Editor note: This piece was transcribed by Ryan McKenna. There may be some words in this story not suitable for all audiences.

Some people know me as Delvin Breaux Sr., the star defensive back for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and formerly of the New Orleans Saints.

Some of you may know my story about how I almost died on the football field when I was in high school after breaking my C4, 5 and 6 vertebrae.

While all those aspects of life have given me a platform for who I am today, it’s not my full story. 

It’s my time to share my truth. It’s time for me to get this shit off my chest because I’m hurting.

I have this vivid image in my head of when I was four or five years old. I’m walking up the stairs at my place in New Orleans -- where I grew up – and I hear noises coming from the second door on the right. It was a dark night and my dad came in from I don’t know where, but you could hear fussing and yelling. So I went to check on my mom because she was crying and when I opened the door, I found my dad on top of her and punching. 

I started crying.

That image still haunts me to this day and has stuck with me ever since. I’ve never talked to him about it, but I’m an adult now. I’m comfortable with telling my story because it’s the truth.

It was tough growing up in New Orleans. Actually, it was bad. I grew up in the projects and saw a lot of violence and drugs. Some nights you might not eat. Others you might be sleeping with four other people in your bed. It was dangerous. Up until my dad got some stuff figured out, around the time I was 7, we were living lower class. 

Football was a release for me. I started playing it when I was seven and it was a way for me to let go of anger. I was angry at the abuse I saw inside my home. It was tough seeing my dad just continuously beat my mom. As a kid, I wondered, “is that normal? Is that life?”

It fucked me up.

I knew it wasn’t right whenever I saw it happening, you know what I’m saying? But it continued, both to my mom, and me. 

One day after school when I was nine or 10, I was doing my homework and learning to remember the 50 states. I don’t know what the fuck got into my dad, but he grabbed a baseball bat and started beating me with it. All because I didn’t know the fucking 50 states.

I sat there crying and not one of my siblings came to help me. I’ve kept quiet all these years, but that night was the first time I tried to kill myself and it wasn’t the last. 

I kept on getting ass whoopings until I was 15 or 16. I guess that’s when my dad got tired of it because nothing was changing. 

It was 15 years too fucking late. I’m fucking scared already.

Everybody wants to know about my broken neck from my days at McDonogh 35 High School, but it’s bigger than a fucking broken neck.

There were two events in 2005 and 2006 that shook both me and my city. The first was Hurricane Katrina, which tore our city, but not our people. Seeing the Saints come back to New Orleans a year after all the devastation and play Atlanta … that shit was so crazy. Gleason blocking the damn punt -- that erupted the whole city. 

Having the Saints back was the pivotal point in which we needed to get our community involved again. We needed that. We were torn from Katrina and being able to come in and whoop Atlanta’s ass, it was a beautiful thing.

Growing up, I was a Saints fan, but I was never diehard. I liked Washington and the Eagles as well. I was hurt for a large part of my junior year in high school, but I still ended up verbally committing to LSU. 

That commitment made me feel on top of the world. I was a king. I thought I was going sixth overall to Washington in the 2011 NFL Draft. I already had it mapped out.

Almost exactly a month after the Saints came back, I had my own devastation. 

I went to go make a tackle while covering a kickoff and it ended badly. I felt pain shoot up my neck and back right away. When I looked up, I saw white lights; I thought I was dead. 

I had no idea the severity of the situation after my teammates encouraged me to get up. The mentality was to get some smelling salts and keep going.

Dad came over the asked me how I was. “Dad, something’s wrong,” I said. 

When I look back, I don’t think it was a bad hit, but rather a freak accident. I took my helmet off three of four times afterwards, all the while having a bone chip leaning on the artery to my brain the whole time. 

Later at the hospital, Dr. Miguel Melgar walked in and was holding up the results of the tests they had performed. 

“Son, how are you alive right now,” I remember him saying. “You are a miracle. You broke your neck, son, and should be dead on that field. I don’t understand how you’re in here right now. You’re my miracle boy.”

Before I left the hospital, I asked the doctor whether this was the end of the line for my football career. He took two steps forward and looked back.

“Send me two Super Bowl tickets when you get to the Super Bowl,” Dr. Miguel said. 

That man is my guardian angel. He had never done a procedure like that before and here he was saving my life. 

I got sent home from the hospital on Thanksgiving. That night, it was dark outside, and I was looking at the stars. The phone rang – it was Les Miles, then the head coach at LSU. It was so dope to hear from him because I didn’t know what would happen. Coach Miles said they were going to honour the scholarship they had given me because I was committed and loyal to LSU.

I said, “What? I get to go to LSU!”

After the neck injury, I found God, but even he couldn’t save me from my childhood demons.  

