Texas A&M Football
Key quotes from Jarrod Penright interview
“(My) family is good. I have a wife and five kids, five little ones. I’m hoping that they’ll eventually be up there in College Station and follow my legacy there. (I’m) coaching right now. I’m the head track coach here in Houston, Texas. Other than that, I’m just enjoying life and enjoying being a parent.”
“I did not (come from a big family). It was just me and my mom and my brother, but my brother really didn’t grow up with us due to other things that he was growing through. Me actually wanting to have the siblings around and have the big family was a desire that was always there. I do (have a future edge-rusher in the group). I’m trying. We’ve got one that we really want to be a defensive lineman. The other one – he can play wherever he wants to play, actually. He’s a blessed kid, my oldest. We’re just giving him the time and the patience and seeing where it takes him. He’s nine.”
“(During my recruitment) it was one of those things where it was important for me to be set apart. My deal was not to do what everybody else does. My deal was to be different. One of the legacies of being an Aggie is the fact that we’re different. We’re not like everybody else. We tend to enjoy being that way. Initially, I did commit to Michigan, and the Sunday before Signing Day, my mom had a stroke at church. With my background and how I grew up, there was the possibility that if something happened to her while I was at Michigan, I would not be there. I would not be able to go back and see my mom. A&M was always right there. It was always A&M or Michigan for me. One of my best friends actually had a lot to do with making the decision easier, and that was Sammy Davis, because he was real close to going to Michigan too. We made the decision to actually stay here and stay in Texas, and it actually worked out a lot better for us, because we were able to be successful at that level, enjoy doing it and be close to home while doing it. It was funny. It was one of those situations where (Davis) was thinking about it, and I talked to him about it. His mom was like, ‘Absolutely not. He is not going to Michigan. He is staying right here.’ He wasn’t going anywhere. Once he stayed it was easy for me to say I was going to stay too.”
“I know Sammy (expected to play early in his career). I was either way. I thought that if I didn’t get to play there would be an extra year for me or an extra opportunity for me to prepare myself a little bit better. As soon as we graduated from high school – it’s actually common these days where the kids are going down and doing summer semesters and everything and getting a head start on their college careers, but back then, that wasn’t the case. We actually stayed with the players and hung out with the players. We enjoyed the camaraderie prior to even getting into school. We moved in here right after school was out, and we were practicing and training with the team. That gave us the upper edge on that. That gave us the mindset on what we were actually going into when we started that fall.”
“(A&M’s) reputation for linebackers – to me it’s the true Linebacker U. Just watching A&M and watching them be able to have that bend-but-don’t-break mentality was something that I bought into from day one. Just seeing that as a kid growing up, I just thought it was really cool. It was cool how a position was able to elevate itself even though it wasn’t the key position on the defense. When we were there, our leading tacklers were not the linebackers. It was Terrence Kiel. It was Sammy. It was Michael Jameson. It was the safeties. It was not because we were subpar at linebacker. It was just the way our defense was designed. Yeah, the tradition that I saw growing up had a huge influence on me being there. That’s one of the things that made me say, ‘I want to be a linebacker. I’m going to be a linebacker, and if I’m going to be a linebacker, I need to be at A&M.’”
“(Playing on the 2001 Aggie defense) was a lot of fun. The fun part about it was we had players who were committed to being good. The cool thing about it is that we were not performing that well going into that season. It was McNeese State, and I think it was Wyoming. We won those games, but it wasn’t a performance that was up to our standards. We came together as a team, and we committed to each other that we were going to go all out. We were going to do the things that we needed to do. We were the question mark. We had all those guys leave. Ron Edwards left. Jason Glenn left. All those guys left, and when they left, we had to say, ‘We need to push forward. We need to keep this legacy going.’ Once we did that, the guys bought into it. When they bought into it, the sky was the limit from there. Everybody was able to eat from it. We all reaped the benefits.”
