In a grainy old photo from back in 2001, there’s this tiny baby all hooked up to machines in a Gulfport hospital incubator barely the size of a grown man’s hand his little chest just barely moving after what felt like forever without a heartbeat. Now jump ahead to February 8, 2026: Derick Hall, all 6’3″ and 257 pounds of him, charges onto the field at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl LX, anchoring the Seattle Seahawks’ defense as they crush the New England Patriots 29-13.
Hall came into the world on March 19, 2001, right there in Gulfport, Mississippi, at Memorial Hospital. He arrived way too early, around 23 and a half weeks instead of the full 40, tipping the scales at only 2 pounds, 9 ounces. Right after birth, the docs couldn’t pick up a heartbeat it wasn’t pumping strong enough to show on the monitors. That kicked off a frantic round of resuscitation: chest compressions, oxygen, the works, all to get his vitals going and keep his brain safe from harm.
A tweet from X.
The odds? A brutal 1% chance of making it. His mom, Stacy Gooden-Crandle, just 26 and on her own at the time, got pushed to sign a DNR order. No way, she said.
“I couldn’t not give him a fighting chance,”
she told folks later, like in chats with the New York Post.
He fought through all sorts of rough stuff a brain bleed, for one and stuck it out in the NICU for almost five months. Ventilators kept his underdeveloped lungs working, tubes fed him what he needed, and nurses watched like hawks for infections. Back then, in the early 2000s, they warned he might never walk or talk, or even live on his own typical worries for super-preemies like him.
But Hall? He flipped the script entirely. By age 4, he was out there playing flag football to toughen up his lungs, and he owned the field at Gulfport High. At Auburn, he snagged All-SEC nods as a defensive end. Seahawks grabbed him in the second round of the 2023 draft, 37th overall, with a four-year deal worth $9.1 million.
On the gridiron, his toughness is unreal. Heading into 2026, he’d piled up 105 tackles and 10 sacks in his career. In that Super Bowl, his two sacks and a forced fumble lit a fire under Seattle in the third quarter, leading straight to a touchdown that locked in their second ring.
Off the field, Hall’s turning his wild story into something bigger. He and his mom kicked off the Derick Hall One Percent Foundation in 2024, helping families with preemies get stuff like car seats, therapy sessions, and help easing back home. They also fight food insecurity handing out over 1,200 meals a year, including 1,500 turkeys during those 2025 holiday drives and push fitness programs to battle childhood obesity in places like Gulfport that need it most.
It all connects to real problems here in the U.S.: 1 in 10 babies are born preterm, but it’s higher 14.6% for Black families, according to CDC numbers. Hall’s work shines a light on the unfair gaps in baby care and food access, teaming up with outfits like Feeding the Gulf Coast.
He calls himself a
“walking, talking, breathing miracle,”
And pins it on faith and his family. Check out dhallonepercent.org for more on their latest efforts.
There on the Super Bowl turf, Hall was living proof that long shots can pay off. From a scrappy NICU kid with next-to-no chance to an NFL champ, his journey’s a reminder to bet on grit and that some true tales out there really do defy everything.