Those demons followed me to LSU in 2008. From the very start, it felt like the doctors’ opinions on me were rehearsed before they even met me. They wouldn’t let me play and it was bullshit. But then again, who’s to say my neck was ready? I was playing in the SCC after all and that’s some NFL level football. Not only that, but I wasn’t even doing proper rehab during all this. I figured it out myself by starting to lift one-pound dumbbells. I couldn’t stand being a damn bum on the sofa. I had to motivate and push myself.

I stayed at LSU for three years but didn’t care about school. I was just doing enough so I could possibly play football, but it wasn’t happening. 

My past was haunting me, I couldn’t play the sport I loved, and I went down a dark hole. I was drinking every day hoping alcohol poisoning would set in on me. I was doing some fucked up shit.

One night I took Vyvanse, popping six, seven, eight of them while playing a video game (Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – I was real good) in my room and pounding back Cîroc. I thought I was P Diddy with how much Cîroc I was drinking.

I was ready to go and was hoping my heart would just fucking explode. I kept waking up, but I didn’t want to.

That was the second attempt at ending my life.

And then in early 2010, I was in a relationship with a white woman and we had a disagreement. I pushed her against the wall – she wasn’t hurt -- and then I thought ‘Oh shit.’ It was like my childhood all over again.

My body was shaking that whole night. I thought she was going to call the cops. I’m a Black man with a white girl. Whatever she says is going to go.

So I'm like, fuck it, I'm going to hang myself. 

I went in the bathroom, got my towel and everything and I was wrapping around my neck. And I hooked it up to the ceiling fan. And I was just like, fuck it, this is it.

It was all stupid as shit. I’ll admit it, I’m dumb as a motherfucker. I thought God had left me. It was shitty. I thought He was going to be with me every step of the way. I was left wondering “why am I going through this shit?” 

Maybe God was telling me something. Maybe committing suicide isn’t my way out.

I had to tighten-up and find a way to forgive myself because I know what was taking me down those paths. My ex-wife helped me through those dark times. For anyone out there that’s going through depression, I hope you go and talk to someone and get it off your chest. I don’t want people going through what I did.

All this was happening as I was working my way back on the gridiron. 

When I got to the Louisiana Bayou Vipers of the GDFL in 2012, I couldn’t help think about where I should be right now: playing in the NFL with Washington.

God had other plans and I looked at it as an opportunity to get to the next level. My ex-wife was videotaping every game because I knew that’s what it would take to get to the NFL. This mentality landed me in the CFL in 2013 with Hamilton. 

Never once did I think Hamilton was my last stop. C’mon man. That shit was too easy. My dad told me in order to be at the top, you have to outwork everybody. My ultimate goal was getting to the NFL and I was not quitting or stopping until I did it. I was not staying in the CFL. Fuck that.

After two seasons and becoming a league all-star, I started working out for a bunch of teams in the NFL. It took 14 teams before my hometown Saints called me. All I could think was “C’mon, Saints. You’re my hometown team!” Going into my workout with them, I knew I was going to make the team. I wanted to be a part of Who Dat Nation.

Early on in my time at New Orleans, I was working out and Drew Brees walked in. I stopped what I was doing and was star struck. Drew came over and asked me what’s going on. I didn’t know what to say to him. It was amazing. 

My relationship with Sean Payton was perfect in the beginning because I was healthy. The minute you go down, though, that’s when you see people’s true colours. And we saw true colours. 

I played five or six snaps on a broken leg in 2016 against the Oakland Raiders – my second season with the team – because of the pressure I felt from Payton. Right after the play, I went to the sidelines and saw the trainer. I said something was wrong with my leg and they gave me two Toradol for the pain. You don’t feel anything when you take those, and I was playing the game numb. 

Payton came over to me while I was riding the bicycle and trying to get back in the game. “Are you going to quit on your team?” he says. “C’mon! Get back in the game!” 

He did this again a few minutes later.

I realized at that point I was part of the business now with all the pressure. So I said fuck it and put my helmet back on. I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and have Payton look over and make faces at me. Four or five plays later, I was down for the count.

Later that year, I returned to the field and was playing at 40 per cent. I asked the Saints to be patient with me, but they didn’t listen. I got hurt again in a game against Tampa Bay, this time my shoulder. I ain’t no damn machine, dog. It was fucked up. I hated it there.

And then there was the broken fibula in 2017. It was Day 3 of training camp and I was finally healthy. A teammate did a cut back and hit my leg – the same one I already broke. I went and got an X-Ray, but I never saw the results. Bone contusion – that’s all they kept telling me. But I knew it was something more. These are Payton’s doctors and his guys. I kept on asking for my X-Rays every day so I could get Payton off my back about not practising. 

