CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The job was to observe stillness whereas talking. Instead, Richard Sherman began doing the robotic.
This was autumn 2010, Sherman’s fifth 12 months at Stanford University. He was enrolled in Engineering 103: Public Speaking. In an act of respectful rise up, Sherman carried out his inflexible dance. Some educating assistants noticed it as insubordination. Matt Vassar, the lecturer who taught the class, liked it – the scholar was critically pondering and expressing himself.
“He does want to think things through, think for himself, not necessarily take the word of the authority,” Vassar informed USA TODAY Sports, “but try things out and see where it goes from there.”
Those classes laid the basis for Sherman’s post-football taking part in profession: media. The concept of having a “post-anything” profession wasn’t his plan whereas majoring in communications at Stanford, Sherman stated – actually not 11 seasons in the NFL, a Super Bowl victory and fame. But Sherman’s vocational path has come full circle as a studio analyst for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video.
And what he realized more than a decade in the past serves as his broadcasting ballast.
“Your greatest know-how is in your own skin,” Sherman told USA TODAY Sports the morning before the Carolina Panthers hosted the Atlanta Falcons Thursday night. “You have to speak from there, that’s where you feel most comfortable. When you leave this room, you step out of your comfort zone, it gets rocky.”
It’s about making the material part of yourself and vice versa, Sherman said.
“The words are me,” said Sherman, 34. “It lets me speak it really passionately and comfortably.”
His teachers encouraged that vivacity – OK, maybe they instructed him to tone it down a bit to counteract his hyperpersonality. Anyway, Sherman knows it’s not a good idea to talk too fast. But he can’t lose the energy he enjoys watching. Delivery is what sets it apart in a crowded store.
The story goes on
“I’m like that all the time,” he said. “I keep that in mind while I speak to my boys.”
Example: While discussing the New Orleans Saints quarterback situation, I ask, “You all think JAMEIS (Winston) is the answer?”
Sherman arms himself with research, statistics and outlines. But it always comes down to being yourself.
“I just go in and think I’m at the hairdresser’s with the boys,” he said.