Soonerjeepman
12/1/2011, 12:48 PM
makes this upcoming games SEEM meaningless...as far as the bigger picture..
BUT...David, I wish you and SOONERS the best and beat the tar out of the pokes!
Not because he brings it playing defensive end at Oklahoma. Not because he faces it filling in this weekend for the injured Ronnell Lewis.
He knows it because he has lived through it.
“Not a lot gets to me because I've been through so much,” the soft-spoken junior said. “My life experience has been much more than football.”
He has experienced difficulty. He has endured death. He has been through way more than replacing an injured teammate with a conference championship on the line.
“I've had an interesting life, I guess,” he said.
He paused a moment.
“I don't know if that's the right word,” he said. “I've had a different life than most. All the challenges that have been thrown my way, I've been able to come over them and just get myself in better places, better situations.”
The pressure hasn't cracked him.
It has made him stronger.
* * *
David King was raised the only child of a single mom.
They were hardly the only ones in the house, though. Growing up in Houston's Fifth Ward, one of the roughest neighborhoods in Texas, he lived under the same roof with his mom, his great grandmother, his great aunt, his aunt and his cousin.
“It was a bunch of women,” King said. “I grew up a mama's boy, needless to say.”
Gladys King was protective of her son, but she did not coddle him. While she didn't let him play football until his freshman year of high school, for example, she pushed him academically.
Right before David started middle school, he applied to and was admitted into a highly selective program called U-Prep. It helps low-income, underserved students in Houston, requiring them to attend not only summer school but also Saturday school.
But the payoff was huge.
The program helped him get into private schools. David went to middle school at Presbyterian School, then high school at Strake Jesuit College Prep.
“It's not easy to be the private-school guy, coming home in the uniform every day, doing that much work and not having a lot of time for the friends who are left behind,” said Helen Berger, who oversees the U-Prep program.
“He's always been committed to doing well.”
Gladys King made sure of it.
She rarely allowed her son to go outside and roam the neighborhood. She wanted him to stay in the house, do his homework or clean his room. He always thought she was being unfair, not letting him have any fun.
Now, David knows better.
“Some of my friends that I grew up with back home, I have no clue what they're doing,” he said.
Being from the Fifth Ward — a place with so many gangs and so much violence that it has spurred rap lyrics — the potential pitfalls are many.
“Mom kept me out of that lifestyle,” King said.
And if she needed any help with discipline, she called on Philip Gray. He was David's godfather, and he provided a male figure that was otherwise absent.
Gray carried a cane, and he wasn't afraid to whack David with it if he got out of line.
Strake Jesuit football coach Ron Counter saw those influences of structure and discipline in King early on. Even as a freshman, he was polite and courteous and well-mannered.
That's not always the norm for teenage boys.
Counter remembers one of the few times King stepped out of line. It was during a spring game, and while the coach doesn't recall exactly what David did wrong, he clearly remembers Gladys King's reaction.
“She came down out of the stands and just grabbed him,” Counter said. “She was a little lady. She's looking up at David saying, ‘I didn't send you to this school and I didn't raise you to act that way.'
“She did it in front of God and everybody.”
She didn't care about that or the fact that her son was more than a foot taller than her.
Gladys King was a go-getter. She provided for her family. She volunteered for U-Prep. She dropped what she was doing to take care of others.
Her energy was boundless — until she got sick.
* * *
David was a true freshman at OU when his mom first had to go to the hospital. Her immune system was struggling to fight off illness, and for the next year, she was in and out of the hospital.
There were several times the doctors didn't think she'd survive.
His redshirt freshman season, David went home after the Sun Bowl and found a shell of the mother he'd known. She had the early signs of dementia.
“She was in and out on who I was,” King said. “That was really hard for me. I didn't want to be around her. I was mad. I was frustrated. But I really had no reason to be mad at her.”
There was aggravation. There was sorrow.
But more than anything, there was longing.
“Why can't you be back like you were?” he would ask.
King returned to Norman for the start of the spring semester, but he'd only been back a few weeks when he got a voice mail saying that his mom was really sick. He'd gotten similar calls before and figured this was like the others.
Then his cousin called in tears.
“I knew something was really wrong,” King said.
A few more phone calls confirmed the worst. His mom wasn't expected to survive the night, and she had told doctors that she didn't want to be put on life support.
King rushed to the Oklahoma City airport to get on the first available flight to Houston.
Before he could get on the plane, he got a call that his mom had died.
The next few weeks were a blur of funeral arrangements, phone calls and finances. He had help from his half-sister, Anjetta, from his cousin, Phillippa, and from the McVaney family, who he became close in high school with when he became friends with their son Jeff. Still, much fell to him.
He had to get a death certificate. He had to figure out what to do with his mom's house. And all the while, because his godfather had died a few years earlier and left him as the only male in the family, he felt like he had to be strong for everyone around him.
“It's not something that a 19- or 20-year-old kid should be doing,” he said. “That was just overwhelming.”
But he managed.
Just like always.
* * *
David King knows that Saturday night will be difficult. Playing for The Hammer. Getting to the quarterback. Slowing the Cowboys.
No doubt his 6-foot-5, 273-pound muscle-bound frame will help him with that.
But so will a life of triumph over trial and tribulation.
He has faced pressure greater than anything he'll ever experience on the football field. It has prepared him. Steeled him. Strengthened him.
King sees this not as pressure but as opportunity.
He said, “I don't want to waste any blessings that come my way.”
