[Press Member 1]
Does the word "thug" bother you?
[Richard Sherman]
The only reason it bothers me is because it seems like it's the accepted way of calling somebody the N-word nowadays. You know, because like everyone else says the N-word, and then they say thug, and they're like, 'Oh, that's fine.' And that's where it kind of takes me aback, and it's kind of disappointing because they know.
What's the definition of a thug really? Can a guy on a football field just talking to people? Maybe I'm talking loudly and doing something I'm not supposed to.
There was a hockey game where they didn't even play hockey, they just threw the puck aside and started fighting. I saw that, and said, 'Oh man, I'm the thug? What's going on here? Geeeez' So I'm really disappointed in being called a thug.
[Press Member 2]
How did your humble beginnings that you started from shape the way that you play?
[Richard Sherman]
Well it really gave me a great base to understand that when you're doing something, when you're going out there and playing a game and doing that, that you didn't come from anything. You know, where you came from, not a lot of people eat every night. People don't eat every night, there's crime out there, kids who are born into impoverished situations didn't choose those lives. They didn't choose that. So you really take every moment and every play and you understand that it has great magnitude and it means a lot and you really take nothing for granted. You take no play, no blade of gra**, no nothing for granted and you go out there and you play with all your heart.
[Press Member 3]
Richard tell me from where you come from, when people say the word thug, does that sort of hit the bu*ton for you?
[Richard Sherman]
It does sometimes because I know some 'thugs,' and they know I'm the furthest thing from a thug. Coming from I've fought that my whole life, just coming from where I'm coming from. Just because you hear Compton, you hear Watts, you hear cities like that, you just think 'thug, he's a gangster, he's this, that, and the other,' and then you hear Stanford, and they're like, 'oh man, that doesn't even make sense, that's an oxymoron.'
You fight it for so long, and to have it come back up and people start to use it again, it's frustrating.