Ravens Q&A: Off-field tragedy has pushed McClellan

Undrafted out of Marshall, linebacker Albert McClellan lost his mother to cancer while adjusting to the NFL

Anybody that knew my mother knew that she was a die hard sports fan. Her nickname was "Sporty C." When the time came, she really didn't want me to come home when she got sick, when she was on her deathbed. She told me to stay here and keep practicing. I want to say that two weeks before Thanksgiving, I left and went home to be with her. She was upset with me at first, but I could see that she was relaxing and she wasn't stressing about the pain or stuff like that. She kept fighting. She fought the cancer for about three years. She was beating it at one point, but then when I was in college, they took her off of chemo, and she started having pain and bleeding again. She didn't let the doctors know because she wanted to watch one more football game. She fought it as much as she could, and once she saw that football game, then she told us. So she battled until the bitter end. She had attitude. She was stubborn, but she was going to make sure that she got her point across. Physically or mentally, she was going to get into your head, and that's something I try to do. You might get a shot on me, but I'm going to let you know either by talking to you or you're going to feel me. I've always tried to be like her.

So are you stubborn like she was?

I'm more like my father. He kind of played mind games a lot. He's one of those guys.

Did your mother have a background in sports?

She played high school volleyball, basketball, softball. I want to say she was the all-time leading rebounder at her high school. She went off to college and set a rebounding record there. She was a track star in high school. Until she had me and my brother, she was playing softball in college. But she kept playing after that. She played until she had cancer.

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