LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – The year is 2021. The Dallas Cowboys are on the clock with the 12th pick in the first round of the NFL Draft. The crowd in Cleveland is awaiting who the silver and blue choose. The Cowboys front office and coaches went with the Penn State linebacker, who hails from Pennsylvania, Micah Parsons.
Fast-forward to present day and the two-time first-team All-Pro took his first true road trip across the Lone Star State outside of Dallas (and Houston on occasions). It wasn’t for games, though. It’s part of the Micah Parsons Lions Den Football Camp tour that included a stop in Lubbock on day two of the journey, which Parsons said he had never visited before Tuesday.
“It just really shows the impact that the Cowboys have and the impact I’ve put onto these kids,” Parsons said on the packed crowd at Lubbock Christian High School’s football stadium. “I’m super happy to be out here with these kids today … I would say it’s just an extreme blessing you know.”
One thing Parsons expressed he wants the camp goers to take away from the event is to love the process that turns into a love for the game.
Parsons said he began playing football at four years old, which the camp in Lubbock had a group of young ones around that age. But, he said, it was the little under two decades of work he put in on-and-off the field that led him to the stage in Cleveland that late-April night in 2021.
“It took me 17 years of love, process, grind to ever even achieve what I did, so it’s really the process,” he said.
One parent, Sabrie Villegas, says she is hoping one day this can be a time the family looks back on when her son, Zander, is playing on a bigger field with some of the tools he took away from the camp.
She thanks Parsons for making a stop in the Hub City because it gives those outside of Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and Houston, for example, to experience a camp hosted by an NFL player.
“I think it’s great cause there’s a lot of kids in West Texas that we don’t get the opportunities of the bigger cities,” Villegas said, “so to have an athlete out here, look at all of these kids that are able to get this experience just he came to Lubbock.”
Parsons said he wants the attendees on Tuesday, who toughed out the heat, to leave with the mentality of a lion – hence the name of the camp.
What does that all entail? On top of having fun and competing, it’s about waking up every day with a purpose to do what others might not want to do, he said.
“I wake up every day with a purpose,” Parsons said. “I believe that in order to be great you have to wake up every day purposeful even days that you don’t want to do it and that’s what greatness is; doing the things that everyone doesn’t want to do and do it every day.”
Turning the attention away from the camp, Parsons spoke about a little bit about the upcoming year in Dallas including his teammate and former Texas Tech Red Raider Terence Steele.
Parsons said Steele is growing stronger and stronger each year. He said he has high expectations for the former Red Raider this season.
He credits Steele for also bringing the “iron sharpens iron” focus to practice, helping Parsons grow his game as well.
As for Parsons himself, he has one personal goal for this upcoming campaign once things come full-circle, actually, when the Cowboys kickoff the regular season against the Browns in the same city he heard his name called.
And it’s quite simple…
“Yeah, I’m going to be the best player in the world.”
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