I think it’d be cool that a no name football player, would buy a team (“Laughing”). I’m going to work hard and work smart, that’s the real key, because you can work hard without working smart. My grandma worked until she died, and I don’t want to work until I die. Because when you’re doing what you love it’s not work. So, if I could do anything that I love designing cars.”
God’s Calling in Life Fighting Battles
Our Calling is such a difficult topic to talk about because it can often be hard for us to figure out what exactly it is God is calling us to do. Michael however, had a great response, “A lady that’s been a dear friend to me, I call her my corporate mother, ArLena Richardson. She told me 18 years ago, Michael you got to find your purpose in life, and I’m like ArLena, everyone wants to know their purpose in life!
She said Michael, ‘What would you do for free?’ If money wasn’t an issue, what industry, what business, what life would you live for free? It was designing cars and helping others. I think I’m at home mostly when I’m helping other and making others smile and cars are my passion probably before I was born.”
Near the end of the interview Michael had some advice for people who might need a word of encouragement. “I think from having a lot of ups and down in my own life from being on the mountain top, to being low in the valley. Never give up and never stop believing in yourself and if you happen to hang around people who make you doubt yourself or make you not believe in yourself try to stay away from those people.
‘You don’t have to want to get them back with revenge or anything, but you want to hang around uplifting people. It’s all about who you surround yourself with, there’s a saying show me your top 5 friends and you’re an average of who they are.’
Don’t Stop Believing
Don’t ever stop believing in yourself, don’t allow others to penetrate any thoughts of negativity about you and don’t have self-defeating actions and characteristics. Don’t defeat yourself, don’t be the reason you’re falling in your own life. Have the ability to self-evaluate, in sports we were always taught to watch film everyday after practice. We want to see what we did wrong, because if you don’t correct your wrongs, then it doesn’t matter how good you are, it only matters about the weaknesses. So, I think in every day life people don’t really get the opportunity to self-evaluate, but you can self-evaluate yourself on a daily basis then you will be successful in life.”
As you can see everyone struggles with something even football players. We think they’re so high above us and that nothing can bring them down. However, this is not true, because as you can see in Michael’s case everyone has something that they deal with. It might not be anxiety or depression it could be something else entirely! Know that there are people who want to help you and that there is a God who is always willing to listen to you. If you would like to talk about what was said in this article further, you can reach out to me at zevans1@fau.edu.
My true best friend!