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Chiefs’ Waters wins Walter Payton Man of the Year award
By KENT BABB and RANDY COVITZ
The Kansas City Star
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. | Chiefs guard Brian Waters was never
certain where life might take him. Maybe he would coach or
teach. Or maybe he’d be a lawyer or a football player.
One thing was never in doubt: Waters would give to others.
Before tonight’s kickoff of Super Bowl XLIV, the NFL will
recognize Waters’ dedication to community service when he is
introduced as the 40th winner of the league’s most prestigious
honor, the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which recognizes
both excellence on the field and in the community.
“The stories that are shared with us,” he says, “and the little
things we’re able to do for them is the most gratifying.”
Waters was a finalist for the second time in three years for the
award. Washington linebacker London Fletcher and Cleveland
receiver Mike Furrey were the other finalists.
Waters is the fifth Chiefs player to win the honor, and that’s
more than any team in the league. He follows linebacker Willie
Lanier (1972), quarterback Len Dawson (1973), linebacker Derrick
Thomas (1993) and guard Will Shields (2003).
“If you came to play there,” Lanier says of Kansas City, “that
was only part of your mission. If you didn’t recognize there was
a larger mission outside the lines than just playing the game on
Sunday, you didn’t fulfill what your expectations were.”
Following in impressive footsteps, Waters has shared his time
and riches with thousands of children. He’s done it in the
Kansas City area and in his native Waxahachie, Texas, the small
town south of Dallas where Waters learned years ago that gifts
are given but also can be taken away. He learned then that
success is a delicate thing, and Waters came close once to
allowing his short temper to derail a promising future.
Waters has his way, and today proves that, at least with him,
success sometimes leads down side roads and tough paths. He says
he never forgot where his trip began. After all, Waters has a
few stories of his own.
“My long road is just another story,” he says. “I still feel in
my heart, no matter what I’d be doing right now, whether it be a
lawyer or a teacher or a coach — which were the other three
options — if football didn’t make it, I wanted to be a blessing
to others.”
• • •
But the big guy wanted to be a football player. He had the size
and the mean streak. Some questioned if he possessed the
self-control.
Waters stalked the hallways then, and those who knew him say now
that he padded through Waxahachie High looking for a fight. If
someone dared to offer a cross word toward Waters, he wouldn’t
ignore it.
“A lot of anger inside,” says Thomas Brooks, Waxahachie’s head
coach during Waters’ senior season.
Waters played tight end, and sometimes he would bring the
meanness to the football field. Coaches liked the anger and the
attitude once the ball was snapped, but Waters didn’t always
stop when the play did. Brooks says Waters was difficult to
coach when he was a sophomore, and often he’d get into arguments
if a teammate tried to offer advice.
“He had his days,” says Steve Howell, who coached Waxahachie’s
tight ends. “Heck, I knew he could play. It was just hard to get
him to do all the things I wanted him to do all the time. He
could be disagreeable sometimes.”
In time, coaches had enough. Waters had talent, but he was
becoming a liability and a distraction. They kicked him off the
team. Brooks, who was an assistant coach when Waters was a
sophomore, says he can’t remember what Waters did that last
time, but that coaches couldn’t keep overlooking the skirmishes
and locker-room confrontations that came all too often. Waters’
football career was finished before it had a chance to get
started.
• • •
Then Brooks started hearing about how Waters began sharing his
time and his story. He’d mentor ninth graders about how things
can go wrong and undo all the work that had gotten them this
far. Worse, it could ruin what might come next. Waters realized
then that he had something to share. It wasn’t yet money or
fame, but it was insight.
Brooks says that, before Waters’ junior season, other players
came to him and said the big tight end wanted another chance.
They were the same players who Waters had been in fights with.
If they were willing to bet on Waters, how could Brooks do
anything else?
“It really hurt him. I had just never seen Brian like that,”
Brooks says. “We were just hoping that, when he came back, he
was going to be a different-type guy; be a team player. And he
was.
“We were hoping — we were really hoping — that it would work out
the way it did.”
