Couches, Dorm Floors and a Borrowed Pontiac

Mardy Gilyard is from Bunnell, Florida, a town between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach, and was raised by his mother, Viola Gilyard Crudup, a single working parent. He went to the University of Cincinnati to play football.

In the fall of 2006 the coach at the time, Mark Dantonio, revoked his scholarship because his grades were poor. He had registered for classes but owed the school almost 10,000 dollars. Gilyard called his mother wanting to come home, and she told him no. She said they would ship him back instead.

He was then evicted from his apartment, and his belongings ended up in his car. For roughly six months he used a green 2002 Pontiac Grand Am lent by his fiancée's brother, though Sports Illustrated says the idea that he slept in it every night is an urban legend. Through the fall and winter of 2006 and 2007 he often slept on couches and dorm-room floors. A Cincinnati student, Laura Ellis, let him stay about a month until her roommates objected, and teammates Terrill Byrd and Charlie Howard also gave him a place to sleep.

He worked several jobs at once, including construction, selling cutlery door to door and delivering pizzas, and he made sandwiches to hand out as sack lunches to homeless people in a downtown park.

When Dantonio left for Michigan State, the new coach, Brian Kelly, said Gilyard could earn his scholarship back if he paid what he owed. He paid 7,000 dollars in cash to the registrar's office and rejoined the team. By December 2009 he had 75 catches for 1,052 yards that season and was projected as a late first-round or early second-round pick. He was drafted into the NFL in 2010. He said he relished every second he had on the field.