“(The 2001 Notre Dame game) was a good one. The irony of you asking me about that game – I’m the devotional coordinator of the school that I coach at right now. It’s all about ministry for me and being an example. It’s about using the gifts that God gave me to be a great player, but it moves past that. It’s the opportunity for me to talk to young people and let them know that a life of serving God is going to allow them to elevate and be great at what they do. When I talked to them last week, I actually had a poster of me knelt over the quarterback with my arms stretched out wide, bracing with my head to the sky. It’s a Notre Dame picture. The reason I like that picture is because it shows the compassion I had for playing the game, and it shows how much we were involved in playing when we were on the field. It’s not only that. You know the tradition back in the day when we were talking about Notre Dame and how it was the holy grail of football and how special they were. That was the year that I found out that they didn’t have to win more than two games to get bowl eligible. After that, I really hated them. We go up there and we barely lose, but we were going to show them what should have happened when we went to South Bend the year prior.”
“The cool thing about (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) is the fact that I was able to get into it early on when it came to me going to A&M. My huddle wasn’t that big when I was at Eisenhower High School in Houston. It actually consisted of about six people. When I got to A&M and I saw hundreds of student-athletes out living their lives and using the gifts that God gave them to glorify Him, which was really cool to me. I really enjoyed that. Bill Johnson is one of my best friends. We’ve stuck by each other the whole time. He’s been my mentor when it came to me learning a little bit more, when it came to me leading the team Bible study there at A&M – when it came to me being involved in the FCA. When I left and went to the NFL and the Arena League and the years passed, there wasn’t a game that he missed in regards to praying with me before those games. The relationship that we established because of our faith in God and because of who we are made it something that you couldn’t even dream of. My success in football, my success in life, is all because of God’s glory and because He’s blessed me to be able to have the gift to move forward and take the next transition in life."
"What I try to do here in the Houston area or wherever God calls me to do so is that I try to explain that to them. I try to give them my testimony and how God has been in my life – how God has affected me and how I’ve benefited from it. It’s not always about me benefiting. It’s about me doing His works. It’s kind of hard to get people to understand that in this generation. This generation is so commercialized and the Under Armor games and all these things that they try to do to play up sports much bigger than they are. You’re giving the kids a taste of the world prior to them even making it to success. I’m like, ‘What are you living for? What is your goal in life?’ If your goal is to get to the NFL and you get there and that’s the top and you’ve already experienced that because of the things you did in high school and middle school, what are you actually playing for? That’s when it becomes more important to understand that it’s a ministry. I live my life to glorify God, and I use my life to give back to Him the gift that He’s given to me.”
“It’s very rewarding to (give back). The main reason is that there’s validation there. Some people say, ‘Try God or test God, and He’ll show you He’s going to win every time.’ The validation is that I grew up in a time and an area where we didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t have a lot of success. We didn’t have a lot of education, but God gave me the opportunity through His gifts to actually utilize those gifts to give my children and my family a better life. Not only that, but it gave me the opportunity to go to an inner-city area and try to explain that to them and be that example for them that you don’t have to be in the situation that you’re in for your whole life. You actually can have the opportunity to move forward and have a transition that’s going to make your life better. Once you take care of yourself, you can get back to your family and do better for them as well.”
“I don’t think you’re going to talk to a competitor that’s not going to say that they feel like they can play on that team. That’s just the reality of it. If I wasn’t the competitive individual and I wasn’t the person that felt like they could play on that team, then guess what? I shouldn’t have been there when I was there. I really believe that the (Aggies) are doing well. There are some growing pains that we’re going to go through. It goes back to the team taking ownership of themselves as opposed to allowing it to be guided by the coaches. Once they do that and say, ‘We represent Texas A&M. Right here and right now, we are a part of Texas A&M. We will be a part of Texas A&M for years to come. We need to make sure we leave our mark here. We need to make sure our footprint is left here, and we need to leave the right footprint.’”
