Click here to start. Tony Richardson knows how he will always remember the late Derrick Thomas. Richardson, a former Auburn fullback who spoke so eloquently last February at the memorial service for a one-time rival Alabama linebacker, will forever remember Thomas as someone who could bring light to the darkest situation, be it in the locker room at Arrowhead Stadium or a patient's room at Children's Mercy Hospital. They swear it was purely coincidental that Duane Clemons' first locker at Arrowhead Stadium is adjacent to the one once occupied by, and now enclosed in glass as a shrine to, the late Derrick Thomas.
Optimism is a wonderful thing.
Maybe you remember the picture. Troy Drayton will never forget it. It was taken on Jan. 2, 1982. It showed former San Diego Chargers tight end Kellen Winslow, his face reflecting a state of total exhaustion, being all but carried off the Orange Bowl field after catching 13 passes for 166 yards and two touchdowns in a 41-38 playoff victory over Miami in a game that needed almost 14 minutes of overtime to decide. The moral thing to do, I continued, would have been to send Dennis Franchione 7 percent of every NFL paycheck you've earned during these past eight years.