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Publish date: Sep 17, 2010

Football student-athletes from the Southeastern Conference reveal their childhood heroes

AAIRON SAVAGE, AUBURN: “Peter Warrick, all-time I like Ed Reed and Sean Taylor and Deion Sanders. Deion had that swag that confidence. He was quick. Sean Taylor, Ed Reed, ball hawks, lay you out. Peter Warrick, cut on a dime, explosive, things like that.”
CHRIS MARVE, VANDERBILT: “I used to watch… I can’t remember the guy’s name, from Auburn, he was a linebacker, wore No. 11. (Karlos Dansby?) Karlos Dansby! I watched Dansby a lot. I watched some other guys, some LSU guys. I just used to watch football. I didn’t really have a favorite team. I just thought (Dansby) made plays. I was watching the stuff that he did to make plays. It was fun to watch. I never pictured myself being in college, being a linebacker in the SEC. I was just in awe. I just watched them and wished that I could be in that position. (Now that you are, how does it feel?) It’s humbling. It’s an honor. I thank God every day I’m in the position I’m in.”
CLIFF MATTHEWS, SOUTH CAROLINA: “I really wasn’t into college football when I was growing up. (John Elway) was a beast. Isaac Bruce. Torry Holt. Those were a lot of the players I looked at. That’s who I used to see on TV a lot.”
D.J. WILLIAMS, ARKANSAS: “I tell you what’s crazy. I really wasn’t a football fan or player until high school. I’d say the most football knowledge I got from was from video games, and back in that day it was NFL stuff and Barry Sanders was unstoppable on that one Madden game. I know he went to Oklahoma State, so I guess I was a Cowboys fan for him.”
KELVIN SHEPPARD, LSU: “Derrick Johnson at Texas. He wore No. 11. (Sheppard wears No. 11.) He was real good. For some reason, I always liked watching him. I can still remember to this day that everybody knew him because he knew how to get the ball away from the running backs. He used the little arm (pop) technique. He was a great linebacker and still is, with the Kansas City Chiefs. And this guy was in college my freshman year of college, Patrick Willis. He has grown to be my favorite linebacker. The way he plays the game, that’s the way I can eventually see myself playing the game. I want to see myself being that kind of guy.”
NICK REVEIZ, TENNESSEE: “I wasn’t much of a college fan. I was more of an NFL guy. I loved Mike Alstott growing up, love him, thought he was a bruiser, and a guy like Zach Thomas. I have just always been attracted to the hard-nosed guys. That’s my element. Alstott was always just banging through the line and getting those tough yards. I liked that a lot.”
SHAUN CHAPAS, GEORGIA: “I was just a fan of the game. I was a huge NFL fan growing up. I didn’t really become a big college fan until I was in high school and then I started to follow it. Growing up, Peyton Manning was always big and his brother Eli. David Greene I watched growing up. Even some of the guys I played with at Georgia, Thomas Brown and Danny Ware. I’ve always been a fan of the game, no team in particular.”