[dramatic, mysterious music playing]
[music peaks and fades]
[commentator] I've been lucky enough
to be covering sports events
for over 30 years,
and I cannot remember a game
I've anticipated more than this one.
[commentator 2] And if you're looking
for highlights in this game tonight,
you spell them "Vince Young."
[Interviewer] Remember the first time
you saw a tape on Vince Young?
I did. I thought he was a freak.
[commentator 3] Vince Young,
he's the most dangerous
and exciting quarterback
in college football.
[commentator]
They can't stop him. Amazing!
[commentator 2] Can you believe this?
He was a beast.
He was physically dominant.
[commentator] You could have
the perfect defense called,
but you won't beat him.
[player] Touchdown!
Vince Young
is a whole other ball game, dawg.
His talent and his stardom
and persona, he was ahead of his time.
[man] We used to call him
the Michael Jordan of college football.
Show me someone more legendary than that.
[commentator] He had the greatest
college performance in any sport.
[commentator 2] Now there's just one game.
The Southern California Trojans
and the Texas Longhorns.
-Hook 'em, baby.
-For the national championship.
For college football fans,
the Rose Bowl in 2006
was the game of the century.
[commentator]
Nobody has ever had a game like that.
[commentator 2] No doubt Vince will be
a Pro-Bowler and have success in the NFL.
Ever since I left that Rose Bowl game,
my life was like…
[commentator]
Tennessee Titans select Vince Young.
-[Young] Constantly going.
-[host] Vince Young.
[commentator] Young has done it again!
But at the same time,
like, I couldn't handle it.
[commentator] He loses the ball.
[man 2] People that have high expectations
put so much pressure on themselves.
When you think you're a failure,
you're in a bad spot.
[commentator] Boos rain down.
Vince Young intercepted.
[Young] Everything I went through…
{\an8}[anchor] QB mentioned suicide
several times before driving away
{\an8}from his home with a g*n.
…things I never thought
would happen to me in my life…
[anchor] Young, a divisive figure,
also had run-ins
with head coach Jeff Fisher.
He just doesn't know
how to process all this.
And he showed weakness.
[commentator] How will Vince react?
I don't like how he's reacted so far.
…all the sh*t in the media…
I don't want problems.
…it was nothing I could control.
[commentator] This is really sad.
His career is over in the NFL. Period.
It's a pipe dream.
[interviewer]
Are you at peace with your journey?
Hell no, I'm not at peace. sh*t.
[crowd cheering]
[Young] But everything
happens for a reason.
This is my testimony.
[dramatic sting]
[melancholic music building]
-[man] You're a legend.
-[Young] That's a nice f*cking jersey.
-I'm a big fan of Vince Young.
-[man 2] You are!
[man 3] You are, baby.
Best to ever do it.
[man 4] All right, let's go.
[commentator] Just take it in.
It's always an amazing scene
at Texas Memorial Stadium.
[all chanting]
♪ The eyes of Texas are upon you… ♪
[Young] To this day,
I freaking love football, man.
Ain't nothing like family, g*dd*mn it.
In my mind, I tend to relive those moments
from my career.
I'm watching all… [chuckles] …games,
from college all the way up,
even some of the high school highlights.
Another real m*therf*cker.
I still miss the light.
[commentator] Stars have come out
for a very meaningful game,
as Vince Young looks on,
an all-time great.
[Young] You know, to still be recognized
as one of those guys
that did it on the ultimate level,
that's what it's all about right there.
[commentator] Second and goal.
Here goes the trick play…
-Right into the hands of Arch Manning!
-Let's go!
[Young] Hey, Arch, you can catch?
Let's f*cking go! [echoes]
[melancholic music continues to play]
[Young] When I was growing up,
we were very poor,
and we was living day to day.
And in my household, it was crazy.
Drinking, partying, drugs, fighting.
I had a tree in my neighborhood,
and that was my safe place
to go, to think.
I used to climb up that tree
and sit up there.
It made me more focused on my next goal.
When I got on that football field
at Madison High School,
I wanted to be
the best that I could be at it.
So I can really change that lifestyle
for my whole entire family.
[commentator] Six-five, 225, and can run
like a deer. That should be ill*gal.
[Young] As a kid, everybody was telling me
I wasn't able to play quarterback.
[commentator 2] Vince Young! Touchdown.
When somebody tells me I can't,
it lights the fire in me to do it.
[male voice mission control]
Five, four, three, two, one…
Lift-off!
[commentator]
Wide open, he's got the ball!
[commentator 2] What a pass by Young!
One of the top juniors in the nation.
Will you introduce your quarterback?
Everybody knows about Vincent Young,
and he does everything well.
He runs. He can jump. He can throw.
[commentator]
Into the end zone. Touchdown!
Seeing him on the news,
and I'm like, "What's going on?"
It was like,
"Oh, this boy is really cutting up."
Mm-hmm.
[commentator] We've seen him take
our breath away with incredible plays.
Guys that used to tease him a lot
became friends with him.
I think they knew
he'd be something different.
[Vintrisha] He's going to be a star.
[commentator] Vince Young
out of the gate, there he goes.
But it kind of really hit me
when the Astrodome was packed.
[Young] We had to play a lot of our games
at the Astrodome
because the crowd
was getting bigger and bigger.
[commentator] Madison Marlins
are one of the biggest fish in the pond.
For high school football,
it was unbelievable to me. [laughs]
[commentator 2]
It's a perfect regular season.
[Felicia] Everywhere we went,
people already knew who he was.
{\an8}They knew who we was.
{\an8}We were like,
"This is something enormous."
[commentator]
This story's about a young man
who definitely has the complete package
on and off the field.
I start getting my letters from colleges,
and the camera was like right now,
in my f*cking face.
[Vintrisha]
I remembered letters all day long.
LSU, Florida, Alabama.
It was everybody.
I think I saw him
throwing some of them away.
-[laughs]
-Because there was so many coming.
The school I really wanted to go to
was Florida State.
{\an8}[commentator ] Bobby Bowden's team.
The Florida State Seminoles.
I used to love
when they'd do the, "Oh!" [chuckles]
[all chanting] ♪ Oh! ♪
[Young] I was a big fan of Charlie Ward.
He was doing good as a Black quarterback.
[commentator] Touchdown!
[Young] Coach came in,
"You got your letter from Florida State."
You know, I'm going crazy,
unwrapping that thing
like it's a bag of chips. [laughs]
They wanted me as a wideout.
I was like, "No, I'm not…"
"I don't want to play no wideout.
I want to play quarterback."
Kind of broke my heart.
[melancholic music playing]
I'm like, "sh*t,
you don't know where you're going now."
[tense music playing]
[man] The cliché is,
"Everything's bigger in Texas."
[crowd cheering]
[man] Football isn't just bigger in Texas,
it's infiltrated itself
into every part of life.
But as a UT fan,
{\an8}the idea that the flagship school
would just kind of suck,
{\an8}for lack of a better word, made no sense.
[commentator] The Texas Longhorns
charged into the Cotton Bowl Classic.
[Curtis] The '60s and the '70s
of college football history,
the Longhorns were huge…
[commentator] Texas wins
the National Championship.
…and really good.
I'm taking it to Washington
and putting in Texas. That all right?
But by 1996,
they hadn't won a title in decades.
[commentator]
The Longhorns are decimated.
-Frustrated Longhorns.
-[Curtis] It was just a ton of mediocrity.
[commentator] Embarrassing.
And Texas had become
the biggest punchline in college football.
[commentator] And that does not sit well
in the state of Texas.
{\an8}I introduce to you the new football coach
at the University of Texas, Mack Brown.
{\an8}I think we can do that a little bit
to start it right now.
{\an8}[Curtis] Mack Brown brought Texas back
into cultural relevance.
[commentator] Mack Brown turns
the fortunes of the Horns around
in his first year.
[commentator 2] Outside! Touchdown!
His recruiting methods…
He was the Wizard of Oz of Texas football.
Hook 'em Horns!
[Curtis] Texas had become
unbelievably talented.
So we're all thinking
he's the guy who could be the savior.
[music fades]
{\an8}I didn't wanna win
nine games the first year.
{\an8}I wanted to win all of them.
I didn't want to wait until I was 54
to win a national championship.
Break their will to win the game.
Let's go.
But we had opportunities
that we could've gotten to won,
and lost it.
[commentator]
A real difficult day, and it got worse.
