SmashMouth

It happens all the time to Ryan Perrilloux, that moment in the middle of an ordinary day when it hits him once again where he was just a few weeks ago: standing on the sidelines at Lucas Oil Stadium watching his teammates from the New York Giants win Super Bowl XLVI. "Yesterday I was driving around and I just got chills," he said. "That happens."




Ryan Perrilloux, an East St. John High School graduate, made the trip to the Super Bowl as a member of the practice squad for the New York Giants. On Thursday, the St. John the Baptist Parish School Board will honor him during its monthly meeting at 6 p.m.
At 25, the LaPlace resident and member of the Giants practice squad has already experienced some of the best and worst that life has to offer. And it didn't always seem that being a member of a Super Bowl winning team, in any role, would be in the cards.
"It didn't look like this was going to be the outcome," said Barbara Gibbs, his mother.
Gibbs knows that better than anyone. She can recall hearing the gunshot that collapsed her 14-year-old son's lungs after a prank turned almost deadly and rallying around him as he went from being the most sought-after high school quarterback in the nation during his senior year at East St. John High School to a series of suspensions and eventual dismissal from the Louisiana State University football team.
She can point out the bench she and her son were sitting on the day he didn't get the call from the NFL draft and remembers the Bible story she shared with him to encourage him to listen to those wiser than him and not be led astray by his friends.
"I'm thankful and humbled. I'm happy because I know where he's been. It wasn't easy," she said. "I feel God has blessed him by taking him to the very best. To be part of a championship team his first year, I couldn't ask for better."
Perrilloux also knows how lucky he is to end up where he has.
"It's been a tough road, not just for me but for my family," he said.
After his problems at LSU, Perrilloux transferred to Jacksonville State University in Alabama. He was later signed by the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League, a small, relatively new professional football league.

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Yes..... you read it here ... RP has a SB ring by virtue of being on the practice squad of the NY Giants!