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**BeastJacobs** · 03-01-2008, 05:35 PM

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EAST RUTHERFORD -Starting left guard Rich Seubert is in his eight NFL season, all spent with the Giants. He joined the team as a rookie free agent in 2001. After playing sparingly as a rookie, Seubert started all 16 games in 2002. He was considered the team’s best lineman and a rising star and had started 22 consecutive games when he suffered three fractured bones in his right leg in a game against Philadelphia on Oct. 19, 2003. The injury sidelined Seubert until 2005.

G Rich Seubert has bounced back since his injuring his right leg in 2003.

Q: Your rehabilitation and return from the severely fractured leg was one of the great comeback stories in the league. Do you ever think about it in those terms?

Seubert: “No, not really. I do remember what it was like not being around the guys and being in the hospital for a couple of weeks and missing football. I don’t look back anymore. I look at as my leg is healed, it feels great, and I am just glad that the Giants gave me a chance to come back. They could have parted ways a long time ago and not even given me a chance, but our trainers and the guys upstairs gave me the opportunity to prove that I could play again. It has taken a while, but this year it has been fun to get back out there and play again, just to prove it to those guys that I did come back and I can play.”

Q: Are you physically where you were before the injury?

Seubert: “I think so. I am a little older, but leg-wise I feel fine. I don’t think about my leg anymore while I’m playing. I don’t have to worry about it. It is football. A lot worse stuff could have happened than breaking my leg.”

Q: What do you remember about the day you were hurt?

Seubert: “I remember a lot about that day. I remember the play; it was 33-duo. They had a fire zone on, three technique pitched, Luke (Petitgout) went up to the backer, the end (N.D. Kalu) pinched in and stepped on my leg. I remember the play. I remember laying there and Ronnie (Barnes, the team’s Vice President of Medical Services) and Byron (Hansen, coordinator of rehabilitation) and the other trainers coming out there. I knew my leg was broke. I didn’t know how bad it was, I just knew I broke my leg. I remember they were taking me to get X-rayed and they caught my foot on the door going into the X-ray room. That didn’t feel too good. I don’t remember who was helping me in the room but whoever it was, I am looking for them. I go up to the hospital, my wife’s parents were up for the game so my wife was down there. She was all worried waiting in the hospital. I remember we lost the game. I woke up from the drugs they gave me and (Brian) Westbrook had returned a punt down the sideline to beat us. So I remember the day pretty well.”

Q: Was that the most pain you have ever been in?

Seubert: “Yeah, it was pretty bad. It hurt a little bit.”

Q: Was there ever a point where you wondered if you would ever play again?

Seubert: “I never though that. I think if I would have I wouldn’t have ever made it back. My teammates, the trainers kept on pushing me getting me through those tough days and stuff. If it wasn’t for those guys I probably would have hung it up. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could play again and prove to the team that they were taking a chance and waiting for me to get better so I needed to get better for them.”

Q: You came in as an undrafted free agent, is it a surprise to you that you carved out this successful career?

Seubert: “I think a lot of undrafted free agents that are coming out of college have a little chip on their shoulder. We watch the draft every year and see guys get drafted, you see guys come in on different teams and not make it, and not play for that many years. You just have to keep a chip. We have a couple of those in this locker room. Shaun (O’Hara) was an undrafted free agent, I was an undrafted free agent, A.P. (Antonio Pierce) - I think all of us have something in common where people thought we weren’t good enough to be here. But we proved them wrong. I think everyday we go out there we still want to prove those people wrong and it just keeps us going.”

Q: What do you like about playing on the offensive line?

Seubert: “I think the guys I’m playing next to. You are a group, you are a tight group, you are a unit, and if one guy doesn’t do their job the whole group looks bad. It is just having fun. The offensive line, we like to have fun, we have fun with each other, we mess with each other once in a while, but it is all in good spirit. That is what football is supposed to be. It is a team sport. You have to get along with the guys you play with.”

Q: What are your earliest memories of playing football? When did you start playing?

“I was in the fifth or sixth grade. We didn’t have the Pop Warner or flag football leagues back in Wisconsin when I was growing up. I think I started playing in grade school. In the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades I was on the St. John’s School football team. We always had a good team growing up. I just remember you made great friends on the football team, with the guys you are practicing with. Growing up you are always around them and then I went to high school with those guys.”

Q: Were you always an offensive lineman?

Seubert: “Yes, I was. “I played O-line in high school. I played fullback for one play and then in college I played tight end for a couple years, but I was a little undersized – a little undersized kid from a small town going to Western Illinois. They found a spot for me at tight end, I played for a year and a half at tight end. Then I got bumped to guard and then tackle my last two years.”

Q: Did you play and defense in high school?

Seubert: “Oh yeah. We had 40 kids in our class, so everybody in our high school played both ways and special teams.

Q: You had 40 kids in your whole class?

“We had 40 kids in my class, so we had probably 40 kids on the whole football team. If you are out there playing you are going to play defense, offense, and special teams. It was just fun. It was small school football. You see these high schools out here where they have 80 guys on a football team and they just play one sport and all they do is play football. Back when I was a kid we played everything; we played basketball, football, baseball, track. We just kept active and did a little bit of everything.”

Q: Was football always your favorite sport?

Seubert: “I don’t know. My favorite sport is fishing or hunting. I enjoyed football. Basketball was fun. My buddies and my back home, we had fun playing basketball. We played basketball every summer, every weekend we had basketball tournaments. But something about football with the hitting and stuff I always enjoyed. So it would be football and basketball as my top two.”

