One of my favorites............an unsung hero for Pierce's success.
*********************************************************************************************
A look inside an NFL rookie's life with Texans FB Troy Hairston
Brooks Kubena, Staff writer
Troy Hairston is deceptively simple. He’s afraid of emptiness but willing to live in it.
He begins the tour of his three-bedroom townhouse with a twisting staircase. A small basket holds the keys to a 2022 Mustang GT. It’s the only hint that a soft-spoken fullback with a multimillion-dollar contract lives here. Hairston bought the Mustang in August as a gift to himself for making the Texans’ 53-man roster as an undrafted rookie. The rest of the townhouse looks like Hairston is still making sure this impossible dream is true.
The second-floor living room is empty but for a sectional couch and a large TV on a wooden stand. The purchase sticker is still taped to the TV’s flat screen and boasts the set will cost Hairston only $22 annually in energy costs. The utility bill isn’t really a concern, Hairston says. He’s lived here almost a full month and hasn’t even turned on his gas stove.
The kitchen is mostly barren. Empty cabinets, empty drawers. The refrigerator is stocked with food containers and smoothies brought home from the team cafeteria. Plastic forks and knives are scattered next to the sink. There’s a gray lawn chair on the balcony, where you can almost spot NRG Stadium over the neighboring rooftops. The lawn chair used to be the only furniture in the entire home.
For three weeks, Hairston slept on a mattress on the floor. On Sept. 12, the day after Houston’s season-opening tie with the Colts, Hairston called up linebacker and fellow undrafted rookie Jake Hansen to help him “move in.” Hansen drove to a nearby Wal-Mart. Hairston brought out the mattress. They tossed it in Hansen’s truck bed, towed it a few miles, lugged it up the townhouse stairs, then plopped it in the middle of Hairston’s vacant bedroom.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a minimalist. But I’m simple,” Hairston says. “Like I feel like I only get things I really need in the moment. I feel like having a place where you have everything you need — furniture, all those beautiful things — I feel like that’s a want instead of a need. That’s more of a luxury. I’m seeing more of ‘What do I need in this moment? What can get me through this day and get me to the next week?’ And just build it off of there. But I’m building it slowly, piece by piece, to try and get it to the way I want it.”
There’s security in a simplistic approach. Lifestyles built on loans can be lost. Hairston owns everything. He learned frugality from his mother, Elena, who at 20 evacuated Panama City just before the U.S. invaded in December 1989. She arrived in America without a plan, without any command of the English language. She became a teacher in Detroit, married Hairston’s father, Troy Sr., and levied lessons to three sons.
“Don’t count your money until it’s in your hand. … Don’t count it as an opportunity until you are doing it. … Keep on dreaming but keep on searching for more and more.”
THE REST OF THE STORY