Read more: http://newsok.com/ous-david-king-no-stranger-to-pressure/article/3628144#ixzz1fJ3Vc4RI
BUT...David, I wish you and SOONERS the best and beat the tar out of the pokes!
Not because he brings it playing defensive end at Oklahoma. Not because he faces it filling in this weekend for the injured Ronnell Lewis.
He knows it because he has lived through it.
“Not a lot gets to me because I've been through so much,” the soft-spoken junior said. “My life experience has been much more than football.”
He has experienced difficulty. He has endured death. He has been through way more than replacing an injured teammate with a conference championship on the line.
“I've had an interesting life, I guess,” he said.
He paused a moment.
“I don't know if that's the right word,” he said. “I've had a different life than most. All the challenges that have been thrown my way, I've been able to come over them and just get myself in better places, better situations.”
The pressure hasn't cracked him.
It has made him stronger.
* * *
David King was raised the only child of a single mom.
They were hardly the only ones in the house, though. Growing up in Houston's Fifth Ward, one of the roughest neighborhoods in Texas, he lived under the same roof with his mom, his great grandmother, his great aunt, his aunt and his cousin.
“It was a bunch of women,” King said. “I grew up a mama's boy, needless to say.”
Gladys King was protective of her son, but she did not coddle him. While she didn't let him play football until his freshman year of high school, for example, she pushed him academically.
Right before David started middle school, he applied to and was admitted into a highly selective program called U-Prep. It helps low-income, underserved students in Houston, requiring them to attend not only summer school but also Saturday school.
But the payoff was huge.
The program helped him get into private schools. David went to middle school at Presbyterian School, then high school at Strake Jesuit College Prep.
“It's not easy to be the private-school guy, coming home in the uniform every day, doing that much work and not having a lot of time for the friends who are left behind,” said Helen Berger, who oversees the U-Prep program.
“He's always been committed to doing well.”
Gladys King made sure of it.
She rarely allowed her son to go outside and roam the neighborhood. She wanted him to stay in the house, do his homework or clean his room. He always thought she was being unfair, not letting him have any fun.
Now, David knows better.
“Some of my friends that I grew up with back home, I have no clue what they're doing,” he said.
Being from the Fifth Ward — a place with so many gangs and so much violence that it has spurred rap lyrics — the potential pitfalls are many.
“Mom kept me out of that lifestyle,” King said.
And if she needed any help with discipline, she called on Philip Gray. He was David's godfather, and he provided a male figure that was otherwise absent.
Gray carried a cane, and he wasn't afraid to whack David with it if he got out of line.
Strake Jesuit football coach Ron Counter saw those influences of structure and discipline in King early on. Even as a freshman, he was polite and courteous and well-mannered.
That's not always the norm for teenage boys.
Counter remembers one of the few times King stepped out of line. It was during a spring game, and while the coach doesn't recall exactly what David did wrong, he clearly remembers Gladys King's reaction.
“She came down out of the stands and just grabbed him,” Counter said. “She was a little lady. She's looking up at David saying, ‘I didn't send you to this school and I didn't raise you to act that way.'
“She did it in front of God and everybody.”
She didn't care about that or the fact that her son was more than a foot taller than her.
Gladys King was a go-getter. She provided for her family. She volunteered for U-Prep. She dropped what she was doing to take care of others.
Her energy was boundless — until she got sick.
* * *
David was a true freshman at OU when his mom first had to go to the hospital. Her immune system was struggling to fight off illness, and for the next year, she was in and out of the hospital.
There were several times the doctors didn't think she'd survive.
His redshirt freshman season, David went home after the Sun Bowl and found a shell of the mother he'd known. She had the early signs of dementia.
“She was in and out on who I was,” King said. “That was really hard for me. I didn't want to be around her. I was mad. I was frustrated. But I really had no reason to be mad at her.”
There was aggravation. There was sorrow.
But more than anything, there was longing.
“Why can't you be back like you were?” he would ask.
King returned to Norman for the start of the spring semester, but he'd only been back a few weeks when he got a voice mail saying that his mom was really sick. He'd gotten similar calls before and figured this was like the others.
Then his cousin called in tears.
“I knew something was really wrong,” King said.
A few more phone calls confirmed the worst. His mom wasn't expected to survive the night, and she had told doctors that she didn't want to be put on life support.
King rushed to the Oklahoma City airport to get on the first available flight to Houston.
Before he could get on the plane, he got a call that his mom had died.
The next few weeks were a blur of funeral arrangements, phone calls and finances. He had help from his half-sister, Anjetta, from his cousin, Phillippa, and from the McVaney family, who he became close in high school with when he became friends with their son Jeff. Still, much fell to him.
He had to get a death certificate. He had to figure out what to do with his mom's house. And all the while, because his godfather had died a few years earlier and left him as the only male in the family, he felt like he had to be strong for everyone around him.
“It's not something that a 19- or 20-year-old kid should be doing,” he said. “That was just overwhelming.”
But he managed.
Just like always.
* * *
David King knows that Saturday night will be difficult. Playing for The Hammer. Getting to the quarterback. Slowing the Cowboys.
No doubt his 6-foot-5, 273-pound muscle-bound frame will help him with that.
But so will a life of triumph over trial and tribulation.
He has faced pressure greater than anything he'll ever experience on the football field. It has prepared him. Steeled him. Strengthened him.
King sees this not as pressure but as opportunity.
He said, “I don't want to waste any blessings that come my way.”
Read more: http://newsok.com/ous-david-king-no-stranger-to-pressure/article/3628144#ixzz1fJ3Vc4RI