NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— They journey of former New Orleans Saints player Delvin Breaux has always been unconventional.
After suffering a catastrophic neck injury as a star player at McDonogh 35 High School, Breaux skipped college and landed in the NFL after playing semi pro ball.
Now that his playing days are done, he works to inspire others.
The dream of playing pro football in his hometown became a reality for Breaux, but that ended like many other NFL careers in serious injury to his leg, but he continues to look forward.
According to Breaux,”I’m giving back to the community. Just retired and everything, doing mental health awareness bringing up conversations about that in community. We’ve got to normalize that more. Hosting camps, hosting mental awareness boot camps so people can come out. While we’re talking about mental health, we’re also getting fit at the same time.”
The journey of Breaux’s mental health is addressed in his book “Un-Breaux-Ken”, which chronicles his playing career, injuries, and how that affected his mental well-being.
Of writing the book Breaux explained,”It allowed me to be free. It was a thraputic process for me, I would say. It gave me the opportunity to get a lot off my chest. I have more chapters to fulfill so it allowed me to get a lot off my chest so I could open up for new things in my next chapter.”
One of those chapters involves the former Saint seeing his role with young athletes as a sounding board, hoping to help them on their journey, “It’s very important, especially getting out in the community, letting those kids know it’s OK to not be OK. But we don’t have outlets so me being in the community letting those kids know they have somebody to talk to I think is big.
He currently serves as an assistant coach to the Booker T. Washington High School football team and he see’s his calling as helping young athletes that experience injury navigate through that difficult time.
Delvin Breaux’s next free mental health boot camp is being held June 16th at Dillard University:
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