[tense music plays]
Even with Mack Brown and all their talent,
Texas football still needed someone
that would help them get over that hump.
[upbeat music plays]
[Brown] Our recruiting staff said,
"You need to watch this one."
And usually that meant, "Come here, fast."
Vince was smart, he had good grades,
and he had the ability.
So then you've got to figure out,
"Does he fit this place?"
If they didn't fit our style,
then we didn't take them.
I don't care how good they were.
And so getting to know the person,
how he was raised,
the environment he was raised in,
was really important for me.
[Young] I first met Coach Brown
on his official visit to my house.
They brought pretty much everybody
on offensive side of the ball.
[Felicia] It was a lot of folks
in that house.
You know, it's not a big house.
Mack Brown was on the floor.
I liked him, 'cause I was like,
"He's sitting on this nasty-a*s floor."
-Sorry. I didn't mean to curse.
-[Interviewer] Did you swear?
I am so sorry. [laughing]
[Brown] I will never forget.
I loved Grandma.
She's tough.
She said, "I don't know that Texas
is gonna play a Black quarterback."
And I said,
"I'm gonna play the best quarterback."
He told me in my household,
"We wanna give you a chance."
"When you come to the University of Texas,
we don't want you at wide receiver."
It made me very happy
to hear that from him.
Now this, all into this.
[Young] Coach Brown was really big
on family. I was big on that and saw that.
[melancholic music playing]
When he went to UT for his visit,
{\an8}he didn't expect to commit beforehand.
As his girlfriend,
I didn't go on recruiting trips.
And so he called, and he was like,
"I'm about to commit to Texas."
And I was like, "Oh, okay." [laughs]
We've always led our own lives,
separately and together.
And I got an academic scholarship at UT,
so that's where I went.
[interviewer] And the rest is history.
-[chuckling] Yeah. Yeah.
-[interviewer laughs]
[anchor] At 11:00 a.m.,
Vince Young of Madison is the centerpiece
of Mack Brown's Texas class.
Ranked the consensus
top recruiting class in the nation.
Getting on campus, it was like, "Whoa!"
[Young] This is college
at the University of Texas.
-[commentator] Get the popcorn ready.
-[commentator 2] Get it ready.
[commentator] Touchdown, Texas!
-[Young] It was a lot.
-Hook 'em!
[Young] Once your mama drop you off,
she's gone.
So what you finna do, boy?
Are you finna go run the streets,
run the campus? [chuckles]
[Lakesha] You could tell
he was the man on campus.
Every time he went somewhere,
there was a lot of people around.
[interviewer] Did you ever go
to parties with him?
Yeah, we did go to the parties.
It was nice.
That's why I want my daughter
to go to another school, so…
[both laughing]
[man] I took a trip to Texas
where I had met Vince.
{\an8}I'll never forget Vince,
'cause when I walked in,
{\an8}the m*therf*cker had on jeans with,
like, some of them church shoes.
I'm like, "This is how
m*therf*ckers in Texas be dressing?"
You know, he thought he was smooth.
I'm like, "Look at this dude, Vince."
[music fades]
The thing is, coming to Texas,
the guys you're playing with,
I mean, these are monsters.
[commentator] Touchdown, Texas!
[Scaife] So it was gonna be tough
to get the positions.
[tense music plays]
[commentator] A lot of guys who are new,
who don't get a lot of playing time,
they're licking their chops today.
[Brown] Vince was the redshirt freshman.
So myself and the rest of the coaches
said to him,
"Let's go through the process,
and let's grow, and let's learn."
"But when you walk out there
for the first time,
you need to be ready to take off and go."
[crowd cheering]
[reporter] Joe, we just got word
Vince Young's taking over for Chance Mock.
After all, they're up, well, 45-seven.
My first game, they took Chance Mock out
because they wanted to throw me in
and get a couple reps.
You don't get many reps.
[commentator] He's one of the best
high school players.
I ran out there, got a standing ovation,
and went to go play my game.
[commentator]
Vince Young out at the edge,
displaying what you were talking about.
There he goes.
[commentator 2] This guy has got
some of the quickest feet around.
[Brown] Quarterbacks
that can run have a chance.
[commentator] There he goes.
He doesn't quit. He's got a first down.
[Brown] If a guy can run,
he changes the way people play defense.
[commentator]
Quarterback draw. You could see it.
-A bit of a stumble.
-[crowd cheering]
[commentator] Young into the end zone.
Touchdown, Longhorns,
and the first of many
in the career of Vince Young.
The thing is, to be a great quarterback,
you've gotta be accurate.
And in his redshirt freshman year,
he was all over the place.
[commentator] From the pocket,
Young's got the middle… Intercepted.
It was a little struggle,
challenging for him at first.
[commentator]
He'll make one big mistake. Incomplete.
[Scaife] Then came in Chance Mock.
We're splitting time.
[commentator] The two quarterbacks.
It was very, very hard for him
to sit on the sidelines
and watch somebody else play.
Come on now. Push yourself every time.
[coach 2] Outside of what coverage?
I could read man defenses all day,
but zones and Cover 3? What is Cover 3?
SAM-PAT with a five.
Flat. Find the option.
I was kind of like just out there
getting my butt worked on.
Oh no! Stay out!
I yelled at him one day,
and he came over, at 6'6", afterwards,
and said,
"I don't like you yelling at me."
-[music stops]
-And I said, "What?"
He said, "I've never had
a white man yell at me before."
[clicks tongue]
I said, "Well, Vince, I am white."
"I think I'm going to be white
for the rest of my life,
and I'm going to yell at you some more."
[chuckles]
"So, bud, we gotta get to a good place."
"All I'm trying to do is help you.
I just want to help you."
Be smart! Be smart!
You've gotta be able
to play in the team concept.
[Young] Coach Brown
was my first white coach.
You know? I don't know how to respond
or be around him or how to even be myself.
I wasn't comfortable yet.
[Brown] Do it again!
I saw that Vincent
was getting really upset
because Mack Brown
wanted him to play a certain way.
And it wasn't his game.
[commentator] Picked off!
[Young] They tried to make me
a pocket passer quarterback.
[commentator] Young rolls the pocket.
Deflected. Picked off.
[Young] But I was making mistakes.
[commentator] Throws high, incomplete…
[Young] Throwing interceptions
and making wrong reads.
I was failing in every way you can.
That season, we still had a good record.
But to me, it was horrible.
[pensive music playing]
[coughs] I felt like I wasn't getting it.
Anything I do in life,
I'm not gonna give you some bullshit.
If I'm in, and I'm 100% with it,
you're going to get all of V.Y.
And I felt like I was giving Coach Brown
and Coach Davis bullshit.
They was getting very frustrated,
and I couldn't handle it.
Then we got into it.
[coughs]
[grunts]
[Brown] In '04 preseason,
we're at the end of practice,
and Greg Davis put in a play for Vince.
Greg was just trying to get the play run,
so we could see what it looked like.
And then the backup quarterback,
Chance, ran the play.
And I think Vince
just got his feelings hurt.
[Young] There was just a lot of stuff
just piling on, man.
I guess I just had that last moment.
[pensive music continues]
I threw my f*cking helmet,
threw my shoulder pads,
walked off, got in my car, and I was gone.
I was about to transfer.
I was about to leave Texas.
And then my phone rings. [chuckles]
And it was Steve McNair. [chuckles]
[commentator] No player at any level
ever had the kind of career
that Steve McNair had.
His stats are stupefying.
McNair was the focus of every defense,
and still no one could contain him.
[Young] As a quarterback with the Titans,
Steve McNair was a big role model for me.
[commentator] Now he's gonna run!
He was running MVP a couple of years,
in playoffs, playing in the Super Bowl.
-Man, they just love you!
-I love them too.
[music fades]
[Young] When I was a kid,
I'd built a great relationship with him.
-[coach] What y'all gonna do?
-[all] Play!
Everybody talk about giving back,
and this is the way I give back.
[man] Vince came to Steve's football camp
when he was a sophomore.
You had this tall, lanky kid, you know,
{\an8}and he was polite, he was quiet,
like he still is, reserved.
This is a football camp,
but we also teach them, you know,
the things about life
and what to expect out of life.
[Mu] At the camp,
Steve was more of a mentor.
And what Vince was missing in his life
was a father figure.
That was so important to me
'cause I didn't have it.
[Young] We didn't have a dad
in the household.
'Cause he was in and out of jail.
I didn't see him, really, at all.
