Back in the day, when things got rough in Florida, Ray Lewis‘ mama piled up her kids in a van to move to Tennessee. But Lewis, in the 11th grade then, had big dreams in Florida and simply couldn’t envision his future in Tennessee. There was no way. However, with almost no hope of traveling back, he had given up on his dreams. That was until his mama slid a $39 Greyhound bus ticket back to Florida and $20 worth of food stamps into his hand. “This is all I can do for you,” she told him. “I’ll make it,” the young lad was sure.

But his little brother, the Muffin Man, as Lewis would call him, clung to him, determined not to let him go. Lewis promised he would make it to the top one day. And he did. “It’s not just me up here. It’s all of us up here,” he vowed. But the road to the top was bumpy with several hurdles. And one of those was during his junior year in college. In an interview with Lewis Howes in 2016, the former Ravens linebacker spoke about those tough days and how he dealt with them. And now, just hours ago, Lewis shared a small clip from that original interview to send his fans a message: “If I can make my mom smile, I will never stop ticking!”

In the clip, the former NFL player was heard saying: “My mom called me my junior year. ‘I’m broke. The lights are off. There’s no food in the house. I can’t feed your brothers and sisters’. I was like, ‘Okay. Pack up. Everybody come live with me.’ She was like, ‘You are in college.’ I was like, ‘I will make it’.”

At that time, Lewis played for the University of Miami and lived off-campus. He was the most intimidating Hurricanes player ever, and opposing coaches would often draw up special plays to contain him. They would do anything to avoid #52. However, off the field, the rules were loose back then. Players with the right connections could find housing, food, and stipends through unofficial means. And so, the football player had a two-bedroom apartment at The Grove. It wasn’t luxury, but it was enough. So when his mom pulled up and asked, “Baby Ray, what are you doing?” he assured her, “Mama, I’m taking care of us.”

He had a house and cars, but when his family came to him in need, something within him shifted. “I started to get weight off my shoulders. Like, ‘Okay. Father ain’t here. It’s cool. Now you’re the dad and you got to run things now, and you have to be smart enough.”

Lewis, who was born in poverty in Bartow, Florida, and abandoned by his father at birth, only had his then 15-year-old mother to look after him as a kid. And so he wanted to be there for his younger siblings, and throughout the arduous journey, he trusted his lord.

In 2018, when Lewis was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he spoke for over 33 minutes, sharing unheard details about his life. It was a 4,400-word speech, entirely unscripted. “Mama, we made it. Crazy, right?” he said at one point during his speech. He indeed made it.