Sir Purr
Well-known member
- Mar 16, 2019
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He walked into the media room already struggling to contain the emotions.
“Allergies are bad this time of year,” he joked as he took a seat.
He tried to start speaking but couldn’t. He needed a few moments to gather himself.
“To think back to March of 2003. I came here on a visit. A nobody,” Delhomme told reporters before taking another long pause. “I apologize. These are joyful emotions that I’m feeling. That’s the honest to God truth.
“When I signed here in ’03 I wanted a chance to play quarterback in the NFL. I got that chance, and I think I made the most of it. I ran with it and we had a good run.”
As for the extremely emotional goodbye? That’s emblematic of Delhomme. His emotions were always out in the open.
“That’s me. That’s who I am, and I went with it,” Delhomme said. “I knew I would be emotional, but it was the people walking into it who were all there. To see their emotions, it really got the best of me. That’s what embodied what I believed about this organization. It wasn’t just the players, it was the office staff to the equipment staff to the trainers to (team ambassador) John Coleman – just everything. This was my place. It rarely ends storybook in the NFL, it just doesn’t. And I knew that.”
Well, it does have a storybook ending after all.
Delhomme was once a nobody. Then he led the Panthers to their first Super Bowl appearance in his first year as a full-time starter.
Now he’s going into Carolina’s Hall of Honor.
“I never entertained that thought,” Delhomme said of it ending this way. “I cared more about the relationships I had with the people in the building. That was kind of my deal. And then did we win or lose? It’s a huge honor. Difficult to put into words.”