Q&A with Colt

WT = Washington Times

About his hip injury, Colt said:
"It was the first day in [Senior Bowl] practice. I dropped back and felt this pop in my hip. The whole week it was like I had a dead leg, but I knew it was the Senior Bowl so I just pushed through it. I still had these little ailments there the next few weeks, but I knew I had to get ready for the combine. After the combine it wasn’t getting any better so I saw a doctor and he said I’d torn my labrum. I waited until after my pro day to have the surgery and now I’ve been rehabbing it for three months, four months. It feels good to be cleared 100 percent. It is not so much the injury as it is just getting back to running and using my legs." (WT)

Asked if he has any regrets for coming back for his senior year, Colt said:
"Absolutely not – it is amazing how one game will allow one game to take done or discredit everything you’d done. Look at what Peyton Manning and what he did in his last game – he played Nebraska in the Orange Bowl and got destroyed 42-17. No one got mad at him. He was still the No. 1 pick in the draft.

The cool thing is it is all about where you land. I was never suppose to go to Hawaii, but it was because people were really being negative toward me and not giving me a chance that I ended up in Hawaii. I can relate it to that. People were being real negative about me and not really giving me a chance, and then the Redskins jumped up and grabbed me. Now I’m in a great situation surrounding by a great franchise and a great football team.

My last five or six years of my life have been a lot of ups and a lot of downs. The crazy thing is no matter how low the lows get, when the highs come they’re every bit worth it. It is about climbing that mountain, and the harder it is the sweeter the other side is." (WT)

About having plenty of options for a mentor, Colt said:
"I’m in great shape. When it comes to just getting myself acclimated, coach Zorn is the guy I go to. He’s the one who coaches me up and I appreciate that he has invested some time in me. When he is out there coaching everyone and I need help, I can always go to Jason or Todd. They’ve been both been awesome toward me. It is always competitive, but here everyone has been great about making sure I have everything down." (WT)

Asked about the cold weather, Colt said:
"I’m used to the cold weather. When I’m on the Playstation, the game I like to play the most is when the snow is pouring – those were the games that I always wanted to play in as a kid but never could growing up in California. When I got a chance in Boston, I loved it." (WT)

About having less media attention now that he's out of Hawaii, Colt said:
"I kind of got ran ragged out there in Hawaii. I remember having media call for like 45 minutes or an hour and it would just be crazy. It is kind of nice to be able to get in and I definitely don’t mind it." (WT)

Asked about his crazy hair at Hawaii, Colt said:
"At Hawaii we had like 20 different hairstyles on our team. I remember when we showed up for the first day of camp and about four or five of the linebackers had bleached hair with these designs in it. In the summer I said, ‘Well I’ll try to grow my hair out and see if dreds look good.’ We’re in Hawaii and I’m at the beach every day, so I let my receivers do it to me because you only live once. They were able to get a girl to braid it up for me and I had the dreds for a while, but it just wasn’t really working out. I just wanted to have fun my senior year." (WT)

Asked about his situation at Colorado, Colt said:
"I feel like a lot of the success I’ve had has been in a sense like karma. What happened to me was so wrong and in so many ways I had to take responsibility for what I did and I did that. That’s also why I was able to get taken advantage of. In the end, every dream I had as a kid came true. I went off to Hawaii, a Division I college and not only that I was a Heisman Trophy candidate for two years. I had a great career and my teammates and I took a program and a school to another level. A lot of the stuff that happened after Hawaii with the draft was almost like déjà vu. At the same time I landed in a great spot in a great situation and I am hoping the same type of thing can happen here." (WT)

About JJ giving him a second chance, Colt said:
"That was Coach Jones. I wasn’t the first kid he did that for. Pisa Tinoisamoa, the Rams linebacker, he got him right out of jail. Davone Bess, my receiver, he got him right out of jail. It almost felt good to go to a guy like Coach Jones who saw past the media articles and saw past the perception to give guys a chance. He knew Hawaii was a great place to give guys a second chance, and he had a great track record with giving players a second chance and them going off and having a lot of success." (WT)