A couple of professional football players returned to the town where they were raised to share how growing up in the halls of Lawton High School shaped their futures.
Pro football Hall of Famer Will Shields and his best friend Adrian Lunsford brought their message of how students can be their better selves to Lawton Public Schools secondary students. They were joined by real estate investor Toby Potter, who grew up in Stillwell.
The trio began their two-day speaking engagement at the alma mater of Shields and Lunsford. Shields, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2015 after a 14-year career with the Kansas City Chiefs, told the students that he did not always plan on a football career.
“When I was here at school, I did vocal music, I did drama, I did all these different things to try to figure out what I liked and what I could be good at down the road. It just so happened football fell into that realm of something I was good at,” Shields said. “I could block people, push them around, do those kinds of things and I love that and I’ve been doing it since I was a little kid. But I never knew that at one point I would actually make a living at it.”
Shields attributed his success to teachers and counselors who helped him figure out the best pathway. That is the message he, Lunsford and Russo wanted to impart to secondary students, as well as assure them that sometimes pathways can change.
“There’s different opportunities out there so you can grow and start to build out what you want to do. You got to think of what you’re going to do 10 years from now, because we don’t know what that looks like. We don’t know what that’s going to build into, but we do know that your base pathway of where you build out, you’ve got to do the small things to get to the bigger things,” Shields said.
Lunsford, who played 12 years in the Arena Football League, said adopting the mentality of a wolverine, his high school mascot, helped him get through tough situations.
“I wanted to get out of whatever situation I was in,” Lunsford said, adding that people thought he was too small to play football. “I looked at it with my determination to say, ‘hey a wolverine is very, very, very tough, one of the toughest animals out there. And so I took the wolverine mentality and I came up with my own slogan that’s kind of traveled with me for the rest of my life, is to bow down or compete.”
He told students they, too, have the same choice — to bow down or to compete.
“And that’s what you’re going to do. Whatever you choose to do, you’re either going to bow down to it and walk away or you’re going to just go ahead and compete,” Lunsford said.
Shields related how he chose not to bow down, but to compete after he was drafted in the third round by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1993. He said after he was drafted, his coach told him he didn’t want him on the team. Shields said he worked on his game until he got an opportunity to play.
“So first game comes up. Left guard gets hurt. Right guard moves to the left guard. I move to right guard and I never give up that position. So 14 years, 231 consecutive starts that I never gave up that position because I wanted to make sure I could prove to them that I deserve to be there,” Shields said.
Shields encouraged students to find what they are passionate about, the thing that makes them grow inside while at the same time allowing them to give back to the community. He said giving back to his community is the reason he was back in Lawton talking to students.
He also encouraged students not to ignore one another.
“Make sure you see them and you know they’re around, because if you walk by that person that could be the next person that could have changed your life forever. Look them in the eye, say ‘hello, my name is such and such. And guess what, I just wanted to make sure you knew who I was so that you can leave your footprint on Lawton High because that’s how special we are here.’”