FanHouse

Victor Adeyanju has set his goals for what he wants to accomplish. They're not the kind of goals you would expect to hear, you know the general get more tackles, improve his skills as a rookie, work on issues he may be having on the field, etc.

No, Adeyanju's goals are far more down to earth and far more close to his heart than anything on the football field. Because to Adeyanju, the most important thing is his life is his family. And the goals he has set down for himself engulf just his family:

1. Persuade his father to retire from driving a cab.
2. See that his mother finally starts a career she has so wanted.
3. Move his family out of the tough neighborhood they live in, on the south side of Chicago.

Thirty years ago, his father Joseph Adeyanju had once "read in a novel that to the people in America, thousands of dollars is nothing to them ... that everything that glitters is gold. I said, 'I want to go there, I want to see it.'"

Both his parents had been teachers in Nigeria but life was not the way they had wanted for their six children and they decided to pack up the family and move to America, where they hoped they could have part of the thing called "The American Dream".

What they found though, was not exactly what they expected and neither one of them could get jobs as teachers and his father Joseph had to settle for driving a cab. At job at which he had to work 100 hour weeks while Adeyanju's mother, Deborah gave up her career to stay home with the children to help guide them, love them, and protect them from the harshness of the neighborhood they had found themselves forced to live in.

At first, home was a tiny efficiency apartment in an area with "bad people, loose dogs and shootings," Victor said. Although they eventually were able to move their family into a home, they were still in one of the worst parts of Chicago, especially to raise a family.

While his mother protected them from the dangers of the neighborhood, his father faced daily peril on the job. "Having a gun pointed at his head, getting robbed a couple of times," Victor said. "But he's very street smart, so he's able to
protect himself."

"Sometimes at Christmas we wouldn't get any presents," Victor said. "But I'll tell you one thing: We never went hungry, we always had a roof over our heads, and we always had that family bond."

When Adeyanju was three years old his parents sent him and the rest of his siblings back to Nigeria to live with their grandmother for four years, in hopes that they would be able to get on their feet enough to make life easier on their children.

Despite all the tough times he and his family experienced, his parents still managed to put all five of their grown children through college, each of them earning degrees. Since then, his mother also has been able to return to school and received a degree in Sociology and is looking for a way to apply that.

Adeyanju realizes the sacrifices that both his parents have made so that their children could enjoy the good life that his father always dreamed that America could offer his family. And his main goal in life now is to pay them back for everything they have done for him.

His father now has cut his cab driving job down to part time, but that's still not what Adeyanju wants for his father, it's time he feels for his father to begin to enjoy his live. His father, mother and youngest brother James still reside in the same rugged neighborhood, although the tiny apartment has been replaced with a modest ranch style home, Adeyanju is still trying to convince them to move to a safer place. As his money starts coming in, this will be the one goal he will be focusing on, giving his family a place they've always dreamed of and deserve.