To me it was never about what I accomplished on the football field, it was about the way I played the game.

Coming from the South, I just felt you had to work just a little bit harder. It was not going to be handed to you. I’d get the letters from all the major schools but no one came out to talk to me face to face until this small, dominant black school, Mississippi State Valley University sent a coach out to me. I had a chance to talk to him and he said, ‘Hey Jerry, we’re going to be doing some great things at Mississippi Valley State University and we would love to have you there.’

Chiropractic was the key to keeping me in the game.

I was always in search of a perfect game and I never got it.

You know, I never looked down the road and said, 'Hey look, one day, the Hall of Fame.' It's always about playing each and every game 100 percent and I thank my teammates for getting me into the Hall because football is a team sport, not an individual sport.

I was just a small boy from Mississippi, and now little kids are going to identify with me through this game.

I think just what my parents instilled in me was hard work and being able to always go out there and focus and be 100%. I took that work ethic into the NFL and everyday I always gave 100% and never wanted anything to be handed to me. I wanted to earn it. And every time I stepped on that football field during practice I wanted to leave that football field with learning something about what the practice was about for me that day...