Rookie Giants running back Tyrone Tracy Jr. tackles some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.
Q: There was a time when you thought of giving up football?
A: It was in 2021. It was very, very frustrating when I was at Iowa. It was a hard time, just because when you’re a ballplayer, you’re a playmaker, you want to help the team in any way you can, and for that not to happen over and over again. … You go in to have conversation with coaches and things just don’t play out in the game as they do in practice and stuff like that. It just kind of had me looking in the mirror like, “Hey, is football really for me?” And I was ready after 2021 to be like, “This might be my last year. Would I rather just get my degree,” and go into whatever field that I need to be in. But God had different plans, and now we’re here in New York (laugh).
Q: Who did you turn to for advice that made you change your mind about quitting?
A: My mom and my dad. I would always call my mom like, “I can’t do this.” It was super-hard for me to keep going to the facility, like smiling and trying to have a good time when I really wasn’t feeling that way. It was fake energy, and I’m not a fake person. I’m a real authentic guy, and I give off authentic energy. So whatever you see, that’s who I am. And for me to go in there and continue to play this game like I’m happy when I’m not, it was really hard and frustrating for me to do that. But she was just like, “Just keep going, keep going, everything’s going to be OK.” It’s hard for her, just like she’s seeing her son struggle, and she really couldn’t like help, but just give me advice, or encourage me. So it was really hard for her to see me going through that. But yeah, my mom, my dad was just telling me, “Just keep going, just do whatever they ask, just do it to the best of your ability and just try your best to have fun. It’s still football. It’s still the sport that you love, so continue to go out there and have fun.” But it was just so hard for me to have fun when I wasn’t playing. I was playing but I wasn’t getting the ball. I wasn’t being the playmaker that I know I could be.
Q: Describe your on-field mentality.
A: Energetic. If you watch me on the football field pregame, after I make a play or whatever, I’m very energetic, I’m passionate about what I do. I love this sport, I love everything it has to offer. I try my best to energize the field, my teammates, the fans. Like anybody who’s watching me, I want you to know and see that I love football, and I love what I do. I blackout a little bit (laugh). I blackout just because like after I make a big play or make a good run or something like that, I get up and like all the energy inside of me just comes out. That’s why I get up and start yellin’ or hitting my chest. It’s like I don’t mean to do that, but the energy inside of me, like that’s the only way I can get it out.
Q: What do you mean you blackout?
A: I don’t be knowing what I’m doing. I just get up, and whatever happens, happens after that (laugh).
Q: When I watch you play, the word fearless comes to mind.
A: Oh yeah. I’m afraid of no man. No man but God. I go on that football field and I believe in my skill set. I believe that I’m here for a reason, I believe that the Giants drafted me for a reason, and I’m going to go out there and just be who I am. And I pray every night that who I am is enough. And up to this point, it has been.
Q: Why aren’t you surprised about the early success you’re having?
A: I think God has favored me. God has favor over my life. I’ve been preparing for this moment for years. I also think that I have amazing people around me to help me be successful — you’re not doing this by yourself. I have a good coaching staff, I have good mentors: “Motor” [Devin Singletary], Isaiah Hodgins, “Big Mane” Jermaine [Eluemunor]. They all just speak life into my situation. I believe that the power of life and death lies within the tongue, so if you speak life into your situation, that’s the outcome that’s going to happen. I always try to make sure that I’m positive, spread positivity, spread good energy, and that’s what’s going to come back to me.
Q: What is the biggest adversity you had to overcome off the field?
A: When I was in high school, one of my friends passed away. That was kind of hard for me. We were teammates on our 7-on-7 team. He was a senior in high school, I was a junior. That was just a really tough thing to take in at a young age. He’s the reason that I was wearing No. 3 at Iowa and I was wearing No. 3 at Purdue. I wanted No. 3 here, but [Donte] Banks he got it on me (smile). I got No. 3 tatted on me. It was a big deal for really our whole team, but it was like a thing in the city of Indianapolis when he passed away.
