Summers were anything but vacations for Haloti Ngata.
Before he became a burly 6-foot-4, 345-pound defensive tackle for the Ravens who would emerge as one of the top run-stuffers in the NFL, Ngata was a teenager at the mercy of his father, Solomone, who owned a construction business.
So while his classmates could sleep the morning away and wake up just in time for lunch, Ngata usually had already put in five to six hours of work, laying down concrete, mixing cement and hauling away large slabs of concrete.
"It was hard labor," Ngata recalled of the summers he worked with his father from the time when he was a seventh-grader until he was a senior at Highland High in Salt Lake City. "It was really hard work, but it taught me a lot of things. My dad showed me that without an education, this is the kind of hard work that you're going to be doing. And it taught me about discipline and hard work. It was great that I was able to do that."
Ngata's experience echoes that of many Ravens players, who toiled away in anonymity as youths before enjoying the fruits of their labor now. From working on a farm to unloading baggage from airplanes to pressure-cleaning houses, many players endured tough jobs for various reasons.
Punter Sam Koch began detasseling corn in Seward, Neb., at the age of 13. Considered a rite of passage for many teens who grow up in the heartland of the country, detasseling involves removing the top part - or tassel - of corn to produce physical uniformity and higher yields.
"At the time, I was 6 foot tall, and some of those stalks were 7, 7 1/2 feet tall. And you can't break the stalk off. So you had to jump up there and do it," Koch said. "And the rows are this wide [places his hands about 2 feet apart], so you're constantly having the leaves scratching you in the face, and it's always hot and muggy. It was one of my least favorite jobs."
For his effort, Koch estimated that he earned $400 for four weeks of work. "In the end, it wasn't worth it," he said.
Like Koch, linebacker Tavares Gooden also began working at 13, pressure-cleaning roofs for a company owned by a friend's father. The company bought declining homes and remodeled them for prospective buyers.
Although he loved living in the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., area, Gooden said, he and his colleagues began to view the sun as a nemesis.