[melancholic music playing]
[Young] I didn't have nobody teaching me.
So Steve was the person I looked up to
and that I looked to for guidance.
[Mu] Steve had just seen this kid
with this great talent like he had,
and Steve said to me,
"Hey, Mike, if Vince needs something,
take care of it."
He was a perfect mentor.
[Young] When I had questions,
I had stuff that I wanted to talk about,
or if I was going through something,
his phone was open for me.
When I was about to leave UT,
I was in my car down near Houston.
The word got to Steve, and he called me.
He's like, "Man, what are you doing?"
Like, "I can't… I'm messing up, Pops."
"I'm throwing interceptions.
I'm frustrated."
"I don't think they understand me."
He's like, "Man, listen, son."
"I get it. I understand.
I've been through that before."
"But one thing we not gonna do is quit."
You gotta squash your pride
and become more mature
and professional about it
and what they're trying to teach you.
When he came back, I said to him,
"I'm always gonna have your back,
but you need to have mine too."
And that's what we committed to,
and we did.
Yeah. Get your rhythm,
anticipate and bring them out.
I had worked my a*s off to be consistent
at that passing part of it.
-[player] Go!
-[coach 2] Ready, flow, find him! Good.
Every play that he took,
he learned and gained more confidence.
[commentator] Ball downfield,
Vince Young, a magic man yet again!
Big time ball, ten!
-[Young] Yes, sir.
-I'll take a dozen for Christmas.
Vince said passing allowed
his running to flourish in the way it did.
[commentator] Vince Young, one play,
[grunts in satisfaction]
Greatest comeback!
But when Coach Brown
gave me the opportunity to change plays,
he let me play my game fully.
[commentator]
He may be checking the play.
He changed it at the line of scrimmage.
[commentator 2] Young avoids the rush.
Makes a mad dash toward the end zone.
Touchdown, Texas.
[Candice] After that,
their relationship started to thrive.
That chemistry was a game changer
for that team.
Just the aura and the culture,
everything changed.
Had fun. Team looked great.
Everybody looked good.
-Fans is out here having fun.
-Like, winning is contagious.
-[crowd cheering]
-[upbeat music playing]
The '04 season,
Vince got us in the Rose Bowl
to play Michigan.
[anchor] Last year,
Vince Young was labeled "not ready."
Thanks to his mentor,
he was patient and humble
until his time arrived.
That time is now.
[Brown] His performance against Michigan
was unbelievable.
[commentator] He's hit. Gets away
from a tackler. Runs inside the five.
Touchdown!
Texas wins an amazing Rose Bowl, 38 to 37!
I think I speak for most Texas fans
when I say
we began to collectively believe
that we could win a national championship.
[reporter] The first thing
everyone wants to know,
"Will you be back in Austin next year?"
Yes, sir, we'll be back! Yes, sir.
[chuckles]
[Brown] I said,
"What are you saying that for?"
He said, "I want everybody to know,
Coach, we're coming back."
"To win the national championship."
[all chanting] ♪ Give 'em hell! ♪
I'm like, "sh*t, we ain't finished yet.
We're just getting started."
I said, "If y'all want to go
to the national championship this year,
you gotta meet me on the football field
in the summertime."
"Let's get our a*s to work."
-And the guys showed up.
-[whistle blows]
That's when I knew this team was for real.
[Curtis] Twenty years ago,
college football was very different.
-There was no playoff.
-[commentator] Texas dominating this game.
So if you wanted
to win the national championship,
you had to be perfect.
[commentator] Touchdown Texas!
But what it meant
was you couldn't lose a game.
[commentator]
The big question now remains,
"Can they run the table this year
and go back to the Rose Bowl?"
[Brown] Our theme for the year
was a little golf saying by Harvey Penick,
"Take dead aim."
[g*nsh*t-like effects]
[Brown] "Don't worry about the sand
or the water."
"Take dead aim at the pin."
Well, that year we took dead aim at USC.
[upbeat music continues to play]
[commentator] Your BCS
national champions, the Trojans of USC.
[commentator 2] USC is ranked
number one in the country.
[commentator 3] The number one team
in the nation looks every bit the part.
By 2005, Pete Carroll and USC
were the most glamorous thing
college football had seen in decades.
[grunts in victory]
They did it on the biggest level.
They never lost a game over three years.
[Curtis] USC had won
two straight national championships.
So they're coming back for the three-peat.
{\an8}[commentator] There are no weaknesses
in this offense. They are loaded.
{\an8}[Curtis] You get Matt Leinart
just taking this great victory lap.
[Leinart] I came back in my senior year
to win a third championship.
{\an8}I was pretty mentally unflappable.
That was my superpower.
[Curtis] There was also Reggie Bush.
He was one of the most exciting players
any of us had ever seen to that point.
Then the missing ingredient
of the USC running game, LenDale White,
who's got the power
that Reggie Bush does not have.
[commentator] LenDale White,
you think the play's over,
but he's still chugging.
As college football players,
those guys were, like, famous people.
-LenDale, man, what's good, man?
-I'm good.
[Curtis] Matt Leinart
is dating Paris Hilton.
We had Hollywood stars
at our practice daily.
[Ferrell] I was at practice today too.
-[crowd laughing]
-I don't know s*** about football.
It was a circus, but we were locked in.
We were always locked in.
[commentator] Bush is gone.
Midfield, not gonna get him.
That year, we knew
that they were going to repeat.
[commentator]
And a touchdown to cap it off for USC.
We was like, "We want to play the best."
[commentator] We were talking about
the Rose Bowl. Is it going to be Texas?
Is it going to be USC?
We had our sights on Texas.
It felt like it was just going to happen.
But it didn't matter how we got there,
who we beat.
[commentator] Reggie Bush. Touchdown.
At the end of the day, we wanna be
the greatest dynasty of all time.
[commentator] The Southern California
Trojans now have 34 straight wins.
[Leinart] And Texas just happens
to be that team that's in our way.
[commentator] Play action.
Vince Young going deep. Got his man!
Touchdown, Texas!
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] They won the Big 12.
They've got a shot
at winning a national championship
for the first time
in a long time around here.
-USC, we're coming for you.
-Yeah.
-Hey, it ain't over!
-It ain't over!
[Brown] Guys,
congratulations on a great year.
in the history of this storied program.
-[crowd cheering]
-[reflective music playing]
[all]♪ Texas fight, Texas fight
And we'll put over one more win ♪
♪ Texas fight, Texas fight
For it's Texas that we love best ♪
♪ Give 'em hell, give 'em hell
Go, Horns, go… ♪
When we think of that season,
biggest subplot was the Heisman race.
[crowd cheering]
[anchor] College football's top honor,
the 2005 Heisman Trophy competition
is a three-man race.
USC's Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart,
they'll be joined
by Texas quarterback Vince Young.
[Candice] A ton of us went to New York.
We all had high hopes.
[interviewer] The burning question
that I have is,
I just want to know where your dad was
during the Heisman ceremony.
Locked up in jail, um…
Prison guards let them watch it.
[somber music playing]
[Young] It was tough for me
because, all my life,
I was watching and seeing,
like, a lot of my peers with their dads.
So in my mind, I was like,
"Man, I would love to hang out with my dad
the way my peers and friends
are hanging out with their dad."
{\an8}Like Matt Leinart,
like, his dad was there all his life.
Still to this day, you know.
I'm sitting by myself.
That's in the back of my mind.
"I wish my dad was here, applauding me
and telling me he was proud of me."
So, uh, I didn't have that. So…
[somber music continues]
[host] And now, without further delay,
the Heisman Trust
is proud to announce the winner
of the 2005 Heisman Memorial Trophy.
The winner is…
Reggie Bush of USC.
[audience cheering]
When we didn't hear his name called,
I put my head down.
And I was like, "Damn."
Like, "I don't understand why not."
[somber music continues]
[Felicia] I saw him being destroyed.
'Cause we thought
that he would've gotten it.
[Young] I was upset. I was pissed.
And I wanted to bring it home,
but I didn't, uh, so…
[exhales sharply]
[audience applauding]
[Bush] That's my dad. I love you.
[audience cheering]
He just felt like he let everybody down.
He goes, "This is revenge time."
"I'm going to show
I'm the best player in the country."
[menacing music plays]
[crowd chanting] ♪ USC! USC! ♪
[commentator]
And now there is just one game
that will be as big
as a college football game can be.
[man] Snoop, Snoop, Snoop!
