Guest Columnist: Defining the Legacy of Pat Tillman

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Each week we ask a guest columnist to contribute. Today, it’s former Arizona Cardinals' coach Dave McGinnis on the legacy of former defensive back Pat Tillman. Tillman was killed 19 years ago in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004.)

Someone recently reminded me that Saturday is the 19^th anniversary of Pat Tillman’s passing and asked if I think more now about what he meant to me, his teammates, family and friends than at any other time of year. I told him the truth.

I told him no. Because Pat Tillman is always with me.

I coached eight Hall-of-Fame players in my 31 years of coaching in the National Football League, and I’ve been around thousands of others, but nobody … nobody … had the impact on my life that Pat Tillman did. I’m not talking about as just a football player. I’m talking about as an individual who was totally unique.

We cross paths with unique people maybe once in a lifetime -- if we’re lucky -- and when we do, we recognize it fairly quickly. So let me say it again so you understand: Pat Tillman was a unique man. Everything about him stood out for all the right reasons -- from getting the last scholarship given out by Arizona State University…to becoming the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year …to overcoming critics who insisted he’d never cut it in the NFL

I knew it immediately when I was defensive coordinator at Arizona, and we drafted him in the seventh round in 1998. About four days afterward, he walked into my office and asked if he could see me. He said he had something he wanted to tell me. So I listened.

“Coach,” he said, “I know why you drafted me."

Now, keep in mind, Arizona State had just gone to the Rose Bowl and played a great game against Ohio State. That was a special Arizona State Sun Devils team, and they were a really hot item in the Valley. So was Pat Tillman, but that’s not why he was there.

“Look, I’m a local guy,” he said. “I know you think I could be a good special-teams player and maybe put more people in the stands. But I’m asking you: Just spend some time with me, and I’ll be more than that. I’ll be your starting safety.”

So I did. And he was.

But Pat Tillman was so much deeper than someone trying to be a starting safety in the National Football League. Everything he did he did with a passion. When people ask about his legacy, I tell them there are three things that Pat Tillman embodied: Honesty, integrity and dignity … in everything he did. He was brutally honest, and he was very, very loyal.

After his third year of playing for us, for instance, he was a restricted free agent and had such a big offer from the Rams that I thought for certain we’d lose him. It was for a lot more money than he was making with us. But three days later, he’s in the building. So I asked him, “Patty, what are you doing?” And he said, “I’m staying here because you guys believed in me. To leave for money just isn’t right.”

Now, let me ask you: Who does that? I think we all know the answer.

But that was Pat Tillman. When you’re around people like that, you feel humbled. He thought so much deeper than I could ever imagine, and it was all genuine. To make the life-changing commitment that he and his brother, Kevin, and Pat’s wife, Marie – because they’d just gotten married … made to go into the U.S. Army … that whole thing was thought out, and it was thought out with a purpose in mind.

I never asked him, “Are you sure you want to do this?” I knew he thought it out. But what I did ask was, “Have you thought this thing through, as far how big a deal it’s going to be with the media? This is going to be a huge story. How are you going to handle that?” And he looked me in the eye and said, “I’m not. You are. You’re good at this.”

And he never did. He never talked about it once.

Pat Tillman never wanted to be anything out of the ordinary. He never, ever, wanted credit for what he was doing. He became a leader on our football team as a seventh-round draft pick but never put himself out front. He was clearly the guy people looked to, but he never tried to make himself the focal point. It was always much bigger than him all the time.

After his first tour of duty overseas, he and Kevin returned to the United States and were stationed at Ft. Lewis (Washington). Pat had a chance to go back to the NFL before his tenure was up, but he said, “No, I made a commitment, and this is what I’m going to do.” I know because I spent a Saturday night in my hotel suite in Seattle, the night before our game with the Seahawks, with him and Kevin, Marie and their friends from high school. And what struck me that evening listening to them was how deep their thoughts … and conviction … were about what they were doing.

When you think about Pat Tillman, what you have to understand is that what he did was truly not about anything other than a sense of duty that he felt. People who never knew Pat really don’t understand the depth to which this guy lived. His legacy is much more than a football player willing to forego his career to join the military.

So when people ask me if I think of him this time of year … just before the draft … well, of course, I do. How couldn’t I? There’s a great sense of loss that is always there. But it’s no greater than at any other time of year because I always carry Pat Tillman in my heart for a lot of different reasons.