RENTON, Wash. _ The $200,000 bonus check sat in the glove compartment of Ziggy Ansah's car for a couple weeks.
Word spread though the Detroit Lions locker room about the uncashed check, and soon Jim Washburn heard about it. That, Washburn was learning, sounded like something his young defensive end might do.
"He's so unassuming," said Washburn, one of Ansah's first position coaches in the NFL.
Ansah smiled this week when asked about the check from his rookie season in Detroit, six years ago. It is true, he said; he did hold onto that check for quite awhile.
"It was just good to look at that check, you know," he said. "I just wanted to keep it close."
It was, it seemed, as if he didn't quite believe it, as if he needed the check as a reminder, as evidence, that this was all real _ that someone was paying him such a large sum to play football.
That Ansah ended up playing football at all is almost unbelievable.
It is a story that has been told, and told well, many times before: How Ansah grew up in Ghana, in West Africa, playing soccer and basketball, dreaming of becoming the next LeBron James. He earned an academic scholarship to attend BYU, where he saw his first football game _ and didn't much care for it. He really wanted to play basketball and twice tried to walk on to the BYU basketball team _ only to get cut both times. He instead walked on to the BYU track team, running a 10.91-second 100-meter dash at one point, before after much prodding he was finally convinced to try walk on to the football team.
Three years later, Detroit selected him as the No. 5 overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft.
Someone, Washburn suggested, ought make a movie about Ansah's life.
Wasburn, who spent more than two years coaching Ansah in Detroit, described the Seahawks' new defensive end as smart and humble and one of the most talented players he's seen in four decades as a coach. And, also, one of his favorite people.
"The whole thing with Ziggy is, he's just a great human being," Washburn said.
Near the end of a recent phone interview, the coach made a request: "If you see Ziggy, please tell him I love him."
Ansah and Jadeveon Clowney have become fast friends in Seattle. Both are new to the Seahawks and both play defensive end.
"We're always laughing about the situation _ being here and how things are a little different here," said Clowney, who arrived via trade near the end of training camp. "We're getting used to it, adapting."
Ansah said he gets a kick out of Clowney's endless energy.
"He can never stay still," Ansah said. "He's always bouncing from one place to another and talking to everybody."
Ansah, 30, played seven seasons in Detroit, the only other NFL organization he had known until signing a one-year deal with the Seahawks in May. He made his Seahawks debut Sunday, playing 19 snaps in the loss to New Orleans. He didn't register any statistics, but he is hopeful he can turn a corner soon, with the hope Clowney can a similar turn on the other side of the defensive line.
"We're still working on it," Ansah said this week. "It might take time, but if we click it's going to be something else."