[commentator] The Southern California
Trojans and the Texas Longhorns…
Hook 'em, baby.
…for the National Championship tonight.
[crowd chanting]
♪ Go, Horns, go! Go, Horns, go! ♪
Just seeing him when he got off the bus,
I just remember his face.
I can just see how locked in he was.
People don't know,
after he lost the Heisman,
Vince said, "Okay, game on, man. Game on."
After performing week after week,
he felt like the team
didn't get the credit that they deserved.
And Vincent was pissed.
[Young] The team knew that I was pissed.
And they know when I'm pissed,
I'm gonna go do what I can
to get the last laugh.
[reflective music playing]
[commentator]
This football game has everything in it.
[commentator 2] This is the match-up
we've waited for for over a year.
I don't see how this game
cannot be a great one.
[commentator]
My only expression at this point is
we're gonna play football!
[commentator 2] Here's the kickoff.
[commentator]
He gets to the ten. He gets to the 12.
And Texas was all over him.
-[crowd cheering]
-[grunting]
[commentator 2] Three plays and out,
and now the punting team comes out.
Texas will get good field position
out of this one.
-Fumble!
-[crowd cheering]
[commentator 2]
The Trojans get the football!
The first turnover of the game
goes SC's way.
And Vince Young can only stare and wait.
[Young] Because we turned the ball over,
that game started late for me.
I had to stay calm
for a whole other series
before I even got out there.
[commentator 2] And Bush gets it.
Bounces outside with it, for a first down.
[Young] They had a lot of speed.
They had good special teams.
They had a good defense.
[commentator 2] He makes the catch.
[Young] They kept showing it.
[commentator 2]
They're knocking on the doorstep.
-[crowd cheering]
-[commentator 2] And LenDale walks in.
[tense music playing]
Like, we knew we had to fight.
[commentator 2]
With the talents of Vince Young,
you can see him make people miss.
I always respected everyone we played,
but you want to beat their a*s.
[commentator 2] Hands the ball,
and… he didn't get it.
[Leinart] But football is a game of inches
and a handful of plays a year.
[commentator 2] They drop it off for Bush.
Oh, look out.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator 2] Ball fumbled.
Texas has got it.
Reggie had the crazy fumble,
which just happens.
[commentator 2] Second fumble
on the year for Reggie Bush.
-[commentator] So Texas gets a break.
-[Leinart] It was very bizarre for us.
[commentator 2] Vince Young going
with the no-huddle to speed up the tempo.
[commentator]
Young throws. The ball is caught.
Towards the end of the first half,
we were so focused.
[crowd cheering]
-[commentator 2] Looks good.
-[Young] Everybody was making plays.
Texas had probably the best defense
we had played in my career.
And one play, I just hung it up there.
[commentator 2] Lets it go,
and it's in the corner.
[music fades]
[commentator 2]
That's an interception, folks.
That play, I wish I could have back.
[commentator]
Leinart has just been picked off.
[commentator 2] Now Texas has a shot.
We were doing whatever we needed to do
to charge down the field.
So we got to go off, you know, instincts.
-[commentator 2] First down, Texas.
-[commentator] Young keeps it and runs.
While I was getting tackled,
all I remember is Selvin Young
clapping his hands, "Vince, Vince!"
Just instincts to pitch it to him.
[laughs]
[crowd cheering]
[commentator 2] Pitched it out.
He pitched it out. Touchdown, Texas.
[commentator] Touchdown to Selvin Young.
I don't know, it…
[commentator 2]
Looked like he might have been down.
[commentator] Yeah, he did to me.
I thought he was.
How many angles we got?
His knee was down on the ground.
The touchdown should not have counted.
[commentator 2] The knee's down.
The ball's in his hand.
[commentator] Why didn't they review it?
Randomly now, the cameras don't work,
his knee's down. We get it. We get it.
[commentator 2]
In order to alert them to the replay,
USC should have called time.
But they didn't,
and Texas got a touchdown.
There was no instant replay.
Thank you, God.
[commentator 2]
It's a nine-to-seven ball game.
[commentator] You check
the body language of the teams,
you see the frustration by Leinart.
Momentum is the craziest m*therf*cker
in the world, dude.
It changes like that.
[commentator 2] Leinart down the middle,
intended for Jarrett, ends up incomplete.
[White] It doesn't matter who
or where you at. It grabs a hold of you.
You just got to take the ride.
[commentator 2]
Young's pass down the middle.
[commentator] It's unusual
to see SC in this position.
Searching for answers
and not finding many.
[commentator 2] Taylor's got the ball,
got daylight, and touchdown, Texas!
So at halftime it's a 16-to-10 ballgame.
{\an8}So the Rose Bowl
holding up to the expectations.
Now, all the talk's gone.
All the stuff's gone.
At halftime, I said USC's not going away.
Old boys have won 36 games,
so you just understand.
Hey!
Coach Brown said, "Guys,
it's gonna come down to the last stop."
"Whoever wants it more, get the last stop,
we'll win this ball game."
[Brown] Big-time boxing
in that second half.
-[player] You like USC?
-[all] Hell no!
-[Carroll] Win in the first quarter?
-[all] No!
-[Carroll] Win in the second quarter?
-[all] No!
-Can you win in the third quarter?
-[all] No!
-Can you win the game in the fourth?
-[all] Yeah!
[Leinart] We always knew second half,
we got these boys. Like, we're ready.
[all] Trojans!
[White] We play our a*s off.
We'll kick the sh*t out of them.
And we came out absolutely firing.
[energetic music playing]
[commentator] Leinart dropping back,
throws down the middle to Jarrett.
A perfect toss.
They looked like the National Championship
three-peat team.
[commentator]
The Trojans give it back to White,
and he rams it into the end zone.
Touchdown!
I'm watching on the sideline like,
"They're the best. sh*t, they are."
[commentator] He gets it.
Goes to the outside with it.
Goes around the corner. Touchdown!
[Leinart] We had it under control.
[commentator] Young throws the ball.
It comes out. Fumble. Trojan ball.
There wasn't any arrogance on the sideline
other than, "This is how we do it."
[commentator] Jarrett. Touchdown!
[commentator 2]
Leinart giving it back to Texas.
Says, "Bring it on, boys."
[music turns tense]
[Curtis] SC's up in the fourth quarter.
They get the ball back,
and they can end the thing.
[crowd cheering]
[Leinart] It's fourth and, like, two.
If we get the first down,
we run the clock out. We seal the win.
Literally one yard,
and we're a three-time national champion.
We got a good defense,
but this play scared the mess out of you.
As a quarterback, you want to make sure
that our guys were, like, focused.
[Brown] I'll never forget,
Vince goes down the sideline.
And I remember him saying, "One stop."
"I need one stop."
[commentator] But LenDale White
is in there. He's the power back.
[commentator 2] All he's gotta do
is protect the five-point lead
here on fourth-and-two.
At that point, I was like, "It's a wrap."
We're going to win this.
[tense music continues]
[music fades]
They stop it.
[crowd cheering]
[Curtis] That was a moment in the stands.
It's all of a sudden, "Oh, my God."
"Not only does Texas have a chance,
Vince Young has the ball in his hands."
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] So now Texas is gonna have
the football. And here comes their man.
Now it's to the point, like,
"Who wants it more?"
[tense music playing]
[Young] Going into that game,
the odds was against us in a major way.
All week, you got people saying,
"You can't beat USC."
Again, when somebody tells me I can't,
the type of person I am…
[laughs]
…I'll try my best to win that game.
I don't give a damn what it takes.
Me and Steve McNair,
we're at the game together.
Towards the end,
I looked at Steve, and I said,
"What do you think?"
Steve looked at me
with a straight face and said,
"This story has been written,
and it's not going to come out
anything different."
[commentator] He has had success
bringing his team from behind,
but this is USC.
All of a sudden, Vince Young
starts engineering a drive down the field.
[tense music intensifies]
[commentator] Here comes the blitz.
Pass coming again.
They pick him up. His pass is completed.
[Scaife] He was just on.
[commentator] Vince Young
throws on a slant. Ball caught.
He was hitting the open guys,
finding all the lanes to run through.
[commentator]
There's daylight. Here he goes.
He stepped right through it.
[whistle blows]
Vince was a freaking animal, man.
[commentator] Tell you, Keith,
never seen anybody like him in my life.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator]
Gets inside the ten to the nine.
Fourth-and-five.
Texas and Mack Brown
have to get in the end zone.
