Donovan Speaks

[PhillyPhreak54]

This is the transcript of his interview from PE.com. most of the quotes can be found in today's Inky but this is the entire thing;

McNABB ADDRESSES '05 EAGLES

December 11, 2005

Quarterback Donovan McNabb, unable to play the role of Santa Claus, still took part in his annual Donovan McNabb Foundation Christmas drive on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field. While his brother, Sean, played Santa, McNabb met reporters and discussed the state of the team.

Here is a transcript of the interview:

Q: How do you feel after the surgery?

A: "A little better. Just talking to the doctor, he pretty much wants me to rest and not try to do anything now. Not that I would tear anything else, but obviously it would prolong my rehab. There's really nothing I can do for this particular injury. So, I've just pretty much been sitting back and watching everything that's been going on. I come down to the facility, talk to the guys and just continue to push those guys."

Q: When will you start throwing the ball?

A: "From what I understand, it will be for (the early February) mini-camp. I would hope so. I'm shooting for it but it's hard to say right now."

Q: How much of a hit has your reputation and stature taken this year?

A: Obviously I probably wouldn't be able to name one player who has been through what I've been through the last five, six, seven years. I don't think I've taken a hit on my name or my reputation at all. Maybe I'm optimistic with it, but I think one thing that it has done is, it's obviously made people pay attention to a lot of things that I do and what I say. I've had so many compliments on how I've handled a lot of situations, but that's just being me.

"I think the most important way of handling situations is just being yourself and not worrying about what people have to say about you. No matter what you do in this world, you can't please everybody. You can't worry about what people feel about you, you can only be yourself."

Q: Are you amazed at some of the things said about you?

A: "I am. We were laughing and joking about it a couple of days ago. It seems like everybody who seems to take a shot at me either loses their job (laughing) or more things are found out about them that they don't want people to know. So (laughing), I think now people are hesitant about bringing my name out of their mouth now. Hey, I tried to tell them ..But you know what? We can sit back and laugh about that but it doesn't have to be like that."

Q: Is it disappointing when someone makes remarks about your race?

A: "Especially being the same color I am. Obviously if it was someone else that's not African-American descent, to talk about your race, then it's a racist type of statement. But when it's someone of the same race as you that talks about you like you're selling out or whatever because you're not running the ball, it goes back to, what are we really talking about? When you go deep into that or you go statistically into what I've been doing, or how come I didn't stick up for so and so, or say why didn't I give a little bit of my (salary) to somebody else making money, you know, you still try to find an answer. And there's no answer that I've found.

"If you're talking about my play, that's one thing. If you're talking about my race, now we've got problems. If you try to make a name off of my name, I hope your closet is clean, because something is going to come out about you, too."

Q: Is that what happened? Are people trying to make a name off of you?

A: "I think what happened was just for everything that's been going on, people are just trying to find something different. For someone to say I didn't come out and defend T.O., I never talked bad about T.O. I've always defended T.O. I'm the one that asked for T.O. to be here. For people to question my leadership because I talked at my press conference about me being a leader of the team, well, if the question is asked, I'm going to answer the question. I'm not going to beat around it.

"When people say, 'How come you're not running?' When I tell them that sometimes with the injury, you're not able to do the stuff that you're used to doing, then that is talked about. No matter what I say or what I've said, people have taken it and kind of broken it up in so many parts and just added their own spin to it. For the guy with the NAACP, I always thought the NAACP supported African-Americans, not talked bad about them."

Q: Do you feel you've lost the support of the locker room?

A: "I don't feel I've lost the locker room. I think what we've seen right now with the downfall that we've had, for us being on top for so long, expectations are so high that at times I think we all just play the game like we're going to win just off of our name. And right now, we're not a good team. We're not a good team until we realize that it's all about team and not an individual game.

"This is a team sport. I don't think I've lost the locker room, and I don't think I have to do anything different than I've done for the last six years to gain it back."

