Retired NFL tight end Shannon Sharpe said he had his grandmother to thank for his success on and off the field while growing up in Georgia. As an article printed right before he was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame explained, “Sharpe’s Grandma Mary was living out her final days in the same nursing home where she once worked to put food on the table for her children, grandchildren, sisters, nieces, nephews and whoever else needed a bed with a leaky roof over it. ‘She was a hard worker,’ Elaine Keels, Shannon’s Spanish and remedial reading teacher at Glennville High, said in late June. ‘I think she was working all the time to take care of her family. I tell her every time when I stop by who I am and she tells me the same story, that Shannon is her baby.” As Shannon puts it, “My grandma told me, don’t get into trouble. I know how hard she worked to take care of her own nine kids and my mama’s three. And I just never wanted to hurt her. I never wanted to do something that would embarrass her.”
Reprinted from: “Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe has his late Grandma to thank,” The Denver Post, July 31, 2011
Photo: Former Broncos tight end Shannon Sharpe and his former high school track and football coach William “Billy” Hall meet up during a visit to his hometown of Glennville, Georgia, Thursday, June 16, 2011. (AP | Chris Viola)
