Daniel Rodriguez was the only player at Rams Park with a Purple Heart

The Daniel Rodriguez Story

Myles Simmons – Rams Insider

http://www.stlouisrams.com/news-and-events/article-1/The-Daniel-Rodriguez-Story/f90335f1-ad91-41b3-8484-a558503f8db0

During rookie orientation at Rams Park a few weeks ago, one wide receiver was with the team on a tryout basis. And after that weekend, the Rams signed the WR to their roster, a fact that still feels surreal toDaniel Rodriguez.

“It’s been incredible, honestly,” Rodriguez said in a recent interview with stlouisrams.com. “Coming here has been something that’s really opened my eyes — being surrounded by elite athletes and an organization that’s incredible. And I’m just trying to make the most of it.”

At 5-foot-8 and 180 pounds, Rodriguez may look like someone who lacks a receiver’s ideal size. But as general manager Les Snead often says, football is much less about positional designations than it is about the individuals playing them. And that is especially true when it comes to Rodriguez.

His story has been well documented — from an ESPN feature to his own autobiography — but it bears repeating. He enlisted in the Army following his high school graduation, a decision in part spurred by his father’s sudden death. Rodriguez served two tours — a 15-month deployment in Iraq, and a 12-month tour in Afghanistan.

During that second tour, Rodriguez was one of approximately 60 Americans who fought in the Battle of Kamdesh on Oct. 3, 2009 — one of the bloodiest incidents in the Afghanistan conflict. Eight American soldiers were killed and 22 more were wounded in the battle; Rodriguez was one of them. With bullet fragments lodged in his shoulder and shrapnel in his neck and legs, he continued to fight for more than 12 hours. Rodriguez was given a Purple Heart and Bronze Star Medal with Valor Device for his actions that day.

But that’s far from where Rodriguez’s story ends. Following his discharge from the Army in 2010, he began working toward another goal: Playing college football.

“After my second deployment in Afghanistan, I had made a promise to a friend that I was going to get out and try to play,” Rodriguez said.

Unfortunately, that friend was killed in combat.

“It was just one of those things where I felt that if I had any purpose in life, I needed to make sure that I kept my word to a friend, and live my life in a way that honored those who had died,” Rodriguez said. “I needed to make sure that I represented myself well on behalf of my friends who were killed. And that was just trying to live through a promise.”

Rodriguez says that sticking to his word helped him overcome a number of challenges — from substance abuse to issues in personal relationships. A significant part of that came from his strenuous training regimen.

“As soon as I got in the weight room, it was just an addiction. It just changed my life,” Rodriguez said. “I stopped doing everything detrimental to my body — changed my eating. I just devoted everything to it.”

He was also attending community college at the time, getting his grades up to a point where he could transfer to a bigger university with a football program. Rodriguez says he spent most of his savings to make a recruitment video, which he put on YouTube. At that point, the wide receiver was working out three times a day for a total of six hours.

The video went viral helped Rodriguez gain the attention of myriad college programs, and the wide receiver says he received a few offers from big-name schools to be a preferred walk-on. One of those was Clemson University.

“I didn’t even know where Clemson was,” Rodriguez said. “But I took a trip down there, and fell in love with it.”

He cited his meeting with head coach Dabo Swinney as one of the deciding factors.

“Coach Swinney was amazing,” Rodriguez said. “It was just one of those things where he wanted to invite me to the 105-man camp and I knew that I just had to work and put myself in a position to try to make the team. And it all worked out.”

As a walk-on, Rodriguez played in 37 consecutive games for the Tigers, which is a clear point of pride for him. While he appeared primarily on special teams, he scored a touchdown on a 2-yard end around against Citadel during Clemson’s 2013 Military Appreciation Day.

During his time at the South Carolina university, Rodriguez also made time to write his autobiography, RISE. Released Oct. 7 of last year, it was featured on the New York Times best-selling sports books list.

“It was kind of brought to my attention that people were starting to inquire if I would be interested in writing an autobiography, because at the time I didn’t realize that my life would be inspirational to others,” Rodriguez said, adding that initially he wasn’t sure he wanted to go through with it. “I never wanted to put myself in a position where people thought I was trying to capitalize off of the death of my friends and what I’d accomplished in combat.

“I talked with some of the parents of buddies who were killed, and I asked them if they thought if it was wrong,” Rodriguez continued. “And every one of them told me that I was in a position to show veterans that it’s not the end of the world when they come home. And what you’ve accomplished is so motivational, and can be so inspirational to so many people that we want you to do it.”

From that point on, Rodriguez says, he committed to the book. He teamed up with best-selling writer Joe Layden to help write it, composing the words through a series of interviews. The process was difficult at times because he had to re-live some particularly dark moments.

“I didn’t want to write the book in a Disney context. I wanted it to be very raw and open,” Rodriguez said. “I wanted to show that was the side of who I was and what I’d gone through to where I am now.”

Following his graduation in December 2014 — Rodriguez was a two-time academic All-ACC honoree — the wide receiver continued pursuing football by training at the EXOS performance center facility in Los Angeles.

“As a kid, I used to sneak downstairs and watch Monday Night Football, and I was always jumping over the couch for that game-winning touchdown,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve always wanted to be in the NFL, and every time I saw it in college, I always told myself that I can play at that level.

“There were many times when I said ‘college’ was that goal, but it was just that first step I needed to take. I wanted to be a football player,” Rodriguez added. “Being able to play it at the most elite level has been something that’s always been in the back of my mind. So when I had the opportunity present itself and knew that I was close to achieving it if I kept working out of college, I was going to take full advantage of it.”

When the draft came around, he wasn’t expecting to be selected, but much like his mindset in his recruitment video, Rodriguez simply wanted an opportunity.

“I was just hoping for a phone call, and it came the next day,” Rodriguez said.

The Rams were on the other end of the line. Rodriguez had talked to a few of the team’s scouts during his time at the Medal of Honor Bowl — one of college football’s All-Star games following the conclusion of the season. He also spoke with team officials at his pro day. And receiving the invitation to come tryout during rookie orientation just provided him with another chance to take advantage of an opportunity.

“When they invited me, I was like, ‘Heck yeah, I would love to tryout. I’ve got nothing to lose,’” Rodriguez said. “They flew me out here and I thought I was only going to be here for a two-day trial. And they said I had a pretty good workout, made some plays, and they offered to have me stay.”

“It was one of those things that I couldn’t really believe happened, and it was all a whirlwind,” Rodriguez continued. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I had invitations to other minicamps down the road, and I was just trying to take advantage of every one. And this one was the first one and it stuck. Honestly, it was a blessing in disguise.”

But even as he progresses into a possible career in the NFL, as this Memorial Day Weekend illustrates, his past experiences are never far from his mind.

“I lost 24 friends in the conflicts that I was engaged in, and I have a lot of friends who have military members in their family,” Rodriguez said. “For me, it’s a day of remembrance. I used to be able to go to Arlington Cemetery, and visit my friends who are buried there. It means a lot.”

“I’m very grateful that Memorial Day is so prominent and important in our culture as Americans to remember that day and acknowledge it,” Rodriguez added. “You can always kind of reflect back and put yourself in the position of others. So when people are thanking me for your service and they call me a hero, I always say, ‘No, my friends who were killed are heroes.’ And that’s what it always is for me. It reflects on what my friends did for this country.”