Brandon Graham was just 12 or 13 years old when he came to one of the most important realizations of his life.
Growing up in Detroit’s crime-ridden east side had finally sucked in a few of Graham’s childhood peers, when they were arrested for armed robbery and sent away to juvenile detention.
That was the day Graham saw a path he was determined to avoid.
“I figured out life was about choices,” Graham said in a sit-down interview with CSNPhilly.com last week. “Once I started seeing people go to jail, I think that’s what helped me.”
The Eagles’ former first-round pick and starting outside linebacker grew up in a cocoon of love provided by his family and friends in the middle of an urban jungle, where violence thrived and danger lurked.
Amid it all, Graham came out unscathed.
Graham, 27, will return to his native city to face the Lions on Thanksgiving, having never become one of the thousands of statistics for which the city has become notorious.
NFL
Instead, Graham will return on Thursday as a success story that sprung from an unlikely origin.
“The City of Detroit is rough,” Graham’s mother Tasha said. “But I feel like if you can survive here, you can survive anywhere in the world.”
Graham didn’t just survive.
He thrived.
•
Until he was in eighth grade, Graham lived in a house on Corbett Avenue, near the busy intersection of Conner and Gratiot, certainly one of the more dangerous parts of town.
He lived in a house with his mother, sister, grandmother, grandfather and uncle.
On either side of the house were vacant lots that filled his days. A young Graham spent a good portion of his childhood playing football, baseball and basketball next to his family’s home. The field allowed Graham, the young members of his family, and his friends to play where his mother and grandmother could keep a watchful eye.
Graham figured out how to do the right things early in life. He was always mature in that aspect, according to Tasha.
“I think with me not wanting to disappoint my mom and just seeing the struggle she went through and seeing the struggles my grandma went through, I wanted to make sure I did everything I could to be able to give back to them and help them do better in their situation,” Brandon said.
Graham always knew his limits and how to avoid trouble. He often lied to avoid bad situations. If his friends were doing something that didn’t seem right or wanted to hang out with people Graham didn’t feel comfortable with, he made up excuses. He would simply act like he had something else to do.
And, of course, football helped keep him out of trouble too.
Graham started playing the sport when he was 8 years old and by the time he reached high school, he was a star.
In eighth grade, then-Crockett Technical High School football coach Steven McGhee approached Graham at an all-star game, and Graham made the important decision to attend Crockett, a place filled with people he said became like family.
“Brandon lived in the hood but he wasn’t really of the hood,” said Rod Oden, who was an assistant coach at Crockett for the first three years of Graham’s high school career and the head coach his senior year. “All of those guys know him and love him because he’s one of them when he comes home. But I think he was also the one they could tell he was special. A lot of times the encouragement was ‘go on ahead to practice.’ If they were going to do something they shouldn’t have been doing, they were kind of shooing Brandon away.”
•
Brennen Anfield was two months shy of his 21st birthday when he was shot and killed on April 14, 2009.
Graham lost a friend that day. He also learned a tough lesson.
Anfield and Graham were both back in Detroit, visiting from college — Graham from Michigan and Anfield from Northwood University — when Anfield went out with one of his old buddies.
According to Graham, Anfield’s friend had stolen drugs from someone who was then out to find him. In a fatal twist of fate, Anfield let his friend drive his car that day, something Graham said Anfield rarely let happen, and the car was gunned down. Anfield’s friend, the target of the attack, lived. Anfield did not. He was one of 365 homicide victims in Detroit in 2009. (The murder statistics in the city are still far too high but mercifully dropped to 300 in 2014.)
“I was at that point where all I wanted to do was, when I come back to the D, hang out with the same people I was hanging with,” Graham said. “And it was kind of like, one of those things where you have to graduate from that stuff. You say you want to make it out, you gotta leave some people alone that’s stuck.”
Six years later, Graham still keeps trimming people out of his life, something he said hasn’t gotten any easier but is still necessary.
•
Crockett — the school Graham’s credits for turning him into a man — closed its doors for good in 2012.
It merged with Finney High School to form East English Village High School on the corner of Warren and Cadieux, near where Graham moved with his mother and sister in eighth grade and near where Anfield was shot in 2009.
Oden, who became the head coach of Crockett in Graham’s final high school season, is now the head coach of the East English Bulldogs.
And Graham is still the football program’s biggest supporter.
“Absolutely,” Oden said. “He’s the No. 1 supporter of East English Village. He’s also pretty much our title sponsor too. He outfits the kids with uniforms, shoes, socks, the whole nine. He’s the biggest supporter I have in the program.”
This past summer Graham held his inaugural Select 100 camp at East English. The free camp, open to boys and girls at the suggestion of Graham’s wife Carlyne, took 10 students (five boys, five girls) from 20 of Detroit’s public schools.
“Brandon is not just the name on the camp,” Oden said. “Brandon strapped ‘em up and laced ‘em up and was in drills with the guys. He was the most involved person I’ve ever seen in their own camp. He was the first there, the last to leave. He shook every hand, he signed ever autograph. He did all of those things with an infectious smile on his face.”
•
Graham hasn’t played in Detroit since the second game of his rookie season. In that game, the Eagles won 35-32 and Graham picked up his first career sack.
A lot has happened since then.
Graham went through several rough years of being labeled a “bust” by fans in Philadelphia.
Tasha Graham knew how difficult those years were for her son and is proud he was able to make it through them. Things got so bad, when she attended games, she would hide the fact that Brandon was her son to avoid the wrath of “vicious” fans.
“They were calling him a bust and they were saying they should have gotten JPP (Jason Pierre-Paul) or Earl Thomas,” Tasha Graham said. “It was a lot he had to stomach and stay strong on. That’s just the ups and downs of the NFL. When you’re good, you can’t get them off your coattails and when you’re bad, oh, they let you know.”
Graham sees it fitting he returns to Detroit this year, in his first season as a true starter. Through 10 games in 2015, Graham has played 70 percent of the Eagles’ defensive snaps, has 4½ sacks and three forced fumbles.
As a youngster, Graham dreamed of one day putting on a Lions uniform and playing in the big Thanksgiving Day game. He’ll be on the other side Thursday, but he’s looking forward to it just the same.
And after the game, he’ll be rushing off to dinner(s). He plans to get to his mom’s house at 4:30 for Dinner No. 1, then it’s off to dad’s house for No. 2, before finally making it to his wife’s family dinner — Brandon and Carlyne went to high school together — to cap off the evening.
First thing’s first, though. The game. And Graham will have plenty of supporters in Ford Field, a short drive from where he grew up.
“I bought 40 tickets because it’s pretty much like a Christmas gift,” he said before breaking into a smile. “‘I got y’all out to the game, you can’t say I didn’t do nothing for you this year.’”
Graham was joking but he does plenty for his family, supporting them since he arrived in the NFL.
He’s done plenty for his native city too. Aside from financially supporting East English and aside from running his yearly camp, Graham is an example.
He became more than a statistic; he became a success story.