I used to cry going to work because I knew every time I got through the gate, Payton was going to come say something. The mentality is “fuck the player.” That’s how they operate.

Payton started to tell me that my teammates thought I was lying. So I went and pulled Kenny Vaccaro aside and asked him, “Bro, what’s going on? Do you think I’m lying?” Kenny told me he knew I wasn’t bullshitting. My teammates never lost faith in me.

I got called into a room at the Hilton hotel two weeks after the injury by Peyton. He told me he just got word from doctors that it’s still a bone contusion. I said “I broke my fucking neck. If I say I can’t play, it must be fucking serious.” They wouldn’t listen and got me to start practising on a broken leg.

I could have ripped everything in my left leg! You think they cared about me? No. I could’ve jeopardized my whole career because of this man forcing me to get back out to practice! 

Finally, I slammed my helmet down during practice and said I couldn’t do it. The next day, Peyton comes into the trainer’s room, ignored me, looked at the trainer and asked, “When’s he going to be ready?” Peyton didn’t want to see my face on the field anymore, so I had to start training in the bubble. 

My teammates started asking me why Peyton was going at me like this. It was the worst. 

I had a fourth and final meeting with Peyton, who told me then that he was going to trade me to Dallas. I said, “Dallas is beautiful. Go and trade me, man. I’m going to be an all-pro over there.” Peyton slammed his fist on the table and said, “Don’t you call me man one more time!” It’s at that meeting where I asked to go get a second opinion.

I went straight to a doctor afterwards. He said right away after seeing the X-Ray that it was a break. “We’re going to have fun with this,” the doctor said. That’s when everything came out and the two doctors got fired.

After everything went down, Peyton called a team meeting in the hotel, but didn’t even address the situation. He started talking about Hurricane Katrina and how mistakes happen. It was his way of softening the blow. Teammates came up to me after the meeting and had my back. We had a player’s only meeting where some of the guys told me not to take the apology Peyton just tried.

I didn’t hear from Peyton for two or three weeks until one day he asked me to meet him in the special teams room. I just wanted him to come out and say he was wrong. I don’t understand why it took so long for him to apologize.

Players get forced to go and play all the time. I was once told my 50 per cent is better than a lot of guys’ 100 per cent in the NFL. People play so they don’t get cut. That’s why we take these pills. 

The NFL doesn’t care about you. It’s a bad business, but I’m glad I was able to live it and tell others. We need to change everything including getting more Black owners and coaches. I think they would understand us. Going through the situation I did, I think a Black coach would have understood me.

In 2017, I started seeing a doctor who gave me pills to help with my depression. But that shit sucked and I stopped.

I found out over social media early the next year that I had been released. There was no call and it was demeaning. Peyton couldn’t face me and that’s why I’m out of the league. I’m not in it because of him and his power. 

My agent told me people were scared of my neck. I had a contract on the table with Denver and its doctors had cleared me – just like New England shortly before that. I was at the Broncos’ facility in Denver and shook John Elway’s hand. My hand is still tight from squeezing his. He even told me “welcome to the team.” And then five minutes later, they pulled the offer and said they weren’t going to take the chance. 

I think there’s three reasons why this happened. The first was my health. But there was also the alcohol and marital issues as well. I was having problems with it during the 2015 season and turned to Fred McAfee for help, asking him if they could recommend me someone for AA. I wanted to stop it before it got bad. I was also going through a divorce at the time. McAfee went to Peyton and that’s how I think word was getting around the league. 

It felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders going back to Hamilton. I consider it my home there. I didn’t care about the money when I got back to the CFL. I just wanted to play the game.

My childhood was way worse than fucking injuries, though. I promise you that. I was mentally fucked for so long. But I could still go out and play football and be an all-star.

I’m glad I’m over that. I fucking love football. It helped me through all the dark times as I didn’t know where to put my anger. 

COVID-19 has opened my eyes to life after football. Honestly, fuck football. CFL, NFL, I’m tired bro. If we have a season starting tomorrow in Canada, you won’t find me there. I have too many great things going for me to play for 33 per cent of my salary. Fuck that. My life is important and I haven’t been thinking of football.

Instead, I’ve been pursuing passions and business opportunities away from the field. I’m not focused on the future; I’m focused on the now.

Two years ago, on a cold night, I was sitting with my brother and I decided I would forgive my dad. Up until now, I was a four- or five-year-old kid still hurting. 

In fact, I just talked to him today. I hope he reads this because I want him to see that his son was in pain. His mind was already made up as to how he was raised and he felt he did the right thing by putting hands on me and my mom. And you can’t talk to people like that who think they did right. I don’t think that was cool. 

Now, I’m great and in a much better place. 

I want to help inspire others and get kids off the street. I want to help the community. 

Because we all need a little positivity.