Diggs has at all times been used to getting the final snigger on the soccer discipline. He determined he needed to play within the NFL in any respect of 5 years previous. “I stated it with conviction too,” he says. “My mother will let you know some tales of lecturers asking, like, ‘Oh, you might want to have a Plan B.’ I don’t wish to do shit else. That’s what I wish to do.”
If his mother taught him about sneakers and smiles, his dad, Aron, gave him a relentless drive. He remembers his dad educating him that getting too excessive about what occurred up to now would hold you from specializing in what was nonetheless up forward. “Like, I don’t know what you’re celebrating,” Diggs says his dad advised him. “Each win comes with what? A grain of salt. You could possibly lose the following one. Each catch comes with what? You could possibly drop the following move. There’s at all times extra so that you can do. So my drive actually comes from a relentless chase for perfection.”
When Diggs was 14, his dad died of congestive coronary heart failure the January earlier than his son started highschool. “I needed to turn out to be a person,” Diggs says. “I needed to discover ways to sacrifice.” He knew he had a duty to assist his youthful brother Trevon, nearly 5 years his junior. So although he was a extremely touted recruit after a stellar highschool profession, the standout receiver opted to remain close by and go to Maryland. There, he was capable of control Trevon, whereas additionally instilling in him the identical classes about work that Diggs had discovered from Dad.
After three years at Maryland, he was drafted within the fifth spherical by the Minnesota Vikings. He’d achieved his dream of constructing it to the NFL, however needed to watch 18 receivers obtain it first. “I’m not a hater,” he says, remembering the 2015 draft. “I really feel like everyone that went in entrance of me, y’all deserve it. However I at all times say, When the mud settles, I’ll be in all probability the perfect receiver in my class.” His mentorship of Trevon paid off too: Little bro was drafted in 2020 by the Dallas Cowboys, the place he’s already had two Professional Bowl seasons at cornerback.
I ask Diggs how he got here to such a mature mindset—selecting to hold a heavier load somewhat than simply get indignant on the world.
“I didn’t don’t have any selection—like, I couldn’t go get a brand new dad,” he says. “In fact, I had some shortcomings after my dad handed, with lack of imaginative and prescient and which option to go direction-wise. I used to be so younger, I didn’t actually know what to do. I simply needed to attempt to make all of it make sense for my rattling self.”
I start to ask who he went to for assist, if he leaned on his household, his coaches, or his religion, however he cuts me off earlier than I may even end.
“Myself,” he says. “I simply hung my hat on, like, I’ll get to the place I wish to go, as a result of I wish to get there. Not due to no person else. I’ll put the work in myself, not due to no person else. Clearly, for my household. However I acquired to get there. I had a very clear-eyed view on the issues I needed to get performed, and the place I needed to go.”
