As a culminating activity to Peer Leadership’s Respect Week, former NFL Giants running back, Lee Rouson, spoke at an assembly in late October to discuss the importance of knowing who you are and moving forward despite life’s challenges.

Rouson, from the Anti-Bullying Squad, said he faced many challenges growing up in the sixties, mostly due to his race.

Unsure if he would make it into the National Football League, Rouson learned the importance of knowing who he was and decided to share the message with high school students after his career-ending ankle injury.

Applying his message in terms of football, Rouson captured the attention of all students.

“I’m your quarterback and all of you are my teammates. Right now, we’re in a huddle and we’re working together to accomplish a goal,” he said.  “In a huddle, we all stand as one and we all have one thing in common: our mindset and how we’re going to move those chains forward.”

Rouson then challenged students to define themselves.

“Have you decided who you are? Not the person people think you are, not the person you pretend to be in front of certain people, not even who you think you are,” he said. “You have to decide and then everything else will fall into place.”

Through humor and an upfront approach, Rouson taught students why defining themselves is so important.

“Once you know who you are, people can’t manipulate you. There will always be someone who will want to stop you from reaching your dream,” he said. “Your identity gives you directions to get where you want to go.”

Rouson used his own personal experiences to better represent the purpose of his message.

“One of the hardest things I went through was not starting as a running back,” he said, “but I grew through that. When I recognized how to move the chains in my life, I needed to share that.”

One of things that differentiated Rouson from speakers in the past was the way he connected with the audience.

“It’s a speech that everyone can hear,” he said.  “I’m not telling people how to live their lives. I have a certain kind of respect, everyone is different.”

Stating that fear is one of the principal emotions that can stop a person from being who they truly are, Rouson gave the crowd an acronym to dwell upon.

“Fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real, no one should identify themselves by the fear in their hearts,” he said.

Rouson wanted to stress the importance of his message, referring to identity as a bank account.

“Once you know who you are, anytime you have to make a decision, you just go into the bank account of your heart, take out that knowledge, remember my word and exchange it for what you want,” he told the audience.

Before engaging in hundreds of autographs and pictures, Rouson ended with one final remark:

“We get caught up in what our identity is,” he told students. “It’s not easy to choose it, it’s not easy to figure it out, but this is how we move the chains.”