Shannon Sharpe is a pro footballer with a hall of fame and a personality to match
The National Football League is the big league for footballers in which tight ends are the unsung heroes. They are always contributing to the team’s victory by doing little things that add up to become the reason why their team wins. Offensive schemes might use them as receiving threats but they are always contributing to the team.
Despite tight ends not being talked about enough, Shannon Sharpe is an exception. He is a very popular footballer who had his praises sung throughout the 1990s to early 2000s. He is considered one of the best tight ends ever and played a vital role in a lot of winning teams in his time.
Shannon Sharpe is a 55-year-old hall-of-fame elected footballer who has won 3 Super Bowls in his career. He played in the position of a tight end and is a household name now less for his football career and more for his fame through entertainment media. Shannon was an exceptionally skilled footballer but is a more exceptional person and it is reflected in his online presence.
Who is Shannon Sharpe: Childhood, Career and More
Shannon Goad Sharpe, born on the 26th of June in 1968 in Chicago, Illinois, grew up in Glennville situated in Tattnal County. He grew up in a poor household with his parents, Pete and Mary Alice Sharpe, separated when he was just a baby of three months old. All this made his childhood rough with hurdles he had to overcome. To make things worse his father died when he was a teenager suffering from lung cancer which left him without any prominent father figure for the important part of his growing-up years. Shannon’s grandmother Mary Porter then stepped up to lend his mother a helping hand in raising him and his other two siblings. His grandmother played an important role in his upbringing and who he became as a person. He learned a lot from his grandmother and his life’s circumstances. Living in a tiny house with multiple people under one roof was a challenge that Sharpe had to overcome. He shared not only a room but even his bed with his grandmother.
Shannon had to overcome other difficulties as well in his life as he was born with a lisp which affected his studies and his social behaviour. He wasn’t a very bright student and due to his lisp, his reading abilities were also subpar at best. He was later sent to a speech therapist to help him in the third grade but he still faced issues from time to time. But he was always good at sports which might have been a family trait since his elder brother Sterling also went to the National Football League himself playing as a wide receiver for the
Green Bay Packers
Shannon was good at football and basketball along with running track during his high school years and had found a father figure in his football coach, William Hall. Shannon enrolled himself in the Savannah State which offered him a scholarship, and started his road to becoming a legend from there. He played with the Tigers and in his last three years with the team, he went to the All-Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, where he was named the Conference’s offensive player of the year.
He was drafted into the NFL in 1990 but was considered a ‘tweener’ but the Denver Broncos decided to take a shot with Shannon. It was with the help of Chan Gailey that he got to stay in the NFL though. During his first years, he was continuously hitting a rough patch at whatever position he played, but in 1992 when he was given the position of a tight end to play, he truly started to unfurl his full potential. In 1992 he had 640 yards and two touchdowns, which were far better than his previous performances and the start of unlocking his true potential. Since then, Shannon Sharpe has never looked back and went on to become a legend in the league as a tight end.
The most notable thing about his career is that he had an incredible work ethic, where he stuck to his regular workouts and training, which he continues to date. This work ethic led him to win three Super Bowls and a Hall Of Fame. After he retired, he became a commentator on the NFL which started his journey on television as a host and entertainment personality. Even though due to his lisp being noticeable, he was removed as a commentator from the NFL, he continued hosting and now even has his own podcast by the name of ‘Club Shay Shay’. Shannon Sharpe never stopped working hard and became comfortable in his skin and now he is a major sports personality, interviewing other sports stars. Even at the age of 55 years old, he continues to take part in new things while taking care of his children, even if he did not have much luck finding a partnership that would last.
