Perseverance Pays Off

This wasn’t the type of season Cullen Jenkins expected. Don’t get him wrong – he’s not arguing with the Green Bay Packers’ surprising run to the NFC North Division title and a spot in the NFC Championship game. But after signing a four-year, $16 million contract extension in February 2007 with the Packers, Jenkins expected more out of himself.

Then again, there’s no way he could have predicted that wrist, rib, ankle and knee injuries would hit him one after another over the season’s first two months.

“I’ve felt a lot healthier and I felt like I’ve been a lot better on the field,” Jenkins said.

A natural defensive tackle who had his NFL breakthrough after moving to right end during the 2006 season, Jenkins found himself playing inside again this season because of injuries that sidelined several of his Packers teammates.

But considering how far Jenkins has come in the past five years, he’s not about to complain about which position he gets to play as long as he gets his chance to compete on gameday.

Born in Detroit and raised by a single father, Jenkins grew up competing with his older brother, Kris, now a defensive tackle for the New York Jets.

“My dad always had us around football, because he was a coach, so football’s been a big part of our life,” Jenkins said. “He always kept us busy in sports, so that kept us out of trouble.”

Though Cullen was more athletic, Kris drew more attention from college scouts. Some big schools finally came calling his senior year, but Jenkins suffered a high ankle sprain on the first drive of his first game as a senior and he ended up without a Division I scholarship offer. He nearly committed to Division II Grand Valley State in Michigan before getting a last-minute offer from Central Michigan.

“At the time, I had a daughter on the way, and so stuff was pretty tough,” Jenkins said. “Finally, they had a scholarship for me, and I was able to get the full ride, which helped me out a lot.”

After his freshman year in college, his wife-to-be, Pashun, and eldest daughter, Jasmin, now 7, moved in with him near campus.

“I wasn’t much concerned with all the partying or a lot of stuff that the other guys were doing,” Jenkins said. “I didn’t feel like that. We just had to do what we had to do.”

Jenkins started three seasons at Central Michigan but wasn’t drafted. The Packers signed him as a free agent, but he was waived in the first roster reduction in August 2003.

“I sat at home the whole season, once again wondering if I was good enough, wondering why nobody would call me or bring me in for a workout or anything,” Jenkins said. “At the end of the year, finally, I had signed with an arena team because I wasn’t sure if I would ever make any NFL team. Green Bay signed me back, so I didn’t have to go play arena. They sent me to NFL Europe.

“So I went out and played Europe — that gave me a lot of confidence, because there were some guys over there who had already been on rosters before. I just came back [to Green Bay] and came in with a different attitude, that I was just going to play well and not be stopped.”

Jenkins made the Packers final roster in 2004 and played in 16 games, starting six. He started 12 games the following season and then had his breakthrough in 2006, when he became a full-time starter in December, recorded a career-high 6.5 sacks and earned that lucrative new contract.

He lives in Green Bay year-round so that Jasmin, now in second grade, doesn’t have to shuffle between schools. He and Pashun have another daughter, Ashanti, 4.

When he’s not on the football field, Jenkins tries to stay involved in the community by attending charity dinners and volunteering for Swan House, a project that helps single parents get affordable housing.

The latter is a cause that’s close to Jenkins’ heart, given how hard his father, Darome, worked to earn his college degree and give his sons an opportunity to succeed.

“We started out in a pretty tough little neighborhood, because of course, he wasn’t making that much at first,” Jenkins said. “We kind of struggled a bit. But he worked real hard. He just worked and worked, and eventually, as we started to get older, it started to pay off for him. Finally, we were able to move out into a house my freshman year in high school.

“I kind of just got that hard work from him.”

Source: NFLPA