On most nights growing up Mike Adams, was one of four-to-six kids sleeping in one bed in a small, low-income apartment in Paterson, New Jersey. He often had to walk past drug dealers to get to school. He saw people standing near him shot.
He understands now he was living in poverty, but didn't know any better until he went to college and saw how the so-called other half lived.
Then he realized just how hard he had it growing up. Until he went to South Africa.
In the time it took Adams to visit an orphanage in Cape Town, along the western tip of South Africa, with a group of current and former NFL players in 2017, the Carolina Panthers strong safety realized growing up, he didn't have it so bad after all.