Tavon Austin has encountered a few new things since being drafted No. 8 overall by the St. Louis Rams. He's playing in an offense that actually huddles. The terminology is different.
Oh, and Austin's family is expanding rapidly.
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"I've got a lot of cousins now," Austin told the Rams' team website when asked about adjustments to the NFL. "The whole (city of) Baltimore is my cousin now. We're going to just try to keep focused and let my mother and all of them handle it."
This is a challenge that many top rookies face, yet we rarely hear much about it. Folks are starting to come out of the woodwork looking for help from Austin.
"Everybody expects a lot of things from you as far as money," Austin said. "Everybody wants to be around you. My phone doesn't stop ringing now. It feels like they're counting my bank account now. So that's probably the hardest thing for me right now, just people."
Adjusting to your new football reality is tough, but football is what Austin does best in life. It can be a lot trickier for young men to adjust to the new attention and unfair demands of those around them.
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