By Jim Gehman, Player Engagement Insider
Who is most surprised that Baltimore Ravens tight end Benjamin Watson is heading into his 13th season in the National Football League? Benjamin Watson.
“I honestly didn’t think I’d make it five years,” he said with a laugh. “I remember going to my first mini-camp in New England (as a first-round pick in 2004) and my mind was spinning with the new terminology and playing in the NFL and all the different pressures that come along with that. And then I had some major injuries, the ACL my first year, so I definitely didn’t think I’d be sitting here12 years later. I definitely feel blessed to have the opportunity to still play.”
Through 12 seasons with the Patriots, Cleveland Browns and New Orleans Saints, Watson has played in 163 games and has 434 receptions for 4,693 yards and 38 touchdowns. What is the key to his longevity?
“I think it’s a combination of a few things,” Watson said. “The skill set, the strength and the speed to be able to still play. I think I’ve learned a lot over the course of my career from other veterans; whether it’s a massage, a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, all the different things that we do to take care of our body. And I think that being in a family atmosphere, being married for going on 11 years now, we have five children, having that stability where I’m coming home at night and not out late. All of those things, I think, play a role in having longevity in a sport as demanding as football.”
Signing as an unrestricted free agent with the Ravens in March, Watson has arrived in Baltimore as a proven veteran, a team leader and a first-time author. His book is titled Under Our Skin: Getting Real about Race—and Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us.
In November 2014, the Missouri state grand jury chose not to indict a white police officer who earlier that summer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in the city of Ferguson, an incident that had garnered national attention. Following the decision, Watson felt compelled to write an essay and post it on his Facebook page. [www.facebook.com/BenjaminWatsonOfficial/posts/602172116576590] That led to being offered a book deal.
“It was funny because on my Facebook page, a lot of people said, ‘You should turn this into a book.’ And I’m thinking, ‘I can’t write a book. No way,’” Watson laughed. “Not too long after that I was approached by a literary agent. I really enjoyed the process of really spilling more of myself out and kind of digging deeper into why I felt the way I felt.
“I have some other things that I’ve written about [on my website, TheBenjaminWatson.com] over the course of the last few years, but this was a little bit different. If you can remember back to 2014 when all that was going on, it was coming off of really like two or three years of different police-citizen altercations. A lot of them involving black males. There was just this heightened sense of awareness about race during that time. And so I can remember watching this case and wondering what was going to happen.
“I remember the riots and everything afterward, and like everybody else in the country, I had an opinion about it. A lot of my opinion was based on my own experiences and a lot of it was me looking inside of things and saying, ‘You know what? Maybe this isn’t right that I think this way. Or maybe this is right.’ I had to challenge some of my own feelings when it came to this event.
“I felt like I wanted to express myself, and that’s always kind of a scary thing. Especially when you’re an athlete or when you’re representing an organization. You always want to be careful. But the emotions were so raw surrounding not just the Ferguson event, but the other events in New York and in Baltimore and in Florida with Trayvon Martin. All those things kind of built up and that’s why you saw so many people reacting in so many different ways. I was no different.
“I had teammates come up to me and say, ‘You know what? I was feeling the same way. I just didn’t know quite how to say it.’ Whether they were black or white. And so I think I was able to for that split second, be able to kind of capture a lot of different emotions that a lot of people had. I think that’s why it resonated with so many people.”
What does Watson hope readers will take from the book?
“My hope is that No. 1, people will see where they are on this whole debate and see some places where they need to change and then have the courage to change., And be able to be honest about your feelings without feeling like you have to defend yourself or feeling like you’re going to be labeled as a bigot or something else. I think that a lot of the reasons why we don’t bridge this gap are because we’re scared to say certain things to each other. We don’t know how they’re going to be received and we also don’t want to hear them. But if they’re coming from an honest place, that’s when growth happens.”