I go to South Dakota for ceremonies when I have the time. And when you learn what the Indian peoples have gone through to hold onto their culture and traditions... wow, it's an amazing story.
Coming from a small South Dakota school, it was a different route to get to the NFL. I went from South Dakota State to the World League of American Football with the Amsterdam Admirals, and fortunately I did well enough there that the New England Patriots decided to sign me and give me a chance.
I'm a South Dakota kid.
There are schoolteachers around the country that work second jobs after their teaching duties are done: one woman in North Dakota I spoke to was heading off to clean houses after the final bell in order to pay her rent.
The deal we made was that if we would change our law to invite them to come to South Dakota - that's what they wanted, the invitation - if we would change our law to invite them to come to South Dakota, he would guarantee South Dakota 400 Citibank jobs.
If you knew the upward mobility that South Dakota's kids have gotten from the opportunity to intern and to work and to be employed and to have upward mobility in that company and move on, it's been phenomenal for South Dakota.
North Dakota State. What do you have to do there to graduate? Milk a cow with your left hand?
Even at North Dakota State, football is a big deal.
Playing football in Fargo has a total big-time feel. Everyone says it's FCS and it's a smaller school, but in Fargo, North Dakota, and in the state of North Dakota, NDSU football is the real deal.
Coming from a country that's rapidly changing, I love the idea of a place like South Dakota where nothing has really changed.
