Andre Hal Retiring

red5rocket · Apr 2, 2019

Fulgore said: ↑

Eric Berry?
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Think we'll just "draft" one now

zeeshan2 · Apr 2, 2019

K-Low_4_Prez · Apr 2, 2019

He says its not health related but its hard to imagine he would have retired if the cancer never happened... Regardless i wish him the best!

zeeshan2 · Apr 3, 2019

red5rocket · Apr 3, 2019

zeeshan2 said: ↑

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Just need him to be happy

zeeshan2 · Apr 3, 2019

red5rocket said: ↑

Just need him to be happy
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Once Andre Hal retired from the NFL, he returned home with no desire to celebrate. Instead, after delivering his decision to the Texans at NRG Stadium, Hal just wanted to sleep. "I was exhausted," he told The Athletic. "I had too many phone calls, too many text messages coming through. I needed to take a nap because I was getting a headache."

Hal, a former seventh round pick, spent all five of his professional seasons in Houston, where he was a regular contributor to the Texans’ secondary. He converted from cornerback to safety while recording 12 career interceptions and overcame Hodgkin’s lymphoma before returning to the field last season. He inspired his teammates, and then he elected to retire. The surprising nature of Hal’s decision helped give way to that flood of messages and calls he received on Tuesday. The 26-year-old defender retired with two years and potentially more than $7 million remaining on his contract. He’ll miss his teammates and knows it’ll feel weird to watch the Texans on TV next season. Still, Hal said this unexpected decision is what’s best for him. He explained why in a conversation with The Athletic, and what follows has been edited for brevity and clarity.

So why did you decide to retire? Why now?
After I beat cancer, I returned to the field during the same week that my dad died from a heart attack. My relationship with my dad was tied to football, so after he passed, the love of football passed with him. Once I played a couple of games following his passing, I realized that I had made it to the NFL and back to the field for him. Like me, he was a defensive back. He played football in high school and at a junior college, but he didn’t make it to the NFL. So me making it to the NFL was his big thing, and my whole family enjoyed watching me play football. Without my dad, I can’t be Andre Hal on the field and work hard and put my all into football. I wasn’t able to do that anymore. I had to wrap it up. It’s not fair to the team. It’s not fair to me.

How much did your dad involve himself in your football career?
He started it. He put the ball in my hands at a young age. He was a guy who really pushed me toward football and really taught me pretty much all I know. He was the chain guy at my high school football games, so he would be coaching me on the sidelines. Your dad died the same week you made your return to the field, Week 7 at Jacksonville. Did you sense you were losing your passion for football during that first game back? There were so many emotions in that Jacksonville game, so I didn’t really begin to feel this way then. I got hurt in that game against the Jaguars and was out for the following two games. I came back, and it didn’t feel the same. It didn’t feel the same without my dad being a fan. It was a weird feeling, and it just kind of stuck. After the season was over with, I had a lot of time to think about it, and the thought continued to arise: My dad passed, and football passed with him. It was just tough to get myself going every morning, to go work out and be committed to the game like I want to. In high school, I was so committed to it. Once I felt like I couldn’t put that much time into it and couldn’t put that much effort into it no more, it was time to move on.

Before your dad passed and you returned to the field, you were battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Did having cancer also influence how much importance you placed on football?
Cancer pushed me toward getting back on the field to play football, because I knew it was going to inspire people to see me on the field. So cancer didn’t have anything to do with my retirement. It was just a matter of me sitting down and really thinking about it, which I was able to do during the offseason. I didn’t want to make a rapid decision. I wanted to make a decision and know what I was doing. I began to feel at peace with this decision about a month ago. I spent part of the offseason interning at Headspace, a guided meditation app, and after that I was thinking, You know what Dre, you’re not really into football no more. All through my life, I had never stopped playing, never stopped training for football. That internship was my first time doing something other than football. It told me that I can function without football. I kind of proved it to myself. But I was in the phase of wanting to retire anyway, so the internship didn’t sway my decision. It simply supported what I was already feeling. I mostly just needed time to get my mind set on not playing again. This is a tough sport. You’ve got to be all in to do this. You can BS a normal job, but you can’t BS football. I’m not the guy to BS it for my team or the coaches. They all put too much time in for a guy to go out there and BS and play around. I wasn’t interested in messing with my teammates, messing with myself, messing with the Texans organization because they gave me my chance.

