DeAndre Hopkins is steam-rolling toward the biggest sports event of the year: The Super Bowl LIX. The achievement is not only for him but for his mother, who’s been at the games cheering him on. Though, this win is bittersweet given she’d never seen him play with her own eyes.
Sabrina Greenlee has shared her tragic yet empowering story multiple times with The Root. In 2002, she was attacked by a woman who threw a cup of liquid Red Devil lye and Clorox. After a month of being in a coma, Greenlee says she woke up without her eyesight. Following the incident, she struggled mentally. Though, when she reached her breaking point, Hopkins was standing right behind her.
“I decided that I was going to end it. I had really contemplated this for a while. Where we live was four houses from the highway, so I figured that if I could get out of the house, I could touch each mailbox and if I get to that final mailbox, I would hear a car coming and I would throw myself in the road,” said Greenlee.
She said as she approached the second mailbox, she realized Hopkins was following her. He reached out, put his hand on her shoulder and guided her back home. The two didn’t talk about what happened for years.
“He had an inkling of what I was about to do. I didn’t even know he was behind me. I thank God he stopped me that day because it definitely gave me another chance at life. God gave me another chance at life,” Greenlee said.
In the years to follow, Hopkins would pursue a career in football, creating a reputation as one of the best wide receivers, per Arizona Cardinals. Hopkins began his official NFL career in 2013 with the Houston Texans. Now, he’s been traded from the Tennessee Titans to the Kansas City Chiefs to be their wide receiver.
Hopkins tells The New York Post that he almost lost hope in himself during his time on the Titans. The one thing he remembered was his mother’s advice to keep faith in himself. He also told talkSPORT about how inspired he was by his mother and her strength to continue on after suffering such a heinous incident.
“It gave me motivation daily to wake up and not complain or make excuses, especially in situations in Houston going through multiple quarterbacks,” Hopkins told the outlet. “I was like, ‘Man, my mom doesn’t make any excuses, so why am I going to complain about a situation if I’m doing something that I love?’”
It appears that mustard seed of faith he had carried him into the triumph of being traded to a team advancing toward the Super Bowl LIX.