L.T.: Off-Field Work Is More Important

You've probably heard the saying that "nice guys finish last." But as correspondent Bob Simon reports, LaDainian Tomlinson is proving to be the exception to that rule.

L.T., the record-setting running back of the San Diego Chargers, was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player last season.

This season he's not doing quite as well: he's only averaging one touchdown a game. It's terrific for any other player, but not for L.T., who scored twice a game last year; that's when he was also named the NFL's M.V.P. off the field for his generosity and community service. And that's what makes him truly remarkable. Despite all his success, and this era of chest-thumping, law-breaking athletes, L.T. remains soft-spoken, and self-effacing - a rare role model for children and their parents.

"They say that each time you play a game, it's like being in a car wreck. And so that's 20 car wrecks in one year. I have to prepare my body for that type of abuse," Tomlinson explains.

But he often does two things at once, not just training his body, but also training his mind. "It's one thing to prepare your body. But if you're not focused on what you're doing then you know you're not gonna be successful anyway," he explains.

When he's not working out, L.T. is a sweet, laid back guy. But on game day, his wife LaTorsha told Simon her husband stops talking and starts focusing.

"If I ask him questions he pretty much'll ignore me until I keep asking. And he'll finally say, 'You know I don't talk on game day," she tells Simon.

"Because for me it's a point of survival for the day," he explains. "Not knowing if I'm coming out of the game able to walk or anything. You know?"

What is he most worried about?

"Guys that get injured and can't play any more ever," L.T. tells Simon. "You know, it's brutal. It's brutal out on the football field."

L.T. scored 31 touchdowns last season, an NFL record, by nailing defenders with his staggering stiff arm, and by running through them, around them, and over them. He shuns the self-promoting "end zone dance," letting his play speak for itself. He's a triple threat because he doesn't just run the ball, he also makes sensational catches. And he can throw: his specialty is touchdown passes.

But what he does off the field makes L.T. so exceptional: no player puts more time into more projects for more people. Two days before Thanksgiving, he gives 2,000 families enough food to make Thanksgiving dinners.

He visits children in hospitals, giving presents and personal attention.

He admits he thinks he gets the bulk of the joy when he hands out presents. "I think definitely me. Definitely me," he tells Simon. "They're so grateful to be getting toys, you can't help but to enjoy yourself."

He has his own charity golf tournament, gives $1,000 college scholarships to seniors at his old high school, and hands out dozens of bikes and hundreds of shoes to underprivileged kids in San Diego.

Asked what's more important to him, his on or off-field work, L.T. tells Simon, "I think definitely, what I do off the field. People may remember something I did on the field for a couple of days, maybe a week. But the things that I do, and we do in the community is something that people remember for the rest of their lives. Because they're touched by it."

Since he couldn't afford to go to NFL games as a child, he buys tickets for 21 kids to every home game. Twenty-one is his jersey number. And again, he gives them his time. After the game he comes back on the field to greet each of them, sign autographs, and pose for pictures.

"It's a full circle from being that kid to being the guy these kids look up to," he explains. "When I see their smiles I remember how I felt at their age."

And at their age, LaDainian went to a football camp run by Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith. L.T. told 60 Minutes that getting a handoff from Smith changed his life.

"A hero, somebody I looked up to was actually handing the ball off to me in a drill. I kind of took it as a sign of things to come," L.T. recalls.

Now he's handing that same experience to hundreds of mostly disadvantaged kids at three summer camps he's opened in San Diego, Fort Worth, and Waco.

He's out there with them every day, teaching about football, and more. "Hard work pays off guys," he tells his young charges. "And that's why I am where I am today."

And for L.T., the hard work really has paid off. He's the highest paid running back in the league, at $8 million a year, and now he makes almost $5 million more from various endorsement deals, including Vitamin Water, Vizio Electronics, and Campbell's Soup, which made a commercial starring his mother.

Nike even rented his stadium, hired some of his teammates and some Chicago Bears to make a commercial about how well he runs in their shoes.

But it hasn't continued that way: the Chargers have already lost more than twice as many games as they did last season. They may still make the playoffs, but the losing has been tough for L.T.

"Some guys may take losing as 'We lost but we still got paid.' As long as you have that attitude, you're going to be losers," he says.

L.T. and LaTorsha may sparkle in the spotlight, but their idea of a big night is a quiet night at home. They built a 10,000 square-foot house outside San Diego that includes many of life's necessities, like a waterfall into a pool, a court for basketball or tennis, and for his second favorite sport golf, a chipping area, a sand trap, and of course a putting green.

