While his AFC teammates posed for pictures and signed autographs after Pro Bowl practice Friday, Will Shields walked straight into two hugs from his children near the corner of the field.
Family comes first for the soft-spoken, hard-nosed Shields -- but the Kansas City Chiefs guard considers the whole world to be his family. Last week, Shields was named the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year for the vast array of community programs and charities he supports and sponsors.
And Shields will play in his ninth Pro Bowl today -- more than any player on either roster at the NFL's annual All-Star game.
The 11-year pro is a model of consistency and arguably the dominant player at his position, but those who know him say he hasn't changed from the humble, motivated lineman who didn't get picked until the third round of the 1993 draft.
If anything, Shields is more appreciative of his ninth trip to Hawaii than his first.
"It's a good honor, but luck has a lot to do with it," Shields said. "It's good to stay healthy and to be on a good team, but there's no secret to being here so often. I've just been fortunate to stay away from injuries and to have a lot of good people to play with."
Shields, who made his second straight All-Pro team this season, has played in all 176 games of his career with the Chiefs. He has started all but the opening game of his rookie season -- the third-longest active streak in the NFL.
Shields is a prototypical pulling guard who plays a large role in the Chiefs' dominant rushing attack. AFC coach Tony Dungy, whose Colts beat Kansas City in the playoffs last month, is grateful to have Shields on his side this time.
"You don't have to be around him for long to know what kind of a man he is," Dungy said.
"When you're getting ready to play against him, you see the skill level and what he can do. But he's also a great guy for these players to know. He's an example to everybody."
Shields is just the third offensive lineman to win the Man of the Year award -- the NFL's top honor for off-the-field accomplishments.
It's hard to imagine a more deserving candidate. When the Chiefs nominated Shields for the honor, they were told to limit their list of his accomplishments to one sheet of paper.
They shrunk the type and widened the margins, but they still couldn't fit everything in.
Many of Shields' community accomplishments are run through his Will to Succeed foundation, which has no fancy offices or corporate connections -- just Shields, his wife, Senia, and dozens of volunteers.
Shields' foundation organizes and sponsors an unbelievable number of charitable ventures -- from flag-football fund-raising tournaments and low-cost football camps for low-income families to book drives, writing workshops, community care centers and clothing drives.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier