Eric Dexter

Steve Young says Reggie White was so dominant that he could sack you whenever he wanted and would ask how your family was doing as he helped you up “Whenever I played Reggie, we had to talk about it all week. Like, what are we going to do? How do we make sure that we have enough people? Where's the 12th person we need to try to take care and help? That was always the conversation because Reggie was the kind of guy that could literally, at the line of scrimmage, just take people and throw them and move them around. And then I was down on the ground.” “The other thing about Reggie is Reggie was loud. He was all of that size in how he played. As I would drop back to pass, he would rush me, and you could hear him. He was just loud. And so as I'd drop back to pass, I would hear him, and I could hear him getting closer because you knew his proximity. And inevitably he would hit me. And as he hit me, he'd grab me. He was just a mammoth human. He'd grab me, and then he would turn back and fall backwards and let me fall on top. And then he wouldn't let go. He'd kind of hug me. And then he'd say, 'Steve, how you doing?'” “I still remember. Reggie passed away of sleep apnea. So tragic. Just me saying the story makes me remember him very well. And he's like, 'Steve, how you doing?' I'm like, 'Not so good.' We had made friends as rookies—well, actually as seniors in college. We went to an All-Star game together. He was University of Tennessee, Baptist preacher. Here's this Mormon kid. And so we were just two peas in a pod. My dad helped him find an agent because my dad's a lawyer and he'd helped me, and so they got to be friends.” “And so he'd have me, and then a few plays later he'd grab me again and pull me over on his back. And he'd be like, 'How's your dad?' And I'd be like, 'Reggie, let's talk after the game. I don't want to talk to you anymore.' Because I felt like he was trying to get to me because he hadn't seen me in a while, to catch up. He was sacking me to catch up.” “But the reason why I tell you the story is that you've got to understand what it was like to be on the football field in front of 80,000 people. You've got to understand the adrenaline and the money that's paid to the individuals to get a job done. So the intensity would always grow as the game went on, especially as it was more important.”