As a quarterback,
you've gotta have those, quote,
I call them "Heisman moments,"
winning moments.
That play, if we don't score,
we lose the game.
When I came in that huddle,
I said to my teammates,
"It was our journey. It was our time."
"Now let's go win this game."
[commentator] Fourth-and-five,
the national championship
on the line right here.
[tense music continues]
[announcer] Here comes a blitz.
Started blitzing…
took off.
[commentator] Young's gonna run with it.
He's going for the corner!
[crowd cheering]
[commentator] And he's got it!
Vince Young scores. The game is over!
Texas has defeated Southern California
to win the National Championship
of college football.
[music turns melancholic]
Everybody was, like, jumping up, crying,
like, "Oh, my God, it just happened."
But what I remember, how calm he was.
And he just walked back
like nothing happened.
I'm like, "Look at him.
He don't even know what he just did."
[Young] Me scoring the last touchdown,
tried my best
not to throw the ball in the stands,
but you got Coach Brown in your ear like,
"When you score, don't throw the ball,
don't spike it, don't be dancing."
"Act like you been there."
[commentator]
Nobody has ever had a game like that.
[Young] To be that quarterback
of that team at that moment,
all the trials and tribulations
I've been through, was just godly stuff,
godly things.
I was meant for that moment.
I was meant to be there.
[McConaughey] Yes!
-That last one was beautiful.
-[players applaud]
[Young] In a way, I wish my dad was there.
But to hear people from my neighborhoods,
from my university, from across the world
say they're very proud of me…
-Great job. Love you.
-Appreciate. Love you.
…that's what I've been wanting to hear
for a long time, "I'm proud of you."
[applause]
Number one, I'm not gonna cry,
'cause I expected it.
What you did is you never gave up.
And what you look for in your life,
other than your friends, your family,
is respect.
Man, you got the respect.
You'll carry that respect with this team
for the rest of your life.
[cheering]
[all] ♪ Texas fight, Texas fight
And we'll put over one more win ♪
♪ Texas fight, Texas fight… ♪
We all said that the game
was better than the storyline,
and that's hard to believe.
-[interviewer laughs]
-Doesn't happen very often.
[anchor] If he does return,
the eyes of Texas will remain on Young.
[reporter] Vince, can you talk about
what timetable you might have
for your decision?
I'm enjoying the moment,
hanging out with my family members
and with my teammates, um,
a lot of prayer.
After the national championship game,
he came up, and he said,
"I need to see you."
I thought, "Nah, I know
where we're going here."
Just he and I, and he said,
"If I'm your son,
what do you tell me to do?"
I said, "Here's what happens if you go.
Here's what happens if you stay."
"If you go, you'll make $20 million,
you'll be on a team that's struggling."
"Come back, you probably win the Heisman,
or another national championship."
But I said,
"You can't get this money back."
"If you get hurt,
and it hurts the amount of money
you can get next year in the NFL,
I can't tell you not to take $20 million.
So I think you should go."
I prayed about it with my pastor,
then I went upstairs,
my family was there,
I got everybody in the room.
I told them, "I'll make a decision
to go to the pros."
Texas quarterback Vince Young
will skip his senior year and turn pro.
-Vince Young is turning pro.
-[anchor] He was fun to watch in college.
You wonder about the next level.
[melancholic music continues]
[host] A beautiful day
here in New York City.
And welcome to the 2006
National Football League College Draft.
With the third choice,
the Tennessee Titans select Vince Young,
quarterback, University of Texas.
[audience cheering]
[Young] When I got drafted,
I was excited about it.
I knew everything about that whole team.
Before they became the Titans,
as a kid growing up in Houston,
man, I was a huge Oilers fan…
[commentator] Houston Oilers, touchdown!
…and the owner, Bud Adams,
but also Coach Fisher.
I liked Coach Fisher
because I always saw him as a kid,
when he was coaching Steve McNair.
And then all of a sudden, I'm there.
I was just in shock.
Like, "Damn, Coach Fisher sitting here
talking to me." [chuckles]
{\an8}I thought it was pretty cool.
You know what I mean?
{\an8}[melancholic music continues]
{\an8}I'm sitting around drinking wine,
watching the national championship game
like everybody else,
and I'll never forget
watching that game end the way it did.
These type of athletes
don't come around very often.
And when they do, I mean,
you need to try to take advantage of them.
When I got drafted,
I was excited even more
because I really wanted
to get mentored by Pop,
that had been mentoring me anyway.
To play with him and learn from him
would have been awesome,
but they traded him to Baltimore.
I'm like, "Damn."
After a great career,
Mr. Adams made a decision
it was time to part ways with Steve
because the '05 season was a rough road.
[commentator] McNair to the sidelines.
[Scaife] With the Titans,
[commentator] Caught by Bo Scaife.
Felt like we had a talented team,
but our record didn't support that.
[commentator] McNair running
in the end zone! Couldn't hold on.
[Scaife] We'd won 4-and-12 in Tennessee.
I'm like, "I gotta be back around winners.
I never lost 12 games in my life."
-Never.
-You know?
We needed a really good season.
We needed a good year,
and so we drafted LenDale
and we drafted Vince.
[music fades]
So when I got to Tennessee,
I was a little mad that Steve left,
but Coach said,
"I give you the keys to the Hummer."
I'm looking out my window like,
"There's a Hummer outside? What the f*ck?"
He's like, "No, you'll be the starter."
I'm like, "Oh, sh*t."
Let's go, baby. [laughs]
[commentator] For the first time,
starting his first NFL game
will be Vince Young.
Young's pass. It's caught. Touchdown!
[commentator 2] What can you say?
Vince Young looks very comfy.
That ball's on the money.
[Fisher] Making these people miss
and running over these people…
Top-end speed, short area quickness.
[commentator] Touchdown!
That just happened. Did that just happen?
That is rare.
[commentator 2] Vince Young inside the 30.
Off he goes.
Vince Young inside the 20, the 10.
It is over! Vince Young has done it again!
{\an8}He is doing exactly
for the Tennessee Titans
{\an8}what he did for us.
[commentator] Another tremendous
performance and comeback victory.
{\an8}[commentator 2] The most exciting player
in the National Football League.
During his rookie year,
there was a Vince cultural moment.
-[announcer] Say hello to Vince Young.
-[Mu] It was Vince-Anity.
[Leno] Vince is gonna throw out
some T-shirts for you.
Everybody wanted a piece of Vince Young.
[voice on TV] Vince Young Electrify cleat.
It was boom, boom, boom.
So I had opportunities
to meet so many people.
Man, I'm having
a conversation with legends.
Derek Jeter, Tiger Woods, and MJ.
Oh my God, it was crazy.
To top it all off,
{\an8}he graces this year's cover
of EA Sports Madden NFL.
At the time, he was the only rookie
to make that cover.
{\an8}[commentator] Vince Young's the 2006
NFL offensive rookie of the year.
He led Tennessee nearly into the playoff.
He just helped change our team
from being 4-and-12 to being 8-and-8.
Now you get to enjoy
the fruits of your labors.
[White] Thursday, Friday,
we're definitely hanging out.
We're going to the club.
[Scaife] You go to Atlanta
on a Monday night,
and you're at Magic City.
It's the best sh*t popping.
-[White] I felt like…
-A f*cking blast.
Yeah, I mean, sh*t, we were having a ball.
[Curtis] He came to the NFL
just in time to be scrutinized
in a way the previous generation
of athletes had not been scrutinized.
He's arguably the most fascinating
quarterback in the NFL,
but the skin is a little thin.
Vince also has a problem with authority.
"When we were in Nashville,
he was late to this team meeting,
and Vince was late for the team plane."
[Fisher] This is Vince's rookie year.
We're going to go to Philly,
and Vince is late for the plane.
It's two or three minutes
after departure time,
and I said, "Let's go."
The plane starts to roll and turn,
and I hear some commotion,
and I look, and Vince pulls up.
In the process of me going to the plane,
um, a funeral was passing,
and I'm talking to Bo, all my guys, like,
"Tell them I'm coming, man, I'm here."
They see me pulling in,
and they still closed the door and left.
So I'm pissed.
I'm like, "Damn, that's how
you going to do me, Coach?" Like…
He told me he was mad at me
that I left him,
and I told him
there was no f*cking Longhorn
painted on our team plane.
This is the NFL, and you get here on time,
and we leave on time,
and don't take it personal.
Come on, baby.
[Fisher] I had just a few rules.
