Trying times can drive some to become a better person while others become bitter and mad at the world. Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman DeAngelo Tyson is an example of how “adversity makes the strong, stronger and the weak, weaker.” He has used his rough childhood as motivation to help others. Tyson lives by three basic yet key principles: love, trust and forgiveness.
Love, trust and forgiveness are three principles that he has learned and they have helped him to become the person that he is now. “In order to succeed, everyone needs to feel loved. Without love, you don’t have a push.” Tyson continued, “If you know that you have someone who loves you, you have something to work for. I work for my family because I know they’ll appreciate what I am doing.”
According to Tyson, love starts it all. He said trust is a byproduct of when love grows between two people because they open their hearts up to each other. He also made a great point about forgiveness and how it’s unhealthy to carry around bad feelings from previous occurrences. Tyson explained, “You don’t want to walk around being upset about what happened before. It will keep you from accomplishing what you want to accomplish next because you’re still stuck on what happened before.”
Tyson shared that he overcame his troubled childhood by personal growth. “I’ve been through a lot as a child, I wasn’t receiving the love and trust from the people that I thought should love and trust me. I had to figure out those things on my own to become a better person, father and teammate.”
Tyson went to Statesboro High School in Georgia after spending most of his youth at the Joseph’s Home for Boys. He was abandoned by his birth parents. That was not enough to keep him from his goals. He was the first from the home to go straight to college.
As a young man, Tyson felt that he was more of a basketball player but started playing football in eighth grade. He earned a scholarship to the University of Georgia. Justin Houston was one of his teammates in high school and at Georgia. Houston is now a member of the Kansas City Chiefs.
There really wasn’t a moment when he thought for sure that he could go pro. He says that it was pretty much just a part of the process. His defensive line coach was known for his work with defensive linemen. The coach also had quite a few connections within the NFL.
The Ravens drafted Tyson in the seventh round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He credits Haloti Ngata with helping him along the way. Tyson pointed out how Ngata has been in the league and showed him how to take care of his body, how to watch film along with simply how to be a great football player.
He is on the roster and in the defensive line rotation. Tyson says he doesn’t have any personal goals because he would rather worry about the team. He says that personal goals don’t matter if the team is losing.
“I feel like it doesn’t mean as much if you’re not winning. A bunch of stats with a bunch of losses doesn’t mean much to me. As a team the goal is to win the division and then the Super Bowl.”
Training camp was a bit more active this year due to not making playoffs last year. Tyson says that the players are the ones that pushed to have a great training camp because they didn’t want to feel what they did when they didn’t make the playoffs. It was a bitter feeling they are working hard to avoid.
Tyson currently lives in Baltimore with his family. Being in the NFL has given him an opportunity to give back to the community. That is why he started The Tyson Foundation. He says the foundation is in place to “serve youth, young athletes and teenage mothers through support and opportunities that will empower them to unlock their own personal potential.”
The foundation will host an annual Silent Auction and Dinner that will be followed by a Golf Tournament this year. To find out more about the Tyson Foundation, visit: www.thetysonfoundation.org.