Q: What was his name?
A: Dijon Anderson. … He got shot in the head and passed. … He was a year older than me, so I want to say he was like 18 I believe, on his way to college.
Q: It hit you hard how?
A: It was really one of them things that he’s at practice and then the next week you get a call that he’s in the hospital, he’s been shot, and at the moment, he was in critical condition but they were very optimistic about him making it. But then you get another call that he passed. It was hard because that was like my first situation or experience of seeing someone my age that I played with … we laughed together, had good times, bad times whatever it may be. Then like … seeing him in a casket … it was just a very, very hard time just getting through that. It was tough.
Q: Tell me about Peyton Meares.
A: I met her in high school. She is a wonderful young lady. She has Down Syndrome. She is just a ball and bundle of light. She’s very excited when she sees me, and it really just allows me to realize how special life is. She always sees the positive things in everything. She started traveling to come to my games in college, to Iowa. She came to Iowa games, she came to Purdue games. We got to get her out here to a Giants game (smile). If you ever have the opportunity to be around her, you’ll see the same things I see as well.
Q: You seem like a champion of the underdog.
A: I’ve always been an underdog my whole life from high school to college to even now. I feel like I have a skill set that’s very valuable and very unique. But I really just always believed in myself. I’ve always believed in who I am as a player, who I am as a person. Like I said at the beginning of this conversation, I pray that however my skill set is, whatever it is, I pray that it’s enough to be electric, it’s enough to be the type of player that I want to be. And up to this point it has.
Q: The type of player you want to be is what?
A: I want to be an electrifying player. I want to be someone who’s explosive, someone who makes plays, someone who’s dependable, trustworthy, that the coaches and staff and also the players can depend on day in and day out to come in and make a play. I want to be a leader. Someone who you want to tell your kid about. You want to go home and be like, “There’s this Tyrone Tracy dude I want you to look up. I want you to see how he played.” And then I also want the coaching staff to from years on, like 10 years later, I want them to be like, “This is Tyrone Tracy, he’s one of the best players that I’ve been able to coach, and not necessarily from what he does on the field, but what he does off the field, how he carries himself, how he makes other people feel good.” I always try to make sure that I’m just being a godly light to whoever’s around me, no matter what.
Q: Whatever comes to mind: Malik Nabers.
A: Great football player. Electric.
Q: Dexter Lawrence.
A: Hall of Famer.
Q: Daniel Jones.
A: A leader.
Q: Brian Daboll.
A: Leader.
Q: “Motor.”
A: Great mentor.
Q: Saquon Barkley.
A: A great football player.
Q: Caitlin Clark.
A: Obviously we went to school together at Iowa. We would always joke around how I was a better basketball player than her. Obviously she done took off on me, so I don’t know (laugh) if that holds true anymore. That was my sophomore year, her freshman year, and I didn’t know she was going to be this good.
Q: You were a daredevil.
A: (Laugh) I was like one of them kids I wasn’t scared of nothing. You wanted me to climb a tree, I would climb a tree. If you wanted me to jump off the tree after I got up there, I would do it. I taught myself how to do a backflip when I was like 9. Because I did it on a trampoline, I’m like, “I can probably do this on the ground.” I was a little bit of a daredevil for sure.
Q: What drives you?
A: My family. Also on the football field it’s my family, what drives me is the fear of letting my team down. I never want to let my team or my teammates down because I know how hard we’ve worked to get to that point, how hard we work to win a game or whatever it may be. I always want to make sure that I’m doing my job so that at the end of the day, I could walk off the field proud of what I put on tape, proud of like the effort and just the execution that I put out there. My parents have given up so much for me and my brothers. I got three other brothers, so, like, we all play sports, and they haven’t missed a game. They take us all to practices, like, everything. They’ve given up a lot for me and my brothers to have the opportunity that we have been given throughout our childhood. So this is kind of like a token of like “thank you” for my parents. “I promise you whatever y’all have done in the past, y’all going to reap the rewards.”