Q: How big a town is Marshfield, Wisconsin, where you grew up?

Seubert: “Now? About 25 thousand people, probably. So it is not bad. We have a big hospital that kind of keeps the town going. I grew up in the country about 15 miles outside of Marshfield in Rozellville.”

Q: Where is it in Wisconsin?

Seubert: “It is right in the middle of the state, right smack in the middle - two hours north of Madison and two hours west of Green Bay.”

Q: Did you ever go to any pro or college sporting events in Wisconsin as a kid?

Seubert: “When I was a kid we went to a few Brewers games, a few Bucks games. Obviously, if you were a kid growing up in Wisconsin you are going to go to Lambeau Field to watch the Packers play, so I got to a few of those games, too. Not too many, but enough to get me excited about it.”

Q: How did you wind up at Western Illinois?

Seubert: “Nobody else wanted me. In high school I was 220 pounds playing defensive end and left tackle, so I was a little undersized. Everybody takes their college trips and I visited a few schools. My coach in high school knew the running backs coach at Western Illinois, so I went down there the last weekend before the cutoff date. I enjoyed it. It was a smaller town, they had a good football program, the school was good, and I decided to make my decision and go down there.”

Q: Did you played tight end initially and then they moved you to O-line?

Seubert: “I played tight end my first year and a half and then we got an injury inside so he stuck me at left guard for the last six games of my sophomore year and then left tackle for my next two.”

Q: Did you enjoy Western Illinois?

Seubert: “I had a blast there. It was fun. We won football games and I got to know some great friends from back there. I still keep in touch with some of the coaches that I knew there. It was fun. Everybody kind of knows you in the town. There is really not much in Macomb, Illinois, but there is enough to do.”

Q: Did you have good teams when you were there?

Seubert: “Yes. My freshman year was probably one of my best teams. We made it to the final four in the playoffs, then lost to Georgia Southern at Georgia Southern. My sophomore year we made the playoffs again and we got knocked out in the second round at home against I forget who. Then we went through a coaching change my junior year and fell off a couple of games and we didn’t make the playoffs. My last year we made the playoffs and I think we were a fourth seed going into the playoffs and we got upset by Lehigh at home. We had a lot of injuries. We had good teams. People know William James (formerly Will Peterson) and Eddie Hartwell, a linebacker, who got drafted by Baltimore, and Aaron Stecker,who is one of the running backs at New Orleans now. There have been guys from Western Illinois who have played in the NFL, so we have some talent.”

Q: When did you first think that you might make it to the NFL?

Seubert: “I guess I never really thought about it. I just played. I just had fun, I played, and when it came to the scouts coming around to work us out I kind of just hopped in with William James and Eddie Hartwell. They were both draft picks, so I just kind of joined their workout. I ran, I did all the stuff. I figured I wasn’t going to be drafted and I would have to get a tryout somewhere and make the team. The Giants called and I was grateful for it and I came out here and gave it everything I had.”

Q: Coming from small towns in high school in college, how do you like playing in the New York metropolitan area?

Seubert: “It is fun. The only bad part is all the traffic in places, but we got to know some good people out here and some close family friends. We joke with some of them that my son
calls them grandpa and uncle, but it is kind of a family we got to know really well. It is fun. Whatever you want to do you can do, and if you just want to relax you can relax, too.”

Q: You spend a lot of time doing charity work, particularly at the Ronald McDonald House. Why are you so involved?

Seubert: “Just to give back. It is not hard to do. It is just your time. If you can get to a grade school here or there and read books or talk to young kids. Like going to the Ronald McDonald House – it is a couple of hours out of my day and they are stuck there for a long time. It is just to help out. People look up to us. We are professional athletes on the New York Giants and if you just put a smile on a kid’s face it makes a difference.”

Q: Do you think when you are finished playing that you will move back to Wisconsin?

Seubert: “That is the million dollar question. We have talked about what we want to do when I am done.”

Q: Where is Jodi (his wife) from?

Seubert: “We are both from the same town in Wisconsin and we get back there in the offseason for a week.”

Q: Did you go out in high school?

Seubert: “Just for the last month. We talked about staying out here, we talked about moving back, and we are leaning now that we are going to plan to just stay out here. It is the only place we have really lived. How can you pick up and move and live somewhere you haven’t lived before? We will see how it goes. Every year we kind of go back and forth with it, but I guess when it happens we will have to decide. As of now, we like it out here, we have good friends out here, and there are so many possibilities after football that you can get into out here.”

Q: Is it safe to say you hope to be playing for a long time?

Seubert: “I have been here seven years now and hopefully I am going to be here a few more.”

Definitely one of the better O lines.

http://www.giants.com/news/eisen/sto...story_id=26985

**Professor** · 03-01-2008, 10:00 PM

I remember they were taking me to get X-rayed and they caught my foot on the door going into the X-ray room. That didn’t feel too good. I don’t remember who was helping me in the room but whoever it was, I am looking for them.

that sucks. dude's leg is smashed and it get's hit by the door. Damn!

**BeastJacobs** · 03-01-2008, 10:02 PM

I know dude. 3 breaks, I thought he was done after that. I swear I could hear the crack and my dad looked away with his eyes closed and looked at his leg and shook his head and said. He's done. Luckily he's able to walk.

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