Miami Dolphins linebacker David Long Jr. turns tragedy, adversity into motivation
MIAMI - Miami Dolphins linebacker David Long Jr. has endured tragedy after tragedy in his life.
When he was in college, he lost cousins to gun violence. Later, his brother Keith would suffer the same fate.
Long recently welcomed CBS News Miami into his home and showed us that he's not letting tragedy define him. In fact, he's using this inspiration to make the most out of his life.
Long's fortress of solitude is his kitchen. On this day, our cameras caught the linebacker pouring himself a glass of wine, then pouring himself into this meal, delighting in his work along the way.
This is the process of the Dolphins' leading tackler from a year ago, thinking about life outside football, preparing himself for the future while prepping a meal fit for an NFL linebacker.
He talked about his immediate goals.
"Like, what type of man do I want to be honest? I want to have a family in a few years. Like, gotta teach somebody to teach my son. Or, yeah, you know, pass something along, something along. So, like, sometimes if you want to go outside the box, everybody tell you stick the football, or they don't think you focusing on the main thing. But it ain't even that. It's just like, eventually this has to come to an end. I'm saying. So, what else?"
For Long, "what else" means dabbling in just about anything that piques his interest. From looking into flight school to being more open to the opportunities life in South Florida presents him.
"There's so much out here for me to for me to do, for me to experience. I couldn't limit myself to my environment. And that's why I do a lot of stuff back home, because, like, a lot of kids are just become what they see. No, I'm saying so, and a lot of kids won't even leave the environment. So, sometimes you just got to bring it right. Bring it to them."
While Long helps others, back in his home state of Ohio, he's using this kitchen as a way to center himself, getting lost in the process of creating something from scratch.
"So you're looking to maybe, maybe bring the volume down of right, of football, of life. You can come in here, put some music on, cook a steak, right? And everything else kind of just melts away."
"You feel me? Because my life is already violent. My sport is like me, but if I bring it home. It ain't gonna be. You feel me? So, it's like, I have to have a balance. It's dope to just like, Get out of my box. You know I'm saying? So I'm usually like, break to myself. Even doing this,"
But the only thing Long has to balance at this moment is how much steak and shrimp he's going to eat before we sit down.
At the table is where we find out how and why Long kept to himself for years. The first thing you notice when walking into his house is a large photo of his older brother, Keith. He was shot and killed in 2020 less than a year after getting out of prison. Long, who was a titan at the time, recalls getting the news.
"We had a game that Sunday night. It was November 2020, when COVID just started. And after the games, the next one. We go in the film and as I'm driving down my driveway, I get a call from my brother. I had two big brothers."
"The younger one called me like, what's going on? Like, what you talking about? Like, he said, they saying that Keith died."
"And I'm like, what? So, I drove, I drove to practice. We had meetings, and then after a break in the meeting, went to my locker, and my sister was crazy. My sister was calling me as I got to my locker, and I answer and she was crying."
"I was like, Okay, it's real in my head. I didn't say it, but I seen it, and I just, she was like, she said she tried to talk, and I just hung up. I couldn't I couldn't even bear to hear. So, right there, I just started, I started balling. So I went to Vrab's office, I told him what was going on."
"I said, I gotta go down there. This is Monday. We got a Thursday night game, yeah, against the Colts. So, it's like, my time is limited, you know? I'm saying, like, that's what, that's what people don't understand. Like, real life be happening, you know? I'm saying, and we still got to show up."
Long made it back for the Thursday night game against the Colts, with his mind elsewhere. He even gave up a blocked punt to make matters worse.
Then, he got a bad case of COVID, dropping 15 pounds. All of this happened at the worst possible time. He was isolated from the rest of the world. His frustrations bubbled up on the field.
It smashed him, but he felt every bit of pain.
On his gloves, the letters LLK, for long live Keith.
Long talks about being at a crossroads and whether he knew where he was.
"I knew I was at it."
"Grief is, you know, it's tough because it's like, it just never goes away. I say, you just, you just learn how to navigate it, you know, saying, um, so that's where I was getting to, like, you know, crystals, you know. So I still got like, like, um, like, energy, yeah, stuff like this."
"So, yeah. So, I get into sage and stuff like that, walking and just reconnecting with the earth and watching without, with just your bare feet, and I would just find the avenues to be, to be better, right? I could soak in it. Yeah, or I can just continue to try to work on it and I got, I got a therapist in Tennessee. She was a part of the team. Then I got another therapist where I worked out in Austin, which just helped me."
Long said during those few weeks, his outlook on life changed forever.
"I learned, like, sayings and stuff, like, be where your feet are. Saying it's like, are you here, but like, do you? Are you actually, you know, doing that because I wasn't, I wasn't doing that at the time."
Long was robbed of time with his brother, Keith. He used that lesson to make the most of every opportunity he now had in front of him.
"That's why I said, you know, taking serious even the smallest... and I'm being intentional, because it's like, yeah, I'm eventually have to do."
Long on how he turned the grief to work for him and his current state of mind.
"I'm probably the happiest I've been. Can't lie, not even like, with, just like my being in the Dolphins that was, that was, I would think that was a big move, as far as, like, my outside of the football Yeah, I'm saying, like, I made the move that was cool, as far as being with Jalen Ramsey and all those, you know, I don't, but it also was like the best for my mess."
"So, even just waking up and just seeing palm trees or just driving by the ocean, vitamin D, just that simple, just opening the sunroof and, you know, being like, tired, going to the facility, and just having to open a sunroof and sun and you understand just so just a different it's a different way of life that I'm living now. So, yeah, probably I'm definitely where my feet are."
