Darryl Hammond |
For more than two decades, playing football was Darryl Hammond’s passion. "Fourth quarter: I’m on the road, everyone’s against me and I make the play that wins the game and shuts the crowd up," he says. "You live for it."
Such experiences fueled Hammond through a career that included two years at U.Va. and a record 16 seasons in the Arena Football League. He announced his retirement effective the end of the 2006 AFL season, which came May 21 when his Nashville Kats lost to Chicago in the playoffs.
Hammond played for two seasons at Ferrum College before transferring to U.Va. in 1986. He began his Cavalier career as a backup receiver before coaches shifted him to safety for his final college season, where he was an honorable mention All-Atlantic Coast Conference selection in 1987.
Signed as a free agent by the New Orleans Saints, Hammond was a late cut from training camp the following fall, and completed his U.Va. degree before joining the AFL in 1991. In that league’s do-it-all world, the 6-foot-3, 220-pound Hammond was a standout receiver, defensive back and linebacker for five franchises.
In the offseason, he served as a graduate assistant coach at Penn State in 1994 and 1995, leading to an offer of a full-time job as defensive backs coach. Sorely tempted, Hammond opted to continue playing. "That was really the pivotal point," he says.
Now that he’s retired, "I have to work," he quips. He’s an assistant football and basketball coach at Nashville’s Ensworth High School, and has a burgeoning film career on the side. (He was Michael Irvin’s stunt double in the remake of The Longest Yard, and will portray former National Football League star Harold Carmichael in the upcoming movie Invincible.)
"I’m not going to miss [playing] at all," he says. "I played 16 years and got everything out of it I could."
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