Bears Icon Devin Hester On Retirement: It's Family Time After '11 Great Years' In NFL
(670 The Score) Bears legend Devin Hester has already accomplished two of his three individual career goals.
After announcing his retirement Tuesday, he can now eye his third one.
"Hopefully next time I see y'all, it'll be in Canton," Hester wrote in a message he released on Twitter.
Hester previously had his jersey retired at Suncoast High School in Florida and was informed he will be inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame in 2018. He starred at those two schools before doing so for the Bears.
Now, Hester, 35, wants to get the call from the Pro Football Hall of Fame after an 11-year NFL career in which he holds the record with 20 return touchdowns. Hester already has a selling point.
"When I did get the opportunity to get my hands on the ball, it showed what I was capable of doing," Hester said in an interview on the Spiegel and Parkins Show on 670 The Score on Tuesday. "It's an honor to have a team that says ... 'We're going to kick the ball in the lake, we're not letting the ball get nowhere near him.'"
Hester spent the first eight years of his NFL career with the Bears before later moving onto the Falcons, Ravens and Seahawks. It will always be his time in Chicago that he's remembered for, and he thanked the city.
"They welcome you with open arms," Hester said. "Everywhere I went, everybody was glad to see me.
"You walk in and sit right down, and everybody treats you like you're family."
As a rookie in 2006, Hester posted five returns for touchdowns. He opened Super Bowl XLI by returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown, becoming the first player in Super Bowl history to do so, but it was a punt return for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter of the Bears' comeback win against the Cardinals on a Monday night earlier that season that was the favorite return of his career.
"That return, at that return was one of the biggest stages that I ever played on," Hester said.
Hester is at peace with his decision to retire, noting that 2017 was the first time he got take his oldest son, who's 8, to school on the first day of the school year. That experience was that made clear to him what's most important in life.
"In the NFL, a lot of guys don't want to retire, you know, just because their financial situations have them feeling like they still want to play ball," Hester said. "But I'm at this point in my life where I'm happy, financially stable and have a loving family -- two boys, I got one on the way. Like can't get no better than what it's doing now."
"My wife asked me the other day, 'What's your plan?' I told her I at least want to take two or three years of not doing (much) -- I don't want to have to worry about nothing. No setting no alarms, no nothing. I want to put all my time into my family.
"I've had 11 great years in the NFL. I can't complain."
