Richard Sherman's father: Seahawks star "misunderstood"

Nearly two days after helping lead the Seattle Seahawks earn a spot in the Super Bowl, cornerback Richard Sherman remains the story in sports, after showing no lack of self-confidence on or off the field. Some are calling the player a sore winner.

It's not the Seahawks' win anyone's talking about or even Sherman's game-saving play, Don Dahler reported on "CBS This Morning." It's Sherman's comments that have people everywhere reacting. Relatively unknown outside of football circles, if you didn't know Sherman before Sunday's game, chances are, you do now.

Before the NFC championship, football fans knew Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman for his game-saving stops -- and the outsized bravado of the explosive defender. But the rest of the world may not have been ready for Sherman's live, post-game interview in which he said, "I'm the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that's the result you're gonna get. Don't you ever talk about me!"

It was a mixture of hubris, trash talk, and emotion-of-the-moment, and it set off a firestorm in the blogosphere.

New York Times sports columnist Bill Rhoden was covering the game and was stunned, even though he knows Sherman's reputation. "This went beyond just trash plain trash-talk," Rhoden said. "There's clearly some deeply, deeply, deeply-rooted resentment here."

Seahawks' coach Pete Carroll came to his defense in a radio interview. "That was Richard being Richard in a moment where you almost would like to pull him to the side, and take a knee for a while, then we'll talk to you, so it was unfortunate that it was so crazed, but that's who he is."

Sherman tried to explain himself in a blog titled "To Those Who Would Call Me a Thug or Worse," he says, "It was loud, it was in the moment and it was just a small part of the person I am."

Sherman, 25, was raised in Compton, Calif. He became a star football player at Stanford, where he earned a degree in communications. Sherman's parents tell CBS News their son is simply misunderstood. Kevin Sherman, Richard Sherman's father, said, "My son off the field is probably one of the better people you'd want to know. Everything he does is for other people."

But brashness has always been a part of him -- trash-talking players and reporters alike. In one sports show appearance, Sherman said to another guest, "In my 24 years of life, I'm better at life than you."

And it's the same swagger that's landed him sponsorship deals with Nike and Beats by Dre headphones.

Rhoden remarked, "Sherman has put a target on his back, and I'm not sure that's what you want to do when you're playing against Peyton Manning."

In a postgame interview Sunday, Sherman displayed his media savvy as a team player in a much more subdued assessment of his Super Bowl opponents, Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos.  Sherman said, "They're an unbelievable, record-setting offense with a hall-of-fame quarterback. I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic game."

Sherman has since apologized for his comments, saying he could have worded things better. It's safe to say the spotlight will be squarely on him heading into the Seattle Seahawks Super Bowl match-up with the Broncos.