INDIANAPOLIS — Standing at the dias, wearing a 10-gallon cowboy hat and a Lake View High School t-shirt, a noticeably slimmer Shaq Leonard is fighting back tears.
The former Colts linebacker affectionately known as “The Maniac” grew into the face of the Colts defense through his passion, high-effort playing style and ability to force turnovers. The Colts emotional leader didn’t just hear the doubters, the naysayers, the haters — they fueled him.
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Before Sunday’s Indianapolis Colts game against the Las Vegas Raiders, Leonard made his retirement official, ending his NFL career as a member of the Colts, the team that drafted him 36th overall in 2018 out of South Carolina State.
Leonard still remembers the Bleacher Report article that called him one of the worst picks of the 2018 NFL Draft. One of his favorite things to do before a game was to scroll social media and find people who picked against the Colts, pull off the upset and chirp back at everyone who got it wrong.
Proving people wrong helped him become not just a four-time All-Pro but one of the best linebackers of his era.
“I’m just grateful for the opportunity,” Leonard said. “I come from a small town, a small school. They wrote me off a long time ago, a long time ago. And just to be where my feet are today, I’m beyond blessed.
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“Mentally and emotionally it’s tough, it’s tough to walk away from the game but physically, it was time.”
Leonard played 16 games in 2021 recording 122 tackles, four interceptions and eight forced fumbles. He played just 17 games over the next two seasons, ending his career after five games with the Philadelphia Eagles. Injuries took a toll on Leonard. He said since 2018 there hasn’t been one year he hasn’t had a surgery of some kind. From multiple hip and ankle surgeries after his playing days ended, to the multiple injuries he battled through as a player, Leonard felt his body betraying him and knew it was time to hang up his pads.
“My body was just wearing it down,” Leonard said. “And then I got comfortable with being home. For the first time in forever, I was able to be with my girls and (son) Duce. Just being around them and then I fell in love with coaching at my high school. I fell in love with the process of making someone else better, making these kids better and giving them a role model they can actually look up to.
“They got dreams just like I had dreams. … I love to pour out every inch of knowledge that I have into them. There’s no better feeling.”
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Leonard admitted that walking away from football was tough on him. For a time after he retired, he couldn’t watch football. Seeing the clips on social media made him mad, and he wondered what his purpose would be during the next phase of his life. Then he returned to his former high school — Lake View, in tiny Nichols, South Carolina, population 807 per the 2010 census — to coach football.
Coaching football gave him a new purpose. His love for football returned and allowed him to come to peace with his decision to walk away from the NFL for good.
“I try to rep Lake View, absolutely everywhere I go, because my high school is the epitome of me,” Leonard said. “We’re small. On my defense we don’t have a player over 200 pounds. But one thing that we will do, we’re gonna give you absolutely everything we got.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Shaq Leonard retires as a member of the Indianapolis Colts