Q: Can the team chemistry be repaired?

A: I don't think you can blame a downfall or what happened this year on one particular person. There are people that say, Well, it's T.O.'s fault.' Well, it may start with one person but it's the trickle down effect. And you know, T.O. hasn't been here for the last however many weeks. It's bad obviously that I had to get questions all of the sudden about my leadership. It's bad that we had to get questioned on our intensity or our emotion or us quitting.

"That's never been a problem for anyone to even think about when they talk about the Philadelphia Eagles. But that happens when you have a bad team."

Q: Would the season have been a struggle even if you hadn't gotten hurt?

A: I mean, pretty much it was a tough season from the beginning. And again, people may just blame it on one particular person, but for what (T.O.) said or what he's done, it's something that kind of spread in the locker room. It's never been a question of me losing the locker room until this year. If I've lost the locker room, then the question goes up, why?

"Is it because now people are beginning to look at me sideways for what I've been doing or what I make, or whatever he had the problem with? That's the question I'm trying to get answered -- if I've lost the locker room. No answers have come my way. But I do know the main reason why we're not a good team is we don't play as a team."

Q: What do you think the 2006 season will be like?

A: It's hard for people to see anything right now with what's been happening this year, with the injury and everything and now kind of everybody kind of looking back and thinking next year and what's going to happen. For myself, I kind of visualize it being just how it was last year; for the receivers and everybody on the offense, all of us to come back clicking.

"Like I said, I never lost the locker room, but if I did lose the locker room, we need for everybody to come together and realize that in order for us to win, we've got to play together. I think that's going to happen -- and you won't have to worry about any of this stuff that we've been talking about this past year.

Q: It sounds like you've lost the locker room and you plan on getting it back.

A: "Again, how do you get back a locker room? By being yourself. And I think what I have to do is just continue to make sure that the offense is ready to go. Be prepared, be in the best condition possible and just go out and give guys opportunities to make plays. If it's a divided locker room or whatever, I can't be the one to bring everyone together and say, Hey look, we need to be together' -- like I'm Knute Rockne or somebody.

"But when I bring guys together, I have to make them understand that that guy sitting next to you is counting on you to give all that he has. So when they look at me, they know that I'm going to give all I have."

Q: From sitting back and observing is it necessary to upgrade personnel?

A: "I don't know. That's kind of not my decision to make. I mean, for people that may think I have an office upstairs (at the NovaCare Complex), it's not like I make all the decisions. Since I'm a so-called company man, I have the key to the facility to get in."

Q: But you were instrumental in bringing Owens aboard?

A: "Well, I brought T.O. in. I requested for him to come."

Q: Do you need to request that other talented players be brought in?

A: "I think what we need is, again, for everybody to understand that in order for us to win, we've got to play well together. And that's the guys that are in the locker room right now, and our draftees and free agents we may sign. Everybody has to realize that in order for us to get back to the Super Bowl and win it, that we all have to play together.

"I mean, you never heard anything like this coming from the Indianapolis Colts. You never heard anything like this coming from the New England Patriots. I mean, Baltimore, when they won the Super Bowl, you never heard that. "

[QB Eagles]

Q: How much of a hit has your reputation and stature taken this year?

A: Obviously I probably wouldn't be able to name one player who has been through what I've been through the last five, six, seven years. I don't think I've taken a hit on my name or my reputation at all.

Over the past few years McNabb has demonstrated he's a consummate professional with the way he comports himself off the field. On the field, he's demonstrated that he's both an elite QB and a notorious choke artist. Only one of those three aspects of his reputation is negative, and it's something that has been and will continue to be in his control to change.

Q: Are you amazed at some of the things said about you?

A: "I am. We were laughing and joking about it a couple of days ago. It seems like everybody who seems to take a shot at me either loses their job (laughing) or more things are found out about them that they don't want people to know. So (laughing), I think now people are hesitant about bringing my name out of their mouth now.

