Plaxico Burress gives first jailhouse interview

Plaxico Burress has high hopes to play again in the NFL and says that nobody in the league will be more dedicated than him if he gets that chance.

The former New York Giants wide receiver recently granted the New York Daily News an exclusive jailhouse interview, his first since going to prison almost one year ago. Wayne Coffey of the Daily News writes that Burress looks fit and is keeping a positive outlook on life in anticipation of his upcoming release and hopeful return to the NFL. 

Some of the highlights from the piece:

— After twice getting denied an application for work release, Burress expects to be released from prison on June 6, 2011. He plans to immediately return to the NFL. “I’m not just going to come back and play,” he said. “I’m going to come back and play at a high level.”

— One legal source told the Daily News that half of Manhattan’s 400 public prosecutors thought Burress should have received no jail time for his felony gun possession offense, given the specifics of the crime and that it was his first brush with the law.

— Burress missed the birth of his daugther, who was born while he was in jail. He tells the Daily News that one of the most difficult parts of prison is having to answer his son’s questions about where he is and why he isn’t playing with the Giants. (Three-year-old Elijah is still a big Giants fan.)

— During his time in the yard, Burress sometimes runs routes and has fellow inmates throw him passes. They may not be as good as ones coming from Eli Manning, but they can’t be much worse than the ones Burress used to catch from Kordell Stewart. “Everybody thinks they are Elway here,” he said.

— Burress has been visited in prison by Giants quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan and gets homemade salsa sent to him by Sullivan’s mother in San Diego. He has also received letters from current team general manager Jerry Reese and former GM Ernie Accorsi.

— Embattled Giants running back Brandon Jacobs calls Burress three times a week and has been supportive of Plaxico’s family during his incarceration.

Full Story below:

ROME, N.Y. – The man who used to wear No. 17 for the New York Giants and caught the most famous touchdown pass in team history passes through a massive steel door, and now he is walking toward you. He has green prison-issue pants and a blue-shirted corrections officer with him step for step, as if the guy were a defensive back. The irony isn’t lost on No. 17, who used to run free in secondaries, a 6-5, 230-pound handful, and now can’t shake free of anybody.

Once inside the visitor’s room of Oneida Correctional Facility, the officer heads to the guard station. Plaxico Burress sits down at a little square table. He looks straight ahead at the three brown gates, razor-wired walkway and two metal doors that separate Oneida’s 955 inmates from the outside world, and starts talking about his son Elijah.

Elijah is 3 years old and a big Giants fan. He watches most every game, with a helmet on his head, a ball under his arm, and, of course, a No. 17 Burress jersey on his back. He cheers for Brandon Jacobs, his father’s best friend on the team, and for all the guys. Mostly, though, Elijah keeps asking his father why he isn’t home and why he doesn’t play for the Giants anymore.

“What do I tell him? How am I supposed to answer those questions?” Burress asks at the outset of a 90-minute interview, his first with a print reporter since he went away. He touches the soul patch on his chin and looks down for a moment.

“You can’t go any lower than being here, other than being in the ground,” Burress says. “It’s about as tough as it gets, on a personal level. You learn a lot about yourself. You try to think about the bigger picture, about life outside these walls. You just try to find a way to get through.”

It’s Week 2 in the NFL and the Giants are in Indianapolis and another football season is firing up without Plaxico Burress. He expects no sympathy for that, nor for his current living situation in the outskirts of this small, struggling upstate city, where his number is 09R3260 and he works as a porter and mops linoleum floors, and spends up to 16 hours a day in a 12 x 12 cell in Building 19, Dorm V. His room has a sink, a toilet and a locker, and a steady influx of books; he reads The Bible faithfully, and about two books a week, his recent favorite being Dick Gregory’s autobiography, Callus On My Soul.

The one-year anniversary of Burress’ incarceration comes this week. He will not be celebrating it. He will, rather, take it as another day of punishment, another day closer to the freedom that he lost because of a spectacularly poor decision he made on Nov. 28, 2008, the night he went to a Manhattan nightclub called the Latin Quarter with an unlicensed gun tucked in the waistband of his sweatpants, the object being to keep himself safe. Except the gun went off, a bullet went into his thigh and the legal damage was infinitely worse than the wound, Burress pleading guilty to a felony gun possession charge that sent him away for two years.

—Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl