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Published on: 9/1/2009
Last Visited: 9/1/2009
Bucs' Derrick Ward escaped L.A.'s dead-end streets
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Bucs' Derrick Ward escaped L.A.'s dead-end streets
Staff photo by CLIFF McBRIDE
Derrick Ward says this year's Bucs remind him of the 2007 Super Bowl champion Giants, who everyone counted out during the season.
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Derrick Ward, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' big offseason acquisition at running back, has a contract that's worth $17 million.
He has a big house in South Tampa with a big pool.
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The 5-foot-11, 228-pound Ward powered the New York Giants past the Carolina Panthers in a crucial game on national TV.
Ward was unstoppable, going for 215 yards on just 15 carries.
"It was our Michael Jordan moment," he said.
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Derrick Ward, the Bucs' new guy, friendly, soft spoken, just celebrated his 29th birthday last Sunday.
"You know, growing up, I didn't even think I'd live to be 21," he said.
He'll tell young kids that when he talks to them, when he tries to reach them.
He usually does.
The at-risk youngsters, they start out seeing dollars and fame, but Ward will tell them what they've been through is nothing, nothing.
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Derrick Ward is talking about the jingle of an ice-cream truck coming down his street when he was 12.
He runs outside.
His kid sister Shameka is in the house, but he runs out.
He's getting his cone when he sees a man running toward him, then the car turning the corner to chase him.
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Derrick Ward is talking about living in a foster home, about his mother, who he never really knew because the drugs ate up her life.
He's talking about the fight he and his dad had when he was home from college, a fist fight.
"My dad, he was strict, but he couldn't treat me like a man," Ward said.
The two didn't talk for years after that, years.
Derrick Ward is talking about trying to belong growing up.
He's talking about wearing the blue for his gang, the notorious Crips.
"You didn't really play outside growing up.
That wasn't happening," he said.
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Derrick Ward is talking about the .22 pistol he carried around growing up.
He's talking about robbing people.
He says he never got caught, at least at that.
He made his share of trips to juvenile hall for fighting and stealing.
He says he never fired a gun at another person, only in the air sometimes.
'When I was a kid, I was always angry," he said.
"I was always yelling, always screaming and cussing, even in school."
He is talking about finding football.
He is talking about his hero, his big brother almost.
His name is Dupree Tave, and Derrick Ward has the name tattooed on his arm.
Dupree showed Derrick the way.
Dupree was a year older.
Dupree was a football star, a runner like Derrick.
Only Dupree didn't do the gangs.
He had a 3.0 grade-point average and had already passed his SAT.
Southern Cal was recruiting him.
Derrick Ward is talking about the night Dupree died in 1995.
Dupree and a friend were sitting in a red Thunderbird with a flat tire on Crenshaw Boulevard.
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Derrick Ward is talking about his own close call, the one that set him straight.
He and some friends were cruising Crenshaw when their car ran out of gas.
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Next thing, Ward is working as a production assistant on the set of "Friends."
"I got to know the cast members," he said.
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But there was something about Ward that coaches and teammates kept coming back to - that drive, that heart.
When Tiki Barber left the Giants after the 2006 season, Ward became a true fixture in the Giants' backfield, and he put himself to work.
He was having a great season, more than 600 yards, when it all ended late in the year when Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher fell on Ward's leg, snapping it.
Ward missed the history that followed, the Giants' improbable run to and over the undefeated New England Patriots at the Super Bowl in Arizona.
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In 2008, Ward and teammate and friend Brandon Jacobs turned their private and punishing offseason workouts into a pair of 1,000-yard seasons, only the fourth 1,000-yard tandem in NFL history.
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Derrick Ward is talking about his free agent visit to the Bucs.
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Derrick Ward is talking about this Bucs team reminding him of those 2007 champion Giants who everyone counted out during the season.
He says all the pieces are here.
He is talking about unfinished business.
He is taking care of other stuff, too.
In March, not long after he signed with the Bucs, he reconciled with his father, and just in time, because Derrick Ward Sr. was dying.
Derrick called him.
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Derrick Ward is talking about his kid sister.
Shameka is 26 and attending Long Beach State.
Derrick is paying her school bills and bought her a car.
Derrick Ward is talking about his daughter.
He became a father for the first time in July.
Jaida lives with her mom in Boston.
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Bucs' Derrick Ward escaped L.A.'s dead-end streets
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Bucs' Derrick Ward escaped L.A.'s dead-end streets
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