The rules are pretty simple.
So if you had a problem with that,
then you had a problem with me.
Action.
[Fisher] Vince had distractions.
He enjoyed himself and spent money,
and he'd burn it real hard Friday night.
So he'd miss meetings,
he'd miss treatment.
[Young] One day after practice,
the media comes to me like,
"We heard you was late to meetings today."
I'm like, "What? First of all,
how in the f*ck…?" [chuckles]
So somebody must have told them.
How did that get to the media?
It had to be him.
So to me, I'm in my mind like,
"Okay, I can't trust this guy."
Then you start to hear certain things.
Before the draft,
a lot of people were saying,
"Him and Bud Adams were bumping heads
because he wanted Matt Leinart
as the quarterback."
I'm like, "Damn,
you don't even want me, Coach?"
[somber music playing]
[Fisher] Before the draft, I had hired
the offensive coordinator for USC,
and actually it was him
who wanted Matt Leinart.
We had a difference of opinions.
{\an8}I was leaning towards Jay Cutler
just because I felt good
about everything that Jay did.
But Bud Adams was obsessed
and consumed with drafting Vince.
[interviewer]
Why did Bud want Vince so bad?
{\an8}[Fisher] That all stemmed
from an adversarial relationship
{\an8}that he had with a mayor in Houston
that dated back decades.
In that draft, I was told,
ex-mayor's wife came on a radio station,
and they were talking to her
about who she thought
the Houston Texans should draft
with the first pick in this year's draft.
And she went on and on
about Vince, and she says,
"As a matter of fact…"
Tongue in cheek, I would assume.
"A matter of fact,
if they don't draft Vince Young,
I'm going to go jump off
the 16th Street Bridge."
[music turns tense]
And Bud said, "We're drafting Vince
'cause I want to see the b*tch jump."
[music fades]
The Tennessee Titans
select Vince Young, quarterback.
Imagine starting a new job,
and your boss already hates you.
He was walking into
a challenging situation from day one.
Conversation went like this.
"Vince." "What?" "This is Jeff." "What?"
"Vince, look. Things come up.
I understand. You're late. It's okay."
"A US Air rep's gonna call you."
I said, "You need to be on that airplane."
He says, "I'm not coming."
He's got a temper?
This is the type of guy he is, like, damn.
To me, this is something different.
So this is a learning process for me,
'cause Coach Brown wasn't like that.
[melancholic music playing]
College was very much
like a family environment
where the coach cared about his players.
The NFL, it was strictly business.
[Fisher] I hear that, "We're a family."
"We got a great locker room.
We're a family."
Nine out of ten families
are friggin' dysfunctional,
so I don't want to hear
the family thing, okay?
I don't think that Coach Fish
ever put in the effort needed
to support his quarterback.
When you get to the league,
you're still in your early twenties.
You got a bunch of money, stress, family.
You got responsibilities.
So he wasn't perfect
when he was 22 years old.
Mack Brown gave him some guidelines
to help him get through,
you know, to help him grow.
But Fisher's mindset wasn't there.
Do coaches have to realize,
especially with young guys,
that what you say
may affect them for a long time?
Well, yeah. I mean,
everybody has a different philosophy.
Leadership wasn't the issue.
The issue was
that Vince wasn't part of the leadership.
[commentator] Young is wrapped up.
[Esiason] Surprise team's gotta be
the Tennessee Titans, six-and-two,
and they're doing it
without a quarterback.
{\an8}Young's not playing very well.
V-Wheezy. What's good, baby?
What's good, baby? [laughs]
[Fisher] He was a fun-loving, happy,
life-of-the-party kind of quarterback.
{\an8}A little baby, just starting off.
[Fisher] But from a leadership standpoint,
he was too consumed with Vince
rather than the rest of the players.
Get him!
[Scaife] His stardom and his persona,
I don't think the coaches
really were ready for that.
[somber music playing]
You know, they want
to put you in this box.
That's where everything
kind of started going left.
If you wanna bring
that dickhead out of Vince,
you're gonna get it all the way, 120%.
We all heard the scufflings,
and you start seeing the tension building.
[commentator] Came out on field,
and Vince Young, you can see he's upset.
Me, I'm so focused
on being the best that I can be
for my teammates and the organization,
but we kept bumping heads.
I felt like that was a distraction
for me and for the team.
[commentator] To the end zone.
Intercepted at the goal line!
[commentator 2] The Titans are dragging
Vince Young to the finish line.
[commentator 3] Pick up a newspaper,
everything is negative.
You think the world's against you.
[Young] I'm dealing with some sh*t
with a guy that don't want me here.
It was kind of like he was my enemy,
on the same team in the same facility.
I felt like that childhood love
that I had for him was out the door.
[Scaife] I think trust that could've been
got demolished.
I think, after the g*n incident.
[commentator] Great divisional matchup
to open up this 2008 season.
We're underway.
[Young] We was playing Jacksonville…
[commentator] Young slings it,
and it's picked off!
…and I kept doing bad…
[commentator 13] Young, he has it
picked off on the very next play!
…and I was getting booed.
And it's even worse because I get hurt.
[commentator] Young gets rid of it.
[commentator 2] And Vince Young is down.
He took a hit.
[Young] It was my LCL.
And imagine that as a young athlete,
like, that sh*t is scary as sh*t.
[commentator 2] The status
of Vince Young unknown
after the awkward left knee injury.
[Mu] He's never had a major injury,
and it's one of those times
things are just swirling in his head,
and things just tumbled.
When Vincent got hurt and came home,
he thought
he wasn't gonna be able to play no more,
and he was, you know, in a bad state.
That day, what was crazy
was everybody was coming at him
in all directions.
Everybody's coming over,
checking on me, making sure I'm okay.
But when I don't want to be bothered,
I don't want to be f*cking bothered.
'Cause I'm… I'm, like, I'm at, like,
a dark spot in my life.
[somber music continues]
I just was, at that moment again,
like in Texas when I was about to leave.
I didn't know what to do about it.
I keep telling her,
"Mama, stop letting people in the house."
"Tell everybody I'm okay."
And she kept doing it,
so I got up and left.
[music turns unsettling]
[Fisher] Our director of player programs
calls and says,
"He just left. He's in the car."
"He left with his g*n.
He had his g*n over his head."
"He pushed his mom out of the way,
got in his car, and is hauling a*s."
[unsettling music intensifies]
In a strange way, is he crying for help,
and that's all he knows,
is to run fast or drive fast with a g*n?
After what he endured the day before,
he had every reason to be dangerous
to himself or to somebody else.
Coach Fisher calls, "Hey, everybody
is concerned you left with your g*n."
"And, you know,
are you finna commit suicide?"
I'm like, "What?" "Give me my space."
Like, "I'm fine, man."
He was like,
"I need you to come to the facility,
so I can make sure you're good."
I'm like, "Coach, really?
You don't believe me?"
"I'm telling you. I'm good."
He's like, "I need you to come."
I said, "All right, I'mma come."
[music turns tense]
[Young] I get there.
There's a cameraman hiding in the woods,
and then there's, like,
six or seven police officers,
to the point they was all behind me,
like, surrounding me and sh*t.
I'm standing by the car, like,
"Coach, you'll let this happen to me?"
Like, "Coach, I told you I'm good."
He's like, "Let them do their job."
I'm like, "But why are they even here?
You told me to come holler at you."
And we went into my office,
and we had our director of player programs
and a psychologist.
"You feel you wanna harm yourself?
k*ll yourself?"
I'm like, "What the f*ck
are y'all talking about?"
And really quick, boom, boom, boom,
and he was good to go.
I'm pissed.
Like, all this sh*t for nothing.
I feel like this sh*t was planned.
And then it goes on the news the next day.
[tense music intensifies]
But a lot are wondering,
what's really going on with Vince Young?
I'm like, "Now I got to deal with this."
[host] People believe
that you were at the point
of k*lling yourself that night.
That's absurd. I didn't wanna k*ll myself.
[interviewer] Reports suggest you talked
to the psychologist weeks before.
[laughs] That's BS. I've never seen
this woman before, other than that night.
{\an8}[reporter] Before the game, I asked him,
did he ever talk about suicide?
{\an8}He told me, "No."
[Young] Now
I'm getting scrutinized constantly.
This is who I am.
This is the perception of this kid.
[commentator] If you look at events,
it appears Vince Young
may lack emotional toughness.
[commentator 2] He has issues.
