Lions LB Derrick Barnes was a centerpiece of Andrew Whitworth’s Walter Payton Man of the Year acceptance speech

Los Angeles Rams left tackle Andrew Whitworth captured the Walter Payton Man of the Year award at the NFL Honors ceremony on Thursday night. In his acceptance speech, Whitworth proved why he was so deserving and used an interaction with Lions rookie LB Derrick Barnes to illustrate why.

Whitworth spent his first 11 seasons playing for the Cincinnati Bengals. Among his many charitable feats, Whitworth used to spend time mentoring young men at a Boys and Girls Club in Cincinnati. One of those kids he impacted was Barnes, who grew up in the area.

Barnes had recounted this story earlier in the year after the Lions played the Rams. Whitworth gave it a much bigger audience on Thursday night.

“One experience brought it all together for me this year, and it happened to me on a football field,” Whitworth recounted. “In our game against the Detroit Lions, I had a young player from the Lions run up to me as soon as the final horn went off. And I saw him sprinting over, and I didn’t know what was going on, like we’d known each other forever. I couldn’t place him. It made me so nervous. Had I actually played long enough that a coach’s son or player’s son is playing against me? He stopped that.

He said, ‘Hey man, you’re not going to remember me. I’m Derrick Barnes. You spent time with me when you were a young player in Cincinnati at the Boys & Girls Club, and it meant the world to me. You used to sit with me and talk to me about life. And I was just a little kid. I want you to know how much it meant to me. . . . You know what, the main thing I wanted to say, Whit, I made it. I made it to the NFL, Big Whit.’”