Matthew Brian Stevens (born June 14, 1973) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are two slightly di ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

(NFL), who played for five different teams. He played college football at

Appalachian State University Appalachian State University (; Appalachian, App State, App, or ASU) is a public university in Boone, North Carolina. It was founded as a teachers college in 1899 by brothers B. B. and D. D. Dougherty and the latter's wife, Lillie Shull Dough ...

. He was drafted in the third round of the 1996 NFL Draft. Stevens was paralyzed from the waist down in a

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruisin ...

accident in 2007; however, by 2011 he had regained the ability to move through the use of special leg brace support. Stevens was born in Northville, Michigan, but his family moved to

Chapel Hill Chapel Hill or Chapelhill may refer to: Places Antarctica *Chapel Hill (Antarctica) Australia * Chapel Hill, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane * Chapel Hill, South Australia, in the Mount Barker council area Canada *Chapel Hill, Ottawa, a neighbo ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...

) when he was a child. He attended Chapel Hill High School, graduating in 1991.

References

External links

New England Patriots bio
1973 births Living people Sportspeople from Chapel Hill, North Carolina Players of American football from North Carolina Players of American football from Michigan American football safeties Appalachian State Mountaineers football players Buffalo Bills players Philadelphia Eagles players Washington Redskins players New England Patriots players Houston Texans players People from Northville, Michigan Chapel Hill High School (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) alumni {{defensiveback-1970s-stub