Aggie Flashback with former A&M OLB Jarrod Penright
Key quotes from Jarrod Penright interview
“(My) family is good. I have a wife and five kids, five little ones. I’m hoping that they’ll eventually be up there in College Station and follow my legacy there. (I’m) coaching right now. I’m the head track coach here in Houston, Texas. Other than that, I’m just enjoying life and enjoying being a parent.”“I did not (come from a big family). It was just me and my mom and my brother, but my brother really didn’t grow up with us due to other things that he was growing through. Me actually wanting to have the siblings around and have the big family was a desire that was always there. I do (have a future edge-rusher in the group). I’m trying. We’ve got one that we really want to be a defensive lineman. The other one – he can play wherever he wants to play, actually. He’s a blessed kid, my oldest. We’re just giving him the time and the patience and seeing where it takes him. He’s nine.”
“(During my recruitment) it was one of those things where it was important for me to be set apart. My deal was not to do what everybody else does. My deal was to be different. One of the legacies of being an Aggie is the fact that we’re different. We’re not like everybody else. We tend to enjoy being that way. Initially, I did commit to Michigan, and the Sunday before Signing Day, my mom had a stroke at church. With my background and how I grew up, there was the possibility that if something happened to her while I was at Michigan, I would not be there. I would not be able to go back and see my mom. A&M was always right there. It was always A&M or Michigan for me. One of my best friends actually had a lot to do with making the decision easier, and that was Sammy Davis, because he was real close to going to Michigan too. We made the decision to actually stay here and stay in Texas, and it actually worked out a lot better for us, because we were able to be successful at that level, enjoy doing it and be close to home while doing it. It was funny. It was one of those situations where (Davis) was thinking about it, and I talked to him about it. His mom was like, ‘Absolutely not. He is not going to Michigan. He is staying right here.’ He wasn’t going anywhere. Once he stayed it was easy for me to say I was going to stay too.”
“I know Sammy (expected to play early in his career). I was either way. I thought that if I didn’t get to play there would be an extra year for me or an extra opportunity for me to prepare myself a little bit better. As soon as we graduated from high school – it’s actually common these days where the kids are going down and doing summer semesters and everything and getting a head start on their college careers, but back then, that wasn’t the case. We actually stayed with the players and hung out with the players. We enjoyed the camaraderie prior to even getting into school. We moved in here right after school was out, and we were practicing and training with the team. That gave us the upper edge on that. That gave us the mindset on what we were actually going into when we started that fall.”
“(A&M’s) reputation for linebackers – to me it’s the true Linebacker U. Just watching A&M and watching them be able to have that bend-but-don’t-break mentality was something that I bought into from day one. Just seeing that as a kid growing up, I just thought it was really cool. It was cool how a position was able to elevate itself even though it wasn’t the key position on the defense. When we were there, our leading tacklers were not the linebackers. It was Terrence Kiel. It was Sammy. It was Michael Jameson. It was the safeties. It was not because we were subpar at linebacker. It was just the way our defense was designed. Yeah, the tradition that I saw growing up had a huge influence on me being there. That’s one of the things that made me say, ‘I want to be a linebacker. I’m going to be a linebacker, and if I’m going to be a linebacker, I need to be at A&M.’”
“(Playing on the 2001 Aggie defense) was a lot of fun. The fun part about it was we had players who were committed to being good. The cool thing about it is that we were not performing that well going into that season. It was McNeese State, and I think it was Wyoming. We won those games, but it wasn’t a performance that was up to our standards. We came together as a team, and we committed to each other that we were going to go all out. We were going to do the things that we needed to do. We were the question mark. We had all those guys leave. Ron Edwards left. Jason Glenn left. All those guys left, and when they left, we had to say, ‘We need to push forward. We need to keep this legacy going.’ Once we did that, the guys bought into it. When they bought into it, the sky was the limit from there. Everybody was able to eat from it. We all reaped the benefits.”
