By Gregg Bell
Associated Press
RENTON, Wash. ó Rookie Aaron Curry’s first full day in the manly NFL included a not-quite-manly proclamation.
“I definitely take pride in being a Mama’s boy,” the fourth overall pick in the draft said Monday while being welcomed by the Seattle Seahawks.
Uh, this 6-foot-2, 254-pound outside linebacker ó with the shoulders of a bull, the speed of a greyhound and the low, imposing voice of James Earl Jones ó a “Mama’s boy?”
“Some people would be ashamed by it, but for me to be a Mama’s boy, with what we’ve been through, has made me so strong,” Curry said.
Immediately after his name was called inside New York’s Radio City Music Hall at Saturday’s draft, he hugged mother Chris, a high school biology teacher in Fayetteville. Tears filled his eyes.
“Yeah, he’s a crybaby,” Chris Curry said Monday. “We’re all crybabies in our family.”
She was in the front row, next to Curry’s fiancee, Jamila Abdul-Hakim of Charleston, S.C., watching her youngest of three sons arrive as Seattle’s highest draft choice in 12 years.
“Ever since I was younger, everything I did, I did for my mom, and my family. I have pride in being a Mama’s boy,” the 23-year-old Curry said. “I think it makes me a unique person.”
The second linebacker since 2000 taken in the top five of the draft was forced ó “court order, I guess,” he said ó to go his father’s house as a child, even though his dad had left before he was born. After a couple of weekend visits, he stopped going, relying solely on his mother for nurturing and inspiration.
“As far as his influence on my life, not much,” Curry said of Reggie Pinkney, a former defensive back with the Detroit Lions and Baltimore Colts from 1977-1981.
Seattle passed on a chance to draft quarterback Mark Sanchez. Instead, they replaced traded Pro Bowl outside linebacker Julian Peterson.
Curry will wear Peterson’s old No. 59 in Seattle. He is what team president Tim Ruskell called “the complete package.”