Life was rough growing up for Reuben Droughns, but no one would ever guess that based off the permanent smile he wears on his face. No one would know he stayed in hotels at times, was homeless other times and dealt with custody issues. Reuben could have used his young life as an excuse, instead he just stayed positive and forged on towards a career in the NFL that lasted three times longer than most others.

Reuben mostly grew up in LA and when his grades weren’t where they needed to be, he went to junior college after high school. He played football and tore up the field as a running back – in 1997, he was the nation’s top JuCo running back. Soon he got his grades up and took his talents to Oregon where he continued to run like crazy and was 1st Team All-Pac 10 his senior year.

He was a 3rd round draft pick by the Detroit Lions in 2000 and would get traded a few times and spend time with a few teams including Denver, Cleveland and the NY Giants. After a nine-year career in the NFL, he tried high school coaching, overseas coaching and these days is just being dad, to FOUR girls. Of course he’s still always smiling.