Ronde Barber did not start as a sophomore on the Cave Spring High School football team.
He was redshirted as a freshman on the Virginia football team.
He played in only one game in his rookie season in the NFL.
But he developed into a player who could be welcomed Thursday into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“I’ve always had to work for it,” Barber, 46, said Tuesday in a phone interview. “I remember when I won [the Group AAA] state [title] as a sophomore in high school as a hurdler. I remember thinking, ‘How did I get there?’ and the reality is I’d been working for it for a lot longer than some other people that I ran against. … I started hurdling in the sixth grade or something, so that work paid off when I got into 10th grade.