If you ain't got my back
at that heat of a moment,
that you could've squashed that sh*t,
I couldn't trust him no more.
I'm not one that's capable
of solving the suicide mystery.
Had I had to do it all over again,
I would do the same thing.
[somber music playing]
[Young] Steve calmed me down.
I asked him, "What should I do, Pop?"
Steve said, "Go in that locker room
and do what you got to do."
"The media, k*ll them with kindness."
{\an8}Thanks, Vince Young. Smiling.
You like it when any of the guys do well…
{\an8}[Young] He said, "Keep doing
what you do. Sell your character."
{\an8}"Sell who you are."
And that's what I did.
To all my fans, the people
that love me that's concerned,
my neighbors back at home,
I just want to tell everybody I'm fine.
So now I'm okay.
Gave him a hug, like, "I love you, Pop."
He's like, "I love you."
"I'm going fishing this weekend."
I'm like, "All right, I love y'all.
See you when you get back."
Woke up the next day,
and my phone was just blowing up.
And Mike Mu called me, like, "Steve gone."
I'm like, "Gone? Yeah, I know.
He told me he was going fishing."
He was like, "No, Steve is dead."
{\an8}[anchor] Steve McNair,
former Titans quarterback,
{\an8}has been found dead in his home.
[anchor 2] The details are still coming in
at the Eyewitness Newsroom.
I just went numb,
'cause I was in just total shock, man,
that I just lost my father, my pops.
After I had just saw him,
that's what made me really break down.
[somber music intensifies]
[Young] That was
a touchy situation for me, man,
to lose somebody that I truly loved.
I'm not even prepared to even talk,
because the fact is…
You know, Steve was like,
you know, a hero to me.
And heroes are not supposed to die.
[voice breaks]
I used to walk, talk,
and try to be like Steve, like, every day.
Because the fact is
I never had a father figure in my life.
He showed me a lot of different things
of becoming the man that I am today.
[somber music continues]
And it was tough, man.
That whole experience, man.
[music fades]
And he's not supposed to have been gone,
you know what I mean?
[Scaife] A person can only take
and deal with so much
before they hit rock bottom.
And I think that's, you know,
where V got to.
[commentator] Four minutes
to go in the third, tied at 13.
And Young got hit as he let it go.
I threw the ball,
and I hit my thumb on a helmet.
A bit slow getting up.
[commentator 2] Comes up
shaking his throwing hand.
I tore that tendon in my thumb,
and it kept falling down.
And they see if I can still grip a ball.
I can grip it, but can't grip it as much,
but I felt like I could still play.
[commentator] Vince Young trying to get
the feel of that football now.
During the timeout,
the first ball he threw hit at his feet.
And then the second ball he threw
went over the wide receiver,
so he can't control the ball.
I said, "Man, you can't throw,
you can't play."
"We're better off with somebody else."
I get pissed. I'm in the back, like,
"To hell with Coach, man.
I just don't feel like he believes in me."
[commentator] And Gano's kick is good,
and the Redskins win it!
[tense music playing]
[Young] After the game was over,
I threw my helmet and shoulder pads,
and I was like,
"I'm done playing with this guy."
Come up the tunnel, and somebody says,
"VY lost his sh*t before the game ended."
I go, "What are you talking about?"
As I walk in the locker room door,
he's in that corner.
I walked over, and he was busy
throwing his stuff in his bag.
-[interviewer] Was there a fight?
-It wasn't a fight.
But I've never seen someone
just so upset towards their head coach.
I'm standing up there. I'm processing.
I'm watching him,
and he starts to walk with his bag.
I go, "Vince, please don't walk out
on your teammates. Don't do this."
Uh, he kept walking.
[reporter] That is how fast
this went down with Vince
and head coach Jeff Fisher today.
Vince didn't stick around for questions,
and he didn't stay to resolve any issues
he may have had with his head coach.
I'm very disappointed.
And I think his teammates
are disappointed.
Jeff did a great job trying to spin it,
like, "Don't walk out on your team."
"On your team," yeah.
I remember they were saying that.
[Fisher] There's going to be times
when you have to just dig deep and fight
and turn to one another.
I don't think you run.
You know? And so I'm disappointed.
He wasn't walking out on his team.
He let everyone know,
"I'm not walking out on my team,
but out on your m*therf*cking a*s."
Like, "I'm done. f*ck this sh*t."
[reporter] Fisher made it clear
that Vince Young is out.
My focus is moving forward with this team.
You knew this was coming to a head.
It was just a matter of
when the announcement would be made.
Fisher was like… He didn't let me
back into the facilities no more.
So that's when I knew
I was done in, uh, in Tennessee.
[reporter] Young has been
a divisive figure several times
during his Titans career.
Bud Adams says, "I think it is best
for the franchise that we move on."
Vince is the one always in the wrong,
and I don't think that was fair.
[reporter] Young's departure
from the Titans has everyone's attention.
[reporter 2] Vince Young
was dead in the water.
[reporter 3] I'm fearing the worst
for Vince Young now.
{\an8}[Young] It was definitely not how
I wanted to end my career with the Titans.
They were the team I wanted to play with
and win the Super Bowl with.
And I was blessed
to get that opportunity to go to Philly.
[reporter] VY says, "I look forward
to a new beginning
and bringing my talents to a new team."
I've learned from all my mistakes.
Very excited to be here.
It was a fresh start
to play football again,
so I went to work.
[commentator] Vince Young,
the starting quarterback
for the Philadelphia Eagles.
[commentator 2] This time, they gonna go
deep down the middle of the field…
…caught inside…
[commentator]
Perfect throw by Vince Young.
[Young] It was a good organization,
good team.
I was glad they gave me an opportunity.
I was trying to change
the perception with Philly.
[commentator] Now a touchdown.
But there's a lot of BS
that was going on behind the scenes.
[unsettling music playing]
[man] V shows me some documents.
{\an8}Some of these documents that existed,
let's just say shouldn't have existed.
[interviewer] Sorry?
Somebody forged his signature.
[Young] My agent, Major Adams,
had credit cards in my name,
and he took loans out and sh*t,
and borrowing money
from this person and that person,
and not paying it back.
Major is like a friend to the family
at that time, yeah.
But, you know,
money come, and people change.
You can't trust anybody.
[Candice] After that,
it kind of snowballed.
He found out about another
forged signature and another loan.
[Young] I'm here trying to be
the best athlete I can be.
Believing that I had some guys
that I can trust to watch my back
and doing what's best for me,
but they was doing the total opposite.
[unsettling music continues]
[anchor] Vince Young is broke.
There are reports
alleging that he is broke.
[Young] I had to go through bankruptcy.
I had the media on my a*s about that.
What was it like filing for bankruptcy?
If you think about
the hell it could unleash
on an individual's mental
and physical capacity
once they're in that situation.
What he went through,
it's not just affecting who he is today.
It's the robbing
of multiple generations to come.
[Candice] We had to really, like,
lean back on the foundation
of our relationship at that point
to just get through it.
Jordan, what you doing?
The sorts of individuals
that fleece young men
and women to better themselves
are reserved a very dark place
in the afterlife.
[commentator]
Vince Young throws an incomplete…
[commentator 2] Bad throw from Young.
[Young] I was going
through that situation,
and I took my frustration out
on the Eagles.
I feel like that was the reason
why I got cut.
[commentator] Back to throw again.
Dumps it outside. Has an open receiver…
When I got to the Buffalo Bills,
I'm still dealing with
somebody trying to sue me.
So, they was trying to serve me
at training camp.
What you can understand,
from an organization standpoint,
you don't want all that.
[anchor] Vince Young has a new job.
He was at practice today with the Packers.
[Young] Every time I get on a team,
I get cut. It happened in Green Bay.
[reporter] Young signed a one-year
free agent deal with the Browns.
[Young] Even Cleveland…
[huffs] …cut.
[reporter] Everything was rolling for you,
and then not so much lately, it seems.
[Young] In my mind,
I can't keep doing this.
The question now is,
"Is this it for Vince Young?"
[Young] It was messed up.
I didn't feel like I finished my career
how I wanted to.
[somber music playing]
When you have trained for something
your entire life,
and now all of a sudden,
it's no longer available to you,
it is incredibly hard.
Not able to play the game that I love,
that was very stressful, um,
I was drinking,
um, partying,
just making bad decisions, man.
Former Longhorn
and NFL quarterback Vince Young
will have to build a legal defense
after an overnight arrest in Austin
for a drunk-driving charge.
