The Weight We Carry: Ricardo Lockette on Loss and Healing

Michael Gervais (0:02)

The Super Bowl becomes everything. There is so much noise.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (0:07)

You have three hours to tell everybody what you know about this game.

Michael Gervais (0:12)

The game is everywhere. Ricardo Lockette.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (0:25)

Yeah, man. Yeah. Long time coming.

Michael Gervais (0:27)

How about it? Like, one, you look great.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (0:30)

You too, man. Yeah. I like your new cut.

Michael Gervais (0:33)

You're the only one. Yeah, man. My wife looked at me when I came home. It was yesterday I got this haircut. She's like, what are you doing?

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (0:39)

No, it's cool, man.

Michael Gervais (0:40)

Yeah, right.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (0:40)

It's just different because she was not used to seeing you that way.

Michael Gervais (0:43)

Yeah, right. Yeah, right.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (0:44)

But once it settles in, she's gonna love it. Yeah.

Michael Gervais (0:47)

So, okay, it's been years since we really spent some time. We've seen each other over the years. But you were instrumental player in the Seattle Seahawks, in the Super Bowl runs, and not only did you perform at the highest level, but you also were part of somebody, or you're a part of building the culture that was really special there. I don't know if you know how much space you actually took up just by your presence and your charisma and your passion and the way you handled yourself was really important. So maybe just take a moment.

You're the only person that I know that literally broke their neck playing the sport. So just bring us up to speed. It's probably one of the hardest things that you've ever done in your life is coming back from that and working through that.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (1:38)

Second hardest. The first hardest was losing the Super Bowl. That was the worst.

Michael Gervais (1:43)

But second was harder than breaking your neck.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (1:45)

Yeah. Breaking my neck wasn't that bad because I was asleep and then I woke up and I was better.

But living through the thought process of could I have done something better to catch the ball? Could I have ran a better route? That's more so of a thought process that goes in and out of my mind. But if I get blindsided, things happen. It's like having an accident in your favorite car. Then eventually get over that car because you're thankful to be alive. Then you start to think about things that are better. But if you had that accident and a family member had passed, it would be a lot harder to get over that because of the mistake that you made and the agony that it caused everyone else.

Michael Gervais (2:27)

Okay. So what we're talking about for folks that might not be familiar is that the play that ended our second Super Bowl was a throw to you.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (2:38)

Right.

Michael Gervais (2:39)

And what you just said is that you feel you probably wrestled deeply with like you let people down, something you did that you caused it to that. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (2:53)

I just feel like I could have done more. I don't blame anybody else. I don't blame the person blocking. I don't blame the person throwing. I don't blame the person calling the play. I don't blame the person that hired the person that called the play. I just feel like if it didn't go satisfactory, there's something I could have done better. And I just wrestled with different thoughts of what I could have done better.

Michael Gervais (3:16)

Yeah. And like how what a interesting paradox that we're in right now that here you are, you've healed.

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (3:25)

Yeah.

Michael Gervais (3:25)

You've worked through it. And then here we are 10 or 12 years later. And they're playing that play a lot. And so you're seeing one of the toughest things that you've ever been through. When you watch it, what is it like for you?

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (3:39)

It's okay. You just have to keep pushing.

Michael Gervais (3:41)

What's the emotion that you're with?

Ricardo Quantaye Lockette (3:48)

Just want to do it again. I just wish I could do it again. I wish I wish I had a second opportunity. I wish I just wish we would have got it done. It's probably the worst day of my life. That night, I cried the entire night. I'm not a cry at all. I look at myself as a warrior. I want to say I cried maybe seven to nine months after that just randomly. Not, you know, boo-hooing, but just maybe walking through the mall and maybe tears will fall down my eye and I just wipe them. Sometimes, just dropping my daughter off at school. I think about it just by seeing the football field, you know, and at the school.