Q: Why did you stay at Decatur Central H.S. instead of going to Ben Davis H.S.?
A: Ben Davis was always a big school in Indianapolis. They had a whole bunch of good players come out of there. But before I got to Decatur Central, it wasn’t really like a big name. I wanted to be that person to change things for Decatur Central, and make things better.
Q: The Tyrone Tracy Show: Why haven’t you brought it here?
A: I wanted to make myself established first (chuckle). I didn’t want my first thing I do here is just get on camera, stuff like that. I wanted to establish myself and get my foot in the door, make some plays, and get a fan base, stuff like that. That’s definitely going to come. I wanted to make sure that I was taking care of the little things first before going to media.
Q: Who on your team would be the best subject for the Tyrone Tracy Show?
A: “Nacho” [Rakeem Nunez-Roches], he’s a character. I would choose people who have a big personality. I would probably do like Kayvon [Thibodeaux] or Dru Phillips … Deonte Banks.
Q: How did that start?
A: It was really just me, honestly, I came up to the media people at Purdue and I just wanted them to just give me opportunity to showcase, really, me on camera, then also just players — like give people a good time, good laugh. It was kind of a different angle to take from a football media perspective, because now you got a player that’s kind of hosting a show instead of it’d be clips of practice or highlight videos or whatnot, it’s a different perspective. Then also for me, I’m a communication major, so that’s something I want to do afterwards. So me thinking long term, I could have put that in my résumé. All the content that was made, it was my idea.
Q: Favorite New York City things?
A: I love going down to the Hoboken area, walk along the piers, look at the city lights. I love doing that. I love also going down to Pier 115, it’s a nice pier restaurant that has views.
Q: Your bowling average?
A: I would say a good 150.
Q: Describe your girlfriend Zoe.
A: She’s my ride-or-die. She helps me with everything. She helps me study, if I got to stretch, she helps me stretch. If I got to eat, she’ll cook for me to make weight or whatever it may be. She prays for me, she’s my praying partner, she’s a praying warrior, she’s a godly woman. I really can’t say really enough about her. Mind you, we’ve only been dating for almost two years. I feel like I’ve known her for 10. I love her, and she’s definitely my roll dog for sure.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Kobe Bryant, Katt Williams, Reggie Bush.
Q: Why Reggie Bush?
A: He was someone I looked up to out of high school. Phenomenal running back with phenomenal vision, feel, just explosive running back. He was one of them backs whenever he got the ball, you kind of like knew something was gonna happen.
Q: Katt Williams?
A: Super-funny. One of my favorite comedians. He could always make me laugh. I’m a dude that loves to laugh. I love smiling, having a good time, and I feel like he’s gonna bring the party to my crib.
Q: Would Kobe sum up your mentality?
A: Yeah, yeah. I would just really ask him questions on like what made you go into that mode? Also like when you do go into that mode, how do you bring others with you? Certain mentality things that I would ask him just about the competitor side of him.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: “Friday After Next” or “Next Friday.”
Q: Favorite actor?
A: Will Smith.
Q: Favorite actress?
A: Taraji P. Henson.
Q: Favorite entertainer?
A: Rod Wave.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Spaghetti with garlic bread, but no meat. I like the marinara.
Q: Describe Giants fans.
A: First and foremost, I want to thank y’all for all the love that you have shown me. I want to thank y’all for bringing me in allowing me just to be part of the clan. But secondly, this is only the beginning. I feel like the more opportunities that I get, the better it’d be. So I just want to tell y’all just continue to support, continue to follow and just stay along for the journey.
Q: Message to Giants fans?
A: Stay along for the ride, it’s a long season. Understanding we’re all human, everyone in here is human. No one tries to go out and play bad, we all want to go out there and win … we’re all human.