Roland Fryer

You'd throw the ball.

You'd catch some balls.

They had a little shed there at the fields.

They'd put all your measurements up, and then the coaches would select by lottery who went first.

So we cared about where we were drafted as early as like eight or nine years old.

And how did you do in the draft?

Oh, man, I was always a number one draft pick.

My coaches early on told me my real talent was what they called running to the light, that you would just figure out where the gaps were and go, and it was all intuition.

You'd score five, six touchdowns a game.

I loved it.

I absolutely loved playing football, and running backs were revered back then.

Every part of football is physical, right?

But when you're running the ball, it's not just the person in front of you that you're going into.

People are coming from the side and taking hits at knees.

You can get rolled up on.

There's a lot of bodies there.

Years, because it's been a slow decline of running backs, and it's my favorite position.

I thought, why are my boys being paid less when these quarterbacks who aren't nearly as tough as running backs are being paid more?

I grew up in the era of Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, Emmett Smith.

I've always liked these really, really explosive running backs just because they look like pure athletes.