His six cars include a Bentley, a vintage Impala, and his current favorite, a Lamborghini. Asked how fast he has driven the car, L.T. says, laughing, "I knew that was comin'. Let's just say at least 150, at least."

What about on the open road?

"Yeah, no," he says. "I'm typically a person doesn't like to drive real fast."

"I like to run fast but not drive," L.T. says, laughing.

And here's something else no home should be without: hidden behind a bookcase, L.T. has a spacious screening room. Simon showed him some plays to find out what he sees when he's out on the field. It turns out that plays that look very fast to us, look very slow to him.

"It actually feels in slow motion to me," L.T. comments. "It's happening slow because I can see what's going on. I can see what every defender is doing."

L.T. admits he never really expects to get tackled. "Every time I touch the ball I think I'm going to go all the way. I think I'm going to score a touchdown. I'm the runner I am because I think that I'm going to go all the way every single time I touch the ball," he says.

He's known as "the man behind the mask" because he wears a dark visor that he says prevent migraines and prevent tacklers from seeing his eyes.

"I never wanted people to see what I may be thinking," L.T. explains.

He also admits that on the field he doesn't hear the crowds. "And I think the reason why is you're so focused on what's going on out on the football field that your senses don't allow you to use the part where you hear the crowd," he says. "It's very silent."

"You're really in your own zone, aren't you?" Simon asks.

"That's the focus that you have to have when you're in my position. Because if you don't, you can get hurt," L.T. says.

And here's where he's most vulnerable: leaping over the pack and into the end zone. LaTorsha cringes every time he does it, and she's told him to stop.

"I always tell him. I mean the chargers pay your offensive line to protect you. When you jump in the air they're not jumping in the air with you. You're by yourself. You are by yourself. And you're gonna get hurt," she says.

"She has a point," he admits, laughing.

Asked if that means he'll never do it again, L.T. tells Simon, "Well, I can't say I never would do it again."

They don't have any children yet, but if they do, LaTorsha says she wouldn't want her sons to play football.

Why not?

"That's gonna be a lot of pressure on them to live up to the legend that their father is and will be," she says.

L.T.'s opinion? "I think she has a great point," says L.T. "Something that I kinda wanna protect my kids from is the physical part getting hurt; the injuries, you know."

Tomlinson grew up near Waco, Texas. His parents divorced when he was very young and his father moved away. When L.T. was just five years old he found a new role model, and his future, watching Walter Payton fly down the field for the Chicago Bears.

"Late, great Walter Payton was the reason why l wanted to be a football player. It was something that seeing on TV I was drawn to," Tomlinson explains.

When he was just five years old, L.T. started sleeping with a football, holding it.

His younger brother LaVar said that ball would lie in L.T.'s arms like a girlfriend. And L.T. admits it did for 15 years.

LaTorsha tells Simon that the football is finally out of the bed, but not out of the bedroom. "Still to this day, it's in between the nightstand and the bed. Here's the bed. Here's the nightstand. There's the football on the floor," she explains, laughing.

LaTorsha met LaDainian when they were both students at Texas Christian University. She realized he'd inherited his humility from his mother, Loreane.

It turns out that on their first date, L.T. talked about his mom the entire time. "Oh, that's wonderful. I think," Loreane says, laughing.

"Yeah. And that right there, to me was a good attribute, cause it showed me that any guy that loves his mom that much knows how to treat me," LaTorsha says.

Back in grade school, he promised to give his mother a big house, and now she's living in it. "When we were kids, I wrote a letter to her and told her I would get her a house like this," L.T. remembers.

He was about eight years old at the time.

"You were able to write even though it was hard to understand. You know, you have awful bad handwriting," Loreane says. "Yeah. But yeah he was pretty young."

Now, at 28, he has become a sought-after celebrity, but at heart he's still a modest mamma's boy. And from his mother, he learned what became the guiding lights of his life: nothing is as important as giving, and always aim for the stars.

He admits he wants to be seen as the best who ever played and he knows it's a pretty lofty ambition. "But I believe in setting your standards high," he L.T. says. "Because if you don't, then what are you really doing? You're selling yourself short."

Will he keep playing until his legs give out or does he plan to retire while still on top of his game?

"I don't think I'd be the type of person to continue to play until my legs give out. I wanna stop playing on top," Tomlinson tells Simon. "And hopefully it'll be the year we win the Super Bowl."