Blake Hall
“You could say he’s the key to all my success so far. That I got in the end zone and did that, it was just a sign to him watching down …”
When Rishard Matthews plays football on the highest level, for the Tennessee Titans in the National Football League (NFL), his late brother is right there, in his white and baby blue helmet, in his mind, not far from the routes, the play calls, the crowd noise. The memories he holds, in part, are what drives him. And why when he scored a touchdown a few weeks ago not long after Veterans Day, he made sure he performed a genuine military salute, upright, focused and proud.
“If you go back and look at my form, you’ll see that’s like a real salute, you know?”
(To watch the clip from the Titans game against the Green Bay Packers, click here)
Christopher Ruiz was killed a little over a year ago, in October, 2015, in a transport plane crash while working as a civilian contractor in Afghanistan. He left behind a wife and three young kids in San Diego.
“The biggest thing for me is just being in my niece’s and nephew’s lives and my sister-in-law’s life as much as I can,” Matthews told ESPN.com.
“It’s just normal, you think people are going over there and coming back and then you get the news he’s not coming back.”
The Titans’ wideout — who said that running out onto the gridiron every Sunday helps relieve the stress of losing someone so close — also revealed that his brother was, in fact, a good football player himself, but gave it up when he got involved in the ROTC before he joined the Marine Corps.