My anger and my frustration
had the best of me.
If you want me to take a…
If you don't feel like
I'm fit to drive, I understand.
If you're refusing to do this,
fine, I won't force you.
Obviously, I can't force you. Right?
I don't want no problems.
The whole time I was in that jail cell
and looking at that police officer,
I was like, "Oh, man.
Boy, you lucky you got a badge on, boy."
"If we can open up this gate,
I would tear off in your a*s right now."
Because in my mind, I'm thinking, like,
"You don't know what you just did."
{\an8}TMZ Sports all over the arrest
of former NFL star.
{\an8}I mean, this is really sad.
{\an8}It's all over the news,
and they finna tear my a*s up.
[Levin] I always liked Young,
always thought he'd be a winner.
Turned into a disaster, right?
The media and everybody else
had it out for me a long time, you know?
Like, even at Texas, it was horrible.
I can't throw,
I can't do this, I can't do that.
It's just been negative
all my life, you know?
I guess it's like
I felt like I was just getting picked at.
I was so mad because I was hurt.
'Cause I was feeling like I was doing
the same sh*t my dad was doing.
It was just a cloud,
a heavy, heavy time for me.
Former football star Vince Young
is apologizing for letting everyone down.
After his recent DWI arrest in…
[Young] When I got my second DWI,
I needed to get away.
[somber music intensifies]
[Young] I needed to think.
To breathe.
You know, gather myself
and get my sh*t together.
But I still wasn't at peace.
After Steve McNair passed,
I didn't have somebody in my life that
could help me process
all the stuff that was going on.
And I couldn't deal with it on my own.
I needed to get tools
to help myself in my everyday life.
I went to a rehab facility.
It was at a house,
and it was with three other patients,
going to AA meetings
and hanging out with different people.
Listening to their stories,
it changed my life.
I didn't know the reason why I snap
and sometimes get an attitude
is because of not having
my father in my life.
Talking to my therapist, he's like,
"It sounds like you need to fix that
and talk to him,
and get that to release you."
I was like, "Damn."
I needed for him to answer
that question, that big question mark.
"Why did you leave, Dad?
Why you wasn't around?"
[music turns poignant]
[interviewer] Did you ever talk
to your dad about that?
Yeah. He said he was dealing
with the same sh*t I was dealing with,
just a bunch of stuff,
not able to provide for his family.
The streets were more better
than being with his family.
And, you know,
that answered the question for me.
I get it, you know? Uh…
I get it, so I forgave, and I moved on.
[interviewer] What do you wish Fisher
or the Titans did differently?
I think they did what was best
for the organization, for their team.
It… It was my fault in a way.
I feel like me and Fisher
could've handled that situation better
and stopped, you know,
bickering and sh*t like that,
and do what was best for the team.
We had a really good football team,
and we could've won some Super Bowls.
And at the end of the day,
we both got fired.
[Fisher] It's a situation we got into.
We had two difficult years.
{\an8}You know, I just felt like this is the…
What's best for everybody.
[interviewer] At some point,
you did decide to write him a letter.
What did you want to say to him?
I didn't want to leave anything open,
no wounds open,
so I was like,
"I hope you can forgive me
for how I handled a lot of things, uh,
with the Titans."
So that's why I sent him that letter.
Yeah, he sent me a letter. Yeah. So…
Why didn't you write him back?
Um…
You know,
he spelled my name wrong.
So I didn't know
that it had come from him.
I guess, in retrospect,
it would have been nice
to give him sh*t about…
um, spelling my name wrong, you know?
But, uh, that's Vince.
[melancholic music playing]
[Brown] With Vince, I thought he handled
his situation in the NFL really well.
He did better and played longer
than anybody gives him credit for.
But the sad thing is
we remember the bad things a lot more
than we remember the good things.
And we remember the losses
a lot more than we remember the wins.
But I remember him winning.
I remember him playing good.
And everybody remembers that game,
and they remember that play.
[commentator] He's going for the corner…
He's got it!
[Brown] He's the only quarterback alive
that won a national championship at Texas.
So he's special.
I don't want this to be
the best thing happening in your life.
When you're 54, I don't want you to say,
"Winning the game
is the best thing that ever happened."
You'll have it and be a champion
for the rest of your life.
You make sure that's one
of the best sports things in your life,
but you promise me,
if you've got enough about you
to win a national championship,
you've got enough about you
to be a great citizen, a great role model,
a great father,
and a great leader in your family.
That's what we're looking for.
That's what we want.
And I really like the way
he's lived his life since he got out.
He's given back to so much.
And that's the lessons we learn.
[crowd cheering]
[Brown] You learn from losses,
you learn from turbulence,
and you take negatives
and turn them into positives.
Please welcome Vince Young!
-[Young] Texas!
-[crowd cheering]
-Texas!
-[crowd cheering]
I love you!
[crowd cheering]
-[man] Way to go.
-[laughs]
[Young] I'm just so proud and happy
to be a part of the history
of the University of Texas.
Because Texas has done a lot for me,
still to this day.
But the biggest beautiful thing
that happened to me in my life
was the birth of my kids.
Mickey Mouse!
-[Candice] Did you have fun?
-Yes.
[Candice] Did you have fun?
[Young] I want to make sure
that I'm there to guide them
and try to be totally different
from what my dad did in my life.
And I'm teaching my kids,
"You're not gonna be perfect."
"You're gonna make mistakes."
"Just know that you have another day."
[Jordan] Can we make
some noise for my pops?
[all cheering] Yeah!
Thank you. Thank you.
{\an8}Dad, I just want you to know, I love you.
{\an8}-[Young] Yeah!
-Happy birthday!
-[cheering]
-[Jordan] 42.
My gosh!
-[man] Hold on, hold on…
-42.
[laughter]
No, but for real,
thank you for all you do for me.
Thanks for all you do
for all these people in here.
And I want you to have a great birthday.
[guests cheering]
[interviewer] Have you found peace now?
Where I'm at in life right now,
at 42 years old,
I still go through stuff,
but I know how to handle it now.
I feel like God
took me through all that stuff,
good and bad,
so I can be able to handle things
that he has in store for me.
Today, I just want to continue
to live out my legacy
and be happy with my family, with my kids,
to be there for somebody
they can lean on and talk to,
'cause it ain't gonna be easy.
I hope
that I continue to be here on Earth
to go through those ups and downs
and everything with them.
[melancholic music gradually fading]
♪ I gotta win like I need food
That's all I know ♪
♪ Been running this city since Dowling
That's how I roll ♪
♪ Can't hate on me
'Cause the H got my back for sure ♪
♪ Victory's the only option
That's all I know ♪
♪ Game on the line ♪
♪ It feels like fourth and five ♪
♪ The world's watching I pull this off
My name immortalized ♪
♪ I come from nothing
I was raised inside the hardest times ♪
♪ But break the cycle for my generation
Thank God I started now ♪
♪ I could never fold
The pressure I was taught to grind ♪
♪ These folks try to write
Your story for you ♪
♪ Imma author mine, self-made ♪
♪ The haters sent the blitz
I still scored and shined ♪
♪ Legendary forever on the throne
Man I ain't hard to find ♪
♪ I'm made from a God design
It's perfect, it is not a flawed design ♪
♪ I'm familiar with you fellas ♪
♪ You boys are the fakers
Y'all got all that fraud inside ♪
♪ Me, I'm a boss, a king, a winner
I'm so rich I don't even know how to fry ♪
♪ Shout out my homie
V Y from Hiram Clarke ♪
♪ Where my mother and father died ♪
♪ Revenge of the reliant
He finished the last run ♪
♪ The family is next level ♪
♪ The statue is all bronze ♪
♪ Raised without a father
I never had time to cry ♪
♪ A legend on all you haters
My name is V Y ♪
♪ I'm winning ♪
♪ I gotta win like I need food
That's all I know ♪
♪ Been running this city since Dowling
That's how I roll ♪
♪ Can't hate on me
'Cause the H got my back for sure ♪
♪ Victory's the only option
That's all I know ♪
♪ I gotta win like I need food
That's all I know ♪
♪ Been running this city since Dowling
That's how I roll ♪
♪ Can't hate on me
'Cause the H got my back for sure ♪
♪ Victory's the only option
That's all I know ♪
♪ That's all I know ♪
♪ That's all, all I know ♪
♪ Winning, winning, winning ♪
♪ That's all I know
That's all I know ♪
[song ends]
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