Jerome Bettis Says He Sold Crack, Shot At Drug Dealers While Growing Up In Detroit
By Dan Jenkins
@DanTJenkins
Growing up in Detroit in the 1980s, NFL Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis was ranked by many as the top football player in the state while he attended Mackenzie High School.
Living in an impoverished home in the inner city, Bettis and his brother turned to selling drugs to help with finances, he said on "In Depth with Graham Bensinger."
"The mindset was, we're in the hood, mom and dad are working their butts off, there's no money around and we need to make some money," Bettis said. "So we said, you know what, let's give it a shot. It was one of those moments you regret. But at the moment, that was the only thing that was really available to us. That's the disheartening part of it all, is that here you had two young men and this was the opportunity that was available. So we took it. We took it and we sold drugs."
Bettis said that he often carried a gun and even shot at other drug dealers a few times.
"That wasn't something I ever wanted to glorify, because I know in retrospect that was awful," Bettis said. "Here you are in the position to take someone's life. That's never a good thing."
Bettis went on to talk about how a conversation with his high school football coach helped turn his focus to sports instead of crime.
"I thought I was pretty good, but I didn't think I was that good," Bettis said. "That moment affected my life and helped me and showed me I can be a better person, a different person."
The rest is history -- Bettis played 13 years as a running back in the NFL after being drafted 10th overall in 1993 out of Notre Dame. He won Super Bowl XL with the Steelers in Detroit in 2006 and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2015.
