Everyone has a story to tell, but for some reason, Daniel Cormier’s incredible tale of overcoming hardship isn’t that well known.
There’s arguably nothing worse than losing a loved one, except maybe losing someone close to you under tragic circumstances.
Daniel Cormier has been there and done that at least three times, emerging the other side every time as a stronger person.
When he lost his three-month-old daughter Kaedyn in a car accident in 2003, he thought that was it. He had already lost his biological father and a close friend, but this death was so much more of an impact. Initially, he thought that nothing could pull himself out of that pit of despair. Then he realised that he had the power to do just that, as he explained on Highly Questionable on ESPN
“You can either let it crush you or allow it to elevate you and motivate you. I was very young when my father passed and I didn’t quite understand. Then, when I was at Oklahoma State and one of the guys I was very close to died in a plane crash, I was like, ‘Whoa, this is really bad!'”
“And then, obviously with my daughter, that was the one that I thought was going to just really shut me down. It was going to shut me down, I wasn’t going to be able to do anything more. But then I started thinking to myself, I could still honour her, my daughter Kaedyn, in everything I do going forward.”
It's not Conor McGregor https://t.co/7hMAC6czgn
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 9, 2017
No tears were shed as he explained his impressive list of achievements inspired by Kaedyn. He made the vow in her name and fulfilled it. He used the darkest of situations to motivate himself to achieve greatness and eventually become the undisputed light heavyweight champion of the world.
“And man, I had never been on the US World team, I had never been on the United States team and after Kaedyn passed, she became my motivation and my inspiration. I made six-straight US teams, two Olympic teams and done what I’ve done in fighting, because everyday I still try to represent that little girl that I remember as just a baby. Even when I think about it now, she’d be 14 years old, which is insane, because I have two young kids now, they would have had a 14-year-old sister.”
Cormier wasn’t aware of the gravity of his biological father being murdered when it happened. He was only a child spending Thanksgiving watching the Color Purple with his family. He remembers his mother going into the kitchen to answer the phone, dropping it then screaming.
“They said that my Dad had been murdered by his second wife’s Dad because there were at his house and I guess they started arguing. You know, a lot of times at these holidays, people start to fight for some reason. He was on that guy’s property (who) shot him and killed him.”
Again, Cormier’s eyes were dry as he recounted how he dealt with it. His step-father, Percy, taught him everything he knew about being a man. In his eyes, Percy is his father.
“Honestly, my Dad and Mom had divorced and my step-father, Percy, had become such a strong, strong idea of what a father should be that I really took to him. This guy would wake up every morning at seven, go to work for the city of Lafayette, get off, shower, eat and then leave and go and wash dishes at a pizza parlour just to make sure that we had enough. So, that’s my father.”
“When I won the UFC title and I was in the back taking pictures, I really don;t think about my Dad, because I think that I feel like I have him with my in my father Percy.”
Hopefully those ‘fans’ who boo Cormier will find out where he’s come from, what he’s made of, and how he got to where he is today. Maybe then, they’ll think twice about jeering him for not being Jon Jones.