Maybe we should start referring to him as "Don" McNabb.

Q: Is it disappointing when someone makes remarks about your race?

Why this is still a legitimate topic in 2005 is beyond me. Anyone who makes it into an issue on either side is a certified douchebag. Let's talk football, not melanin.

A: I don't think you can blame a downfall or what happened this year on one particular person. There are people that say, Well, it's T.O.'s fault.' Well, it may start with one person but it's the trickle down effect. And you know, T.O. hasn't been here for the last however many weeks.

Agreed. Saying this poor season is TO's fault is no different from all the ridiculous "TO's fault" stories from last year. This team had and has a lot more problems than a loudmouth wide receiver.

Since I'm a so-called company man, I have the key to the facility to get in.

[Seabiscuit36]

Im happy he finally spoke out.  Hopefully this crap lights a fire under his ass next year and he becomes the 2004 Mcnabb but with a little more running.   

[Beermonkey]

Why this is still a legitimate topic in 2005 is beyond me. Anyone who makes it into an issue on either side is a certified douchebag. Let's talk football, not melanin.

It's because the local leader of the NAACP has made it an issue recently & accused McNabb of being a "mediocre talent who "played the race card" by moving away from his roots as a running quarterback to become a traditional pocket passer". See this story for more detail:

Mondesire disses McNabb as a 'mediocre talent'


While McNabb does have some performance issues, it seems like outside parties looking to further their own agendas, have taken to turning his deficiencies into a social lightning rod.

[SD_Eagle5]

This is the type of shtein that makes me feel bad for Donovan.  I think John Smallwood's retort was right on the money:

John Smallwood | FOLDING THE RACE CARD

CRITICS ARE OUT OF LINE DEBATING McNABB'S 'BLACKNESS'


THAT I DISAGREE with the negative assessment Philadelphia NAACP head Jerry Mondesire made of Donovan McNabb in the Philadelphia Sun is irrelevant.

Mondesire, like everyone else, is entitled to his opinions, and more power to him for having a forum like the Sun to express them.

I guess what I'd really like to know is how or why the quarterback's performance, Terrell Owens' self-created banishment and the Eagles' fall from Super Bowl to the cellar of the NFC East has evolved into a referendum on "blackness" in some segments of Philadelphia's African-American community.

In his column, Mondesire blasted McNabb as an average quarterback who played the race card. If McNabb were Caucasian, would Mondesire have been moved to go against his normal policy of not commenting on sports because "the games that grown men play pale in comparison to the great issues of racism, politics, social calamities, health crisis's, war, peace, etc... . "?

If McNabb were Caucasian, I am positive white people would not have been motivated to call into talk radio shows and debate whether the quarterback was a true white man.


But debating Donovan McNabb as a true black man is exactly what a good number of African-Americans in Philadelphia are doing since the Owens-McNabb flap became the focal point of the Eagles' demise.

It's fascinating that this has spiraled way beyond the confines of a football debate. And don't tell me it hasn't, when terms such as sellout, token, company man, Uncle Tom and other racially charged ones have been thrown into the debate.

What this black-on-black verbal violence has caused me to wonder is: Who gets to determine who is truly African-American and what is or isn't a part of African-American culture?

Is McNabb only sort of black because his parents, Sam and Wilma, stayed together and raised him to act like an adult when confronted with something such as Owens' repeated criticism?

When did handling a difficult situation with class and dignity become a negative in the black community?

Is Owens a full-fledged brother now because he stood up to the man while minstrel-acting his way out of millions of dollars?

Does T.O. lose some of his street credibility because he dropped his "hard-ass brotha" act and basically begged "Massa" to take him back as soon as he realized he really was getting kicked out of the house and off the plantation?

So what is the criteria for being black?

Allen Iverson "keeps it real" because he remembers his roots growing up in the ghettos of Hampton, Va.

