"I went home and told my wife," Sapp said. "My wife said no. There's always turmoil in Africa and you might not be able to get out with all that crazy stuff. So I gave Brooks $25,000 because I couldn't go.

"It was really something that lasted a lifetime (for the kids), and that's just him. You get a lifetime from Brooks any time you sit with him and talk with him. He'll give you something that will last forever and ever and a day. That's just the kind of guy he is."

It was a two-week trip under the auspices of the "Brooks Bunch," Brooks' charitable organization. That was 2000. Last year, it was the Grand Canyon. Three years ago, it was Washington, D.C.

	Brooks' generosity has put a lot of smiles on other people's faces.

In a violent game where fear and intimidation rule, Brooks is the top predator; if the NFL was a jungle, he'd be the lion king. He was the league's Defensive Player of the Year and was voted to his sixth straight Pro Bowl.

So, how to reconcile these two polar sides of the same man?

"That's who I am," Brooks said, sitting in the team's facility last week. "I come here to do a job and be a winner. When I'm away from here, I think the Lord has put me in a position to help others."

Professional athletes rarely express awe; it is they who generally inspire it in others. That's what made the effusive praise from Brooks' teammates so extraordinary.

Wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson: "Derrick's like my favorite player in the entire NFL, because of everything he does on and off the field."

Strong safety John Lynch: "He's just a tremendous man of character. He does his best in every aspect of life, and I don't care if (he's) playing board games, he's going to want to win. He wants to be the best, whether it's playing or helping the community or helping kids.

"A lot of people put their money out there, Derrick puts his time and money in, and I think that's what separates him."

Defensive end Simeon Rice: "If you look at it from a bird's eye view, you see the impact he's trying to make in life. I think that's what his signature move is in life, to make an impact, to be a difference maker.

"It's not too many people in this world that practice on being a good man."

Head coach Jon Gruden: "You coach 25 years, you could look under any media guide in the last 20 years on any team and you might never find … guys like Derrick Brooks."

On the offensive
Twenty-seven players, including Sapp, went ahead of Brooks in the 1995 draft. He had actually played safety his freshman year at Florida State, but he always had that linebacker mentality. The Bucs liked his productivity, but they couldn't have imagined the way he would produce in the NFL.

	“	He's a man in every sense of the world. So you've got to salute that and when you meet the individual that walks your path, you're not just meeting a human being, you're meeting a man. ”
		— DE Simeon Rice, on LB Derrick Brooks

Playing with the outgoing and outrageous Sapp, Brooks was sometimes overlooked. When Sapp won the league's Defensive Player of the Year award in 1999, he intimated that Brooks should have won.

In eight seasons in Tampa Bay, Brooks has played in 128 games and has produced 1,277 tackles -- you can do the double-digit math. Last season was something of a struggle for Brooks. A sprain of his left foot, robbed him of explosion and he was not himself. His numbers were down and he had offseason surgery to correct the problem. Gruden held him out of mini-camp -- a move that Brooks originally opposed, but now says put him back on form.

Ironically, it was Brooks' offensive prowess that probably won him the defensive award.

His 4 touchdowns scored after turnovers matched the second-highest, single-season total in the history of the league: