This week, hundreds of potential NFL hopefuls gather in Indianapolis for the annual Scouting Combine, where each team will be grilling prospects with random questions and tracking their athletic abilities.
While most of the players invited believe they’re a long shot to make it to the league, there’s one underdog who every bro should be rooting for—Jordan Murphy.
Murphy, a former fullback for the Colorado Buffaloes, might not be a freak athlete who’s going to run a sub-4.5 40-yard dash or even make an impact in most games given the position he plays, but, after living through the horrific 2012 shootings in an Aurora, Co. movie theater where 12 innocent people were killed and 70 more injured by shooter James Holmes, Jordan’s someone it’s easy to hope gets the chance to live out his NFL dream.
Appearing on ESPN to talk with Hannah Storm, Jordan Murphy told his story about that fatal night and why he’s motivated to overcome the odds to reach the NFL:
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Learning a valuable lesson from the night that he was lucky enough to not only live through, but also continue to do what he loves, Jordan now goes by the mantra, “Life is short; you don’t really know how many days you have,” which will only help him in his journey to the NFL.
Working out in Denver every day as he prepares for the biggest job interview of his life, Murphy, who holds a degree in business administration from CU, knows that, while other potential jobs are available to him, he’s going to give everything he has to live out his dream because others from the 2012 shootings lost a chance at living out theirs:
“I think a lot about the families who lost someone that night, the people who didn’t get to go home and tell people not to worry that they were all right,” Murphy said. “I still notice sometimes, I’ll be in just a normal public place and I find myself looking at exits, looking at people, like you’re Jason Bourne. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop looking at doors like that.”
Here’s to hoping Jordan Murphy gets his shot at the NFL, because there are a lot of people cheering him on.
[H/T ESPN, Yahoo! Sports]