I definitely want to be known as an educated person as well as being a good football player.
Ndamukong Suh
A lot of players have told me they see me as a protector of my teammates, that, side by side, I'm there when something goes down, and I step up beside them and for them when things get nasty. I play the game hard, and I play it physical.
Outside of my parents, it's my older sister, Ngum. She lives with me in Detroit and helps me with my day-to-day stuff. She's somebody I've always looked up to. When she was leaving high school and going to college, I wanted to follow in her footsteps.
I definitely see myself as a leader. One of the ways I've been lucky enough to lead and likely to continue to lead is just my actions and the way that I approach the game and working hard and being a player that steps up in big-time situations when plays need to be made.
My job is to defeat the guy in front of me, do it until he quits, and then wait for them to send in the next guy.
I guess I'm a fun-loving teddy bear. I've got two sides to me. Obviously, there's the football side that a lot of people see - the mean, ferocious, coming-after-the-quarterback guy. But off the field, I'm a calm, cool, collected guy.
Just understanding that if you're not growing up, you're just moving backwards, and I'm a person that I always want to grow and learn and not be the smartest person in the room, because when you're not the smartest person in the room, you're always learning things.
A great guy who is no longer in the league right now who is retired, Kyle Vanden Bosch, I learned a lot from him, and I owe him a lot for my success in the NFL.
I've always loved fast vehicles and looking at interesting cars.
I've always been in love with Land Rovers and Range Rovers. I own one and was able to make it a little more exclusive.
A couple of my teammates have the rare Ford F650 Super Truck, and they're kitted out with everything - even flat-screen TVs for movies and video-game systems in the back.
I'm attracted to Ferraris and Bentleys, but I don't know if I'll ever have a chance to own one of those.
Growing up, I always thought of Detroit as a basketball town because of the Pistons, but everyone says it's really, at its core, a football town.
I remember watching Barry Sanders highlights as a kid, and the Lions always being a fun team. I, personally, really never had a real negative connotation with the team. And I didn't really listen to those who did after I was drafted.
For whatever reason, Coach Schwartz and I weren't all that close at first. We didn't have that kind of relationship, really. I don't know why, maybe because I was a rookie, but I never felt real comfortable just popping my head in his office and sitting down to talk.
Coach Cunningham's my guy. Without me saying a word, he can read my body language and facial expressions and tell me exactly what I'm thinking and feeling. We're actually very similar people.
I'm a storyline. I'm the chosen one for negative stories and controversial things. If I worried about it all, I would go insane.
Mondays I sleep. I go in at ten, do my lift, watch the game from the day before. Tuesday is off, but I go in, lift, watch film. Then I have French toast with my sister.
It's not the norm, I guess, to see someone as aggressive as me being more or less very athletic. You see me running, having a big, violent hit, it's going to look bad, but that's the natural ability I've been given. Why would I let it run to the wayside and not use it?
Football is a violent sport. Somebody's going to get hurt. It's the game. Just hopefully, you're on the good side of it.
A dirty player is somebody who ultimately is trying to hurt somebody. There's a huge difference. There's no gray in that. Like, you have no conscience, no nothing, no guilt. I don't have that mean streak in me. I don't play angry. It's not anger.
You learn from your mistakes, or you go backward. I'm the kind of person who wants to move forward.
If you find my aggressive and dominating play dirty, then that's your opinion. But I would assume most people want someone who is going to do anything and everything within the lines to win for their team, because I know I would.
I understand there's damage control to do on my image, but people are always gonna have their opinion of me no matter what. I understand 100 people may like me and 1,000 people may hate me. That's fine.
You continue to build and work on new things, and continue to beat offensive linemen, week in and week out.
The game of football, especially in the NFL, is all about situations, and coming out on the big end of that stick.
I think any football is a guy that is able to one, be able to be humble and hungry off the field, but at the same time on the football field understand what they have to get done and be a little bit ferocious.
Defensive players kind of have that two-faced kind of way of being able to be very aggressive on the football field and going out there and getting there job done. At the same time, from my own incidents and my own personality, I'm much a person that's very likable and lovable.
I think it's very, very tough to compare postseason and in-season, just for the simple fact that there's the heightened levels of energy on both sides of the ball.
I was a defensive lineman coming out of high school who was considered amongst the top... maybe the top six guys, top five guys, and wanted to prove to my team that I was going to be a top guy going into college.
The players who said I am the dirtiest player in the league, it's ultimately their opinion, but I would love to hear from many of them on their true opinion on that.
I don't think one moment in somebody's life is going to define them.
Coach Bo Pelini and coach Carl Pelini are two coaches I talk to on a regular basis, especially coach Bo. They are coaches I feel elevated my game.
I wish that people had an opportunity to watch me 24/7, like on 'Big Brother.' You'd see a person who is quiet and reserved and very analytical - a huge observer.
Really, you just play football; that's all I can do... I don't change. I'm going to always play tough, hard - that's the way I was brought up at Nebraska, where I really learned football from the Pelinis and that staff and continue to play hard, play blue-collar football.