When did you finally decide you were retiring?
Probably last week. I talked to my mentor, Reggie Williams, who was one of my trainers growing up. I called him one day and said I was thinking about shutting it down. He asked if I still loved football. I said the love for it is leaving me, and then he said I had to stop. He played football before, so he knows that once you lose your love for it, it’s hard to go out there and go through training camp, go through OTAs, go through these hard, tough games.

You said you started to feel your love for the game fade toward the end of last season. What does it feel like to go through the grind of the NFL while you’re losing that passion for the sport?
It’s hard, man. It takes so much time to get prepared for the whole week. You practice the whole week for one game. It takes a lot to get prepared mentally, physically, emotionally. It takes a lot to play in an NFL game. I wanted to go out there and do my best, give my best every single game. I wanted to be prepared. So it was kind of tough for me to go and do that the last eight weeks, just to push myself to get to where I wanted. I couldn’t continue to do this for a whole other year. It was going to be even harder to do it for a whole other year.

What was the hardest part of pushing through at the end?
There wasn’t anything in particular I didn’t look forward to; it was just the whole process in general. But my teammates motivated me. I built a strong relationship with those guys, especially going through what I went through and those guys being there for me. J.J. Watt, Johnathan Joseph, Kareem Jackson, Aaron Colvin — I just looked at them and thought, I have to get up today and play for those guys. It was a selfless thing. I put those emotions to the side and kept on grinding through. But after a while, you can’t continue to do that. I had to be true to myself because I knew deep down inside that I was done.

Which teammates did you talk to about retirement while you made your decision?
I didn’t talk to too many teammates because I didn’t want it to get out there, but I talked to Aaron Colvin a little bit, just sporadically. We’re close because he was my locker neighbor, so me and him talked about a lot. He gave some great advice, actually. We talked about how God is going to show me the right way to go.

What did Aaron Colvin say that resonated with you?
You’re going to know when you know. He kept on saying that. You don’t have to force yourself to feel a certain way. It’s going to come. And that’s what happened. After a while, it all clicked for me. You do it for so long that you’re afraid of change, but change is inevitable. You’re going to face it sooner or later. I just had to face it.

So when did you tell the Texans?
I told them Tuesday. I wanted to be a man about it and tell them in person. I didn’t want to do it through text message or over the phone. I talked Brian Gaine, Bill O’Brien and Romeo Crennel. I told them face-to-face how I was feeling. I appreciated them respecting my decision and not trying to talk me out of it. RAC (Crennel) said I made the right decision for myself. He gave me a big hug, told me he loved me. It was kind of a father-son moment. I’ll never forget that. RAC is one of the best guys I’ve been around.

How’d you feel when you left NRG Stadium?
I was there for almost two hours, just talking to the trainers, the head equipment manager, the guys I see every day. We reminisced about some good times, some bad times, all the times I was there. I was sad. Everybody was sad. But it was good, kind of bittersweet. Retiring was something I had to do. It wasn’t something I was super excited about. I’m definitely going to miss the guys, but it had to be done. The cancer diagnosis and all I’ve been through prepared me for this point. It prepared me to make a big decision, and it made this decision a little easier to make. I wasn’t afraid to just do it.

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zeeshan2 · Apr 3, 2019

Continued from above:

What’s next for you?
I plan to stay in Houston. I have some business ventures I want to look into, including in real estate. I’ve met a lot of people in the NFL and a lot of people I was introduced to at Texans events. Anything you put effort into, you’re going to succeed at. I put a lot of effort into football. If I take my effort from that and put it into whatever I do next, I’m bound to be successful. I’m just going to let it happen.

How long will it take you to get used to being away from football?
When training camp hits, I’ll be like, Wow, I’m really just at home right now. And it’s going to be different when I watch the Texans on TV. But I’ll keep busy.

What are you going to do that you didn’t get to do while you were an NFL player?
I’m definitely going to skydive, just to get that experience. Life is all about experiences now for me. I just want to experience everything and keep on growing in life. That’s one thing I learned: You have to constantly grow.
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