Super Bowl win would complete checklist for Evan Mathis
When Denver Broncos guard Evan Mathis began ninth grade at Homewood High School, he started a journal. He had his whole life mapped out.
He wanted to make the NFL, play 10 or more years and win a Super Bowl. Twenty years later, Mathis has already achieved two of three and is on the brink of achieving the third.
“The only thing that didn’t go that way was me saying I was going to play baseball and football at (the University of) Alabama,” Mathis said. “Then I was going to go to professional wrestling after football. I don’t think I want to do that anymore.”
Mathis’ plan was always clear in his head, but the road wasn’t clearly paved. When he arrived at Homewood, his head coach, Bob Newton, saw a 260-pound freshman with a lot of potential but a lot to learn. Mathis had to wait until his sophomore year to become a starter and it wasn’t until his senior year when he truly started to shine.
“I thought he was going to be a player when I first saw him,” Newton said. “Sometimes the bigger kids aren’t the most aggressive ones, but he got over it. He got even better when he got to college.”
Mathis helped Homewood win the Class 5A state championship his senior year and signed with Alabama, where he became a three-year starter.
Mathis earned first-team All-SEC honors in 2004, his senior year. That catapulted him into becoming a third-round NFL Draft pick of the Carolina Panthers, who just happen to be his opponent in his first Super Bowl appearance today.
The veteran guard brushes off any notion that there was extra motivation playing against the team that drafted and subsequently gave up on him. He's totally focused on the special opportunity he’s had in Denver, which signed him in August to be the starting left guard.
Mathis spent the best four years of his career in Philadelphia, where he became an All-Pro and one of the best guards in the league. Last June the Eagles released him during a contract dispute. Soon after Mathis signed with the Broncos.
“I felt really good about it when I signed here and once I got here I saw the culture, the character that the organization, coaching staff and players are all about and I felt better and better about my decision,” Mathis said.
Now, he’ll be playing in his first Super Bowl.
Mathis’ strength got him into football, but it’s something deeper that kept Mathis in the NFL as a starting guard at age 34.
“Very smart, very intelligent,” Newton said. “Sometimes it got him in trouble. We’re real proud of him. He’s making the hometown boys out here real proud of him.”
Mathis is loyal to his Alabama roots and said he knows friends and family back home will be cheering him on today.
Newton texts him weekly to wish him luck or give him some motivation, such as earlier this season when Mathis was battling hamstring and ankle injuries.
The Broncos inserted rookie guard Max Garcia to replace Mathis at the time. Mathis was a healthy scratch against Pittsburgh in the regular-season matchup. Newton told him his time would come soon.
Once Mathis got healthy, he got his starting job back. He’ll be a huge component for a Broncos offense as it tries to protect quarterback Peyton Manning against the Panthers' physical front.
“Somebody asked me the other day who I’m going for and I said I’m going for Evan. I got more invested in him than anybody,” Newton said.