Kobe Bryant is labeled as fraud because he grew up in Italy and Lower Merion.

So does that mean Iverson's children eventually will be branded similarly to Bryant because they will have grown up in a wealthy lifestyle of the Main Line?

Who gets to make those determinations?

Is it Mondesire? The fellas on the corner in North Philly? The black lawyer or doctor living in Chestnut Hill?

If my father left the streets of Baltimore to serve for more than 20 years in the Army because he wanted his children to have it better than he had, does it make me less of a black man because I grew up on military bases and in the suburbs of Baltimore?

If I got scholarships for having good grades and worked a job every day so that I could afford to go to the University of Maryland, am I less black than the man who pulled himself up through the school of hard knocks?

I get e-mails all the time questioning my blackness because I work for the Daily News, because I sometimes criticize black athletes, because I don't always say what some black people want or expect me to say.

So is growing up impoverished in the inner city an absolute must to be considered "truly" black?

I grew up in a school district that was only 6 percent black and was called a "stillupfront." Would it have been more accurate had they called me "little kind-of-a-black boy lost in suburbia?"

Damn, it sure hurt like I was being called "stillupfront."

If I don't subscribe to the "thug life," does that mean I don't subscribe to the black life?

Sorry, folks, but I'm not buying that. My roots are what they are. I am what I am, African-American.

As black people, the fact that we come from so many different segments of society should be our greatest strength.

Instead, we often let our diversity and the accompanying ability to bring varying perspectives to the table be manipulated into divisive tools that we readily use against ourselves.

So maybe McNabb really is just a mediocre quarterback with a penchant for choking in big games. But how does that make him less of an African-American?

And on whose authority does someone get to decide that?

[QB Eagles]

It's because the local leader of the NAACP has made it an issue recently & accused McNabb of being a "mediocre talent who "played the race card" by moving away from his roots as a running quarterback to become a traditional pocket passer".

I'm aware of what the guy said. My point is, it's obvious that Mondesire is an ignorant douchebag interjecting race into a situation where it doesn't belong, and there's no need to further explore the issue.

I grew up in a school district that was only 6 percent black and was called a "stillupfront." Would it have been more accurate had they called me "little kind-of-a-black boy lost in suburbia?"

Damn, it sure hurt like I was being called "stillupfront."

[Feva]

If it's a divided locker room or whatever, I can't be the one to bring everyone together and say, 'Hey look, we need to be together' -- like I'm Knute Rockne or somebody.

Hold up Donny... that's exactly what you need to be doing.

I agree that he's been getting a bad rap in the media lately and from political officials and all that, but as far as the folks in that locker room... he needs to be the, or at least one of the guys to be getting his teammates on the same page.

[SunMo]

the Philadelphia Sun article and Donovan's response, have finally made their way to ESPN.  so now it's officially a "situation".   

[General_Failure]

Has ESPN created a special graphic and music for this situation yet?

[rjs246]

This is what I hear in my head every time I read this shtein...

"Donovan McNabb isn't representing black people well because he speaks intelligently, doesn't call out his coaches or teammates, and is trying to become a pocket passer. This would all be just fine if he would only follow Warren Moon's footsteps and beat the shtein out of his wife. Sadly, Mr. McNabb refuses to do this and is therefore a scourge on his fellow african americans."

Try to tell me I'm wrong.

[General_Failure]

I believe McNabb could remedy this whole thing by wearing brighter, looser three piece suits more often. Also, a fedora.

[BigEd76]

"Donovan McNabb makes Bryant Gumbel look like Malcolm X"

[rjs246]

No passing from the pocket without a backhand to the wife's cheek first.

[General_Failure]

What if he scowled more. Would that help?

[SunMo]

maybe the next time Irvin comes to the NovaCare to conduct an interview.  Donny can borrow a crack pipe and "accidentally" get caught with it.  but he can't ruin it by smiling in his mug shot, he has to look really high to finish the reclamation project off.