Dallas Cowboys defensive end Aldon Smith had already been suspended from the NFL several years when his ailing grandmother implored him to change his life before she died of complications from Lou Gehrig's disease.
That conversation, and her death last year, were catalysts for Smith trying to get a handle on issues with alcohol, working his way into shape and earning reinstatement nearly five years after he was banished for substance-abuse violations.
"The way I look at where I am now to who I was in the past, I was a young 12-year-old or young teenage boy in a man's body," said Smith, who signed a one-year contract with the Cowboys in April and was reinstated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell last week.