Text Size
April 2009 | Home
U-M HERITAGE »
Hard times
What happens to students' values when the economy tanks?
Sports »
Lucky man
Jim Abbott became one of U-M's best and most beloved athletes, despite playing with only one hand.
Most emailed stories
- Exactly how much housework does a husband create?
- U-M Heritage: How to date women, circa 1943
- University of Michigan 2008 Graduation (Story and Video)
Ideas
Toward the end of paper
What does it mean when newspapers no longer publish on paper, and books aren't made on presses?
Health
Intense bladder cancer treatment does not improve survival
Patients who receive more tests and intensive treatments do not seem to survive longer than patients with milder interventions.
TALKING ABOUT WORDS »
Car names
Detroit's troubled auto industry has done more than build vehicles. It's also come up with a trunk-load of car names.
TALKING ABOUT MOVIES »
M-ollywood
Michigan is trying to turn itself into a mecca for moviemakers. So far it seems to be working.
Alumni
Carpe Diem
Former U-M football player Dhani Jones's new TV show, "Dhani Tackles the Globe," is about traveling the world—and living life to its fullest.
April 14, 2009
Dhani Jones refuses to limit himself to football. He paints, writes poetry, designs menswear (his personal trademark is the bowtie), does charitable work and, for his new TV show, travels the world. (Photo courtesy The Travel Channel.)
Back in the late 1990s, I was teaching composition in the U-M English Department. The football team was enjoying a great run of seasons highlighted by their national title in '97. Dhani Jones was a linebacking terror for those Wolverine teams. Jones was a mauler of quarterbacks, an express-train crusher of running backs.
But he lived a bigger life than his violent on-field persona implied.
One afternoon I was sitting in a coffee shop, grading papers, when Jones came in. He was enormous, of course, and handsome, wearing stylishly slouchy clothes. He stopped to chat with an English professor at the table next to mine. They traded appreciations of a poem Jones had been reading, and Jones showed her a drawing he'd recently finished. When Jones left, the professor announced, "That kid has changed everything I ever thought about football players."
To this day, Dhani Jones continues to upend expectations.
He's still a football player, and a good one. A linebacker with the Cincinnati Bengals, he also played for the Philadelphia Eagles (he was a starter on the Eagles' 2004-05 Super Bowl team), the New Orleans Saints and the New York Giants.
He's also a fashion designer with his own line of men's accessories—his specialty is the bow tie. He paints, writes poetry, performs charitable and environmental work and now stars in his own television show on the Travel Channel, Dhani Tackles the Globe.
The show's conceit is simple: Jones travels to a country for a week, learns one of its indigenous sports, and at the end of the week competes in that sport. His travels take him to Thailand, where he learns Muay Thai fighting, a martial art; to Switzerland where he competes in Schwingen, a type of wrestling; to the Basque region of Spain where he tries Jai Alai. Along the way, his coaches serve as tour guides, introducing him to local culture and history. He eats foods as varied as fresh bread and insects.
Jones filmed "Dhani Tackles the Globe"'s six episodes during a whirlwind off-season last summer.
In the show, sports becomes his entrée into local cultures. "As an athlete," he says, "I have an immediate connection to athletes everywhere. The people I'm meeting are coaches, the friends and family of the team." They bring him into their daily lives, and he shares experiences that a tourist would never have access to.
For all the beautiful scenery and cultural insights, Jones's charisma carries the show. He's vibrant and funny, and he clearly loves people. (It doesn't hurt that he's good looking to have been named one of People magazine's "50 Hottest Bachelors of 2005.")
Above all, Jones has a ferocious will to live fully. "I want to experience all of life the best I possibly can," he says. "At any moment, life can pass you by." On his website, he closes all of his notes with the admonition "carpe diem."
Jones competes in a schwingen match—a Swiss form of wrestling. (Photo courtesy The Travel Channel.)
Ironically, even a career on one of America's biggest stages—the NFL—can feel like a trap.
"In football," he says, "I become 'Number 57.' I lose a little bit of myself. When I travel or do other things, I regain who Dhani is. That's my recovery process.
"A fair amount of people believe athletes are one-sided," he adds. "And football keeps us that way; we have to put on a persona. It's not only athletes but African-American males. I want to show that we're not just a face, or a number on a jersey."
Jones is 30 now, and he knows he's "not going to play football for more years than I've already been in the league." He finds himself "taking on more levels of responsibility" both on the field and off. "I'm helping to mold players. I'm taking care of my nieces and nephews."
Asked to look back at his University of Michigan career, he says his fondest memories are of winning the national championship in 1997, and, as a special teams player during his freshman year, tackling an Ohio State player on his own one yard line.
As for last year's rough season, he can be forgiving, but he doesn't want to wait long for success. "We have a reputation to uphold," he says. Those high standards, he says, are "the reason I went to Michigan."
To this day, he says he's still "trying to add to Michigan's reputation." He gets the opportunity even when abroad. "Michigan's everywhere," he says. "I meet people from Michigan in every state and nation, every country in the world."
And so he refuses to confine himself to anyone else's expectations, and to encourage others to get out in the world and live big.
is the editor of Michigan Today.