“(The 2001 Notre Dame game) was a good one. The irony of you asking me about that game – I’m the devotional coordinator of the school that I coach at right now. It’s all about ministry for me and being an example. It’s about using the gifts that God gave me to be a great player, but it moves past that. It’s the opportunity for me to talk to young people and let them know that a life of serving God is going to allow them to elevate and be great at what they do. When I talked to them last week, I actually had a poster of me knelt over the quarterback with my arms stretched out wide, bracing with my head to the sky. It’s a Notre Dame picture. The reason I like that picture is because it shows the compassion I had for playing the game, and it shows how much we were involved in playing when we were on the field. It’s not only that. You know the tradition back in the day when we were talking about Notre Dame and how it was the holy grail of football and how special they were. That was the year that I found out that they didn’t have to win more than two games to get bowl eligible. After that, I really hated them. We go up there and we barely lose, but we were going to show them what should have happened when we went to South Bend the year prior.”
“The cool thing about (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) is the fact that I was able to get into it early on when it came to me going to A&M. My huddle wasn’t that big when I was at Eisenhower High School in Houston. It actually consisted of about six people. When I got to A&M and I saw hundreds of student-athletes out living their lives and using the gifts that God gave them to glorify Him, which was really cool to me. I really enjoyed that. Bill Johnson is one of my best friends. We’ve stuck by each other the whole time. He’s been my mentor when it came to me learning a little bit more, when it came to me leading the team Bible study there at A&M – when it came to me being involved in the FCA. When I left and went to the NFL and the Arena League and the years passed, there wasn’t a game that he missed in regards to praying with me before those games. The relationship that we established because of our faith in God and because of who we are made it something that you couldn’t even dream of. My success in football, my success in life, is all because of God’s glory and because He’s blessed me to be able to have the gift to move forward and take the next transition in life."
"What I try to do here in the Houston area or wherever God calls me to do so is that I try to explain that to them. I try to give them my testimony and how God has been in my life – how God has affected me and how I’ve benefited from it. It’s not always about me benefiting. It’s about me doing His works. It’s kind of hard to get people to understand that in this generation. This generation is so commercialized and the Under Armor games and all these things that they try to do to play up sports much bigger than they are. You’re giving the kids a taste of the world prior to them even making it to success. I’m like, ‘What are you living for? What is your goal in life?’ If your goal is to get to the NFL and you get there and that’s the top and you’ve already experienced that because of the things you did in high school and middle school, what are you actually playing for? That’s when it becomes more important to understand that it’s a ministry. I live my life to glorify God, and I use my life to give back to Him the gift that He’s given to me.”
“It’s very rewarding to (give back). The main reason is that there’s validation there. Some people say, ‘Try God or test God, and He’ll show you He’s going to win every time.’ The validation is that I grew up in a time and an area where we didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t have a lot of success. We didn’t have a lot of education, but God gave me the opportunity through His gifts to actually utilize those gifts to give my children and my family a better life. Not only that, but it gave me the opportunity to go to an inner-city area and try to explain that to them and be that example for them that you don’t have to be in the situation that you’re in for your whole life. You actually can have the opportunity to move forward and have a transition that’s going to make your life better. Once you take care of yourself, you can get back to your family and do better for them as well.”
“I don’t think you’re going to talk to a competitor that’s not going to say that they feel like they can play on that team. That’s just the reality of it. If I wasn’t the competitive individual and I wasn’t the person that felt like they could play on that team, then guess what? I shouldn’t have been there when I was there. I really believe that the (Aggies) are doing well. There are some growing pains that we’re going to go through. It goes back to the team taking ownership of themselves as opposed to allowing it to be guided by the coaches. Once they do that and say, ‘We represent Texas A&M. Right here and right now, we are a part of Texas A&M. We will be a part of Texas A&M for years to come. We need to make sure we leave our mark here. We need to make sure our footprint is left here, and we need to leave the right footprint.’”
Never miss the latest news from TexAgs!
Join our free email list