• • •
When Waters returned to the Waxahachie football team, he added
defensive end duties to his responsibilities as a tight end. If
it meant a chance at the next level, Waters was willing to give
it a try.
His versatility earned him a scholarship to North Texas, and it
was there that he moved to defense full-time. If it meant a
chance to start, he was up for trying it.
Waters played for two coaches in high school, and before he was
a senior at North Texas, he was undergoing another coaching
change. Darrell Dickey replaced Matt Simon, who had recruited
Waters. Waters was open to playing any position as long as there
was a payoff, but there was one that he loved more than the
others.
Waters approached Dickey shortly after the coach started, and
Dickey remembers the big man making his doorway look like a snug
fit.
“I was a little nervous,” Dickey says with a laugh.
Waters told Dickey that he wanted to play tight end. He felt at
home there. Dickey knew about Waters’ talent, and he knew that
he also was a mentor who spent his free time guiding local
youngsters. How could he turn Waters down? Dickey told his best
player that, if some things broke right, he’d have his shot.
Waters stayed on defense through the first four games. North
Texas went 0-4. Dickey says that Waters never complained, but he
wasn’t shy about reminding his coach of that preseason request:
“What about that tight end deal?” Dickey remembers Waters
asking.
What the heck, Dickey thought. His first season as a head coach
was looking grim, and North Texas needed a boost against Boise
State in September 1998. Dickey told Waters that his day had
come. In the fourth quarter, Waters ran a middle read and caught
the ball. Boise State’s safeties hit Waters and bounced to the
ground. The big man kept running and didn’t stop until he
reached the end zone. North Texas won 21-13.
After that season, Waters returned home to Waxahachie. He wanted
a shot to play in the NFL. It was unlikely, but he was willing
to try anything if it meant a chance.
He walked into the high school weight room one day and found
Howell, his old position coach. Waters wasn’t a highly rated
prospect. But he knew that, as it had always been, he needed an
open mind if wanted to take the next step.
Howell looked at the big man and grabbed a football.
“Sure,” Howell remembers saying. “I’ll teach you how to deep
snap.”
• • •
Waters’ career kept taking unexpected paths, but he always
seemed to make any adjustment look comfortable. Waters the
undrafted free agent became Waters the Pro Bowler, and the man
willing to play any position became one of the few anchors the
Chiefs could rely on the last three seasons.
• • •
Through it all, a few things never changed. Waters never stopped
trying to help others, lessons learned years ago in Waxahachie.
Even now, Waters returns to his hometown during offseasons to be
host of football clinics and mentor youngsters. David Ream,
who’s been Waxahachie’s coach for the past decade, says it’s
common to see Waters around town. He’s usually being followed by
a group of children.
“He does so many things for the community that it’s
unbelievable,” Ream says.
Waters’ reach extended long ago into Kansas City. His foundation
has awarded 82 college scholarships to low-income students, and
his back-to-school program provides school supplies and money
for medical treatment for area youngsters. Waters says he knows
what it’s like to face an uncertain future, even if his is now
secure.
“I grew up in a community where a lot of people were going
through hard times,” he says. “There were different people we
helped out, and there were different people who helped us out.”
The other thing that hasn’t changed is Waters’ headstrong
nature. He speaks his mind, and he’s not afraid to ask for
something he thinks is right.
“When he believes something,” Howell says, “he goes full speed.”
His infamous first meeting with Chiefs coach Todd Haley nearly a
year behind him, Waters maintained a public silence throughout
the 2009 season. He decided that the best way to help his team
was to keep quiet and focus on his job. He kept coming to work,
kept playing, and kept contributing time and money to his
various communities.
It was a new look for Waters, but adapting is perhaps the thing
that Waters does best.
“He remembers where he came from,” Chiefs president Denny Thum
says. “And because of that, he knows he wants to give back to
the people he grew up with and who maybe never had that chance.
And maybe with a little help by him, and his foundation, maybe
they get the same opportunities that he had.”
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