11/3/2022 0 Comments Gone home sam locker![]() Dressed in a brown plaid shirt dusty, scuffed cowboy boots and a belt buckle the size of a go-kart steering wheel-the world’s most affable cowboy, basically-he’s deep into a dissertation about his refurbished laptop. The retired QB hardly pays any attention. The flapping W marks the only visible suggestion across these 25 acres-no signed helmets, no framed jerseys-that the owner once played football for a living. The front porch is framed by two flags: the Stars and Stripes and a much smaller purple homage to Locker’s alma mater, Washington. The gate to their property is open, leading to the house, with its wooden beams and rustic charm, a swing set, outdoor fireplace and a pasture stocked with chickens and cows. The Lockers live a bit north of Ferndale, up where tractors are as prevalent as cars. While all six of the other quarterbacks taken in the first four rounds of the 2011 draft prepared for the ’15 season, Locker remodeled his grandmother’s home, then moved in. Locker grew up here, became a star here and returned here when he retired from the NFL in March 2015, at 26. The Bishops drove to see the Lockers one Sunday last fall, a straight shot 98 miles north from the Seattle suburbs to Ferndale, an enclave of 13,000 in the northwest corner of the state. And if I want to spend an afternoon at his house during the football season, he would love it if I brought my wife, Lisa, and our newborn son, Blake. ![]() If he’s to participate in any story, he says, he wants Jesus to be the main character. I worry that he might have just bared his soul to an audience of one. And yet when he departs that afternoon with a bro hug, he says he’s still not sure he wants to fully cooperate. He talks for most of the next two hours, answering every question. I want to know: 1) why he retired, 2) what he’s doing now and 3) whether he ever loved football. “I didn’t need to,” he says, “ ’cause it was my decision, my life. ![]() No one cares as he starts by saying that he never felt compelled to explain his choice in detail. None of them notice Locker, who’s digging into a chicken-and-rice bowl lathered in his favorite sauce. But questions about his exit persist for one simple reason: In this century, no other healthy and reasonably effective NFL quarterback has chosen to step away as quickly as Locker.Īround us, mothers push children in strollers, and two men in Seahawks jerseys scarf burritos. He remains wary of how a story about him might be framed he worries that his words could be twisted to suggest that he retired because he hated football or that he was worried about his health or that he’d had an epiphany watching Concussion. Locker agreed to meet, but not exactly to a formal interview. He introduces himself, insists on paying for lunch, gets really excited about Chipotle’s new topping (“I love queso!” he all but yells) and settles at a table outside, maneuvering a large umbrella for shade. So on a Monday three months after our first correspondence, Locker strides into the Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham, Wash., and extends a meaty right hand. Now he wants to meet at a restaurant where nobody stays longer than 20 minutes and he’s still not sure if he wants to tell his story, to reveal how he went from first-round draft pick in 2011 to retiree in four seasons. Locker, 29, walked away from the NFL three years ago, issuing a statement that he lacked a “burning desire” to play, then vanishing from public view. ![]() It takes a year of unanswered pitches, a half-dozen unreturned text messages, a voice mail and two calls, but eventually Jake Locker sends some GPS coordinates. This article appears in the April 23 issue of Sports Illustrated. ![]()
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