Courtesy Regina Leader Post:

Denatay Heard always thought he would be featured in the pages of Sports Illustrated before People magazine.

That was before Heard and two of his college teammates with the Stillman Tigers ran into a burning house to save a man’s life.

“I just know I gave my life up,” said Heard, who is in Regina attempting to crack the Saskatchewan Roughriders roster as a cornerback. “You just react to the situation. I don’t even know (what was going through my head). It was something the Lord wanted us to do so we did what He put us in the place to do.”

It was late August last year, just before the start of the 5-foot-8, 175-pound Heard’s senior season at the Tuscaloosa, Ala., university when he, lineman Sammie Hill and former Tigers player Kendrick Smith were driving home late at night. (”We were breaking curfew to get something to eat,” Heard admitted with a laugh.)

Their car passed a house fire and Heard yelled for Hill, who was driving, to turn around and go back. The trio found Cassandra Webb and her brother, Val. Jr. — who escaped the blaze — on the lawn screaming that their father was still inside.

“We just reacted to the situation,” said Heard, who hails from LaGrange, Ga. “I told everybody to take their shirts off and put them over their faces and we went in.”

The players found 68-year-old Val Webb Sr. trapped in the living room of the house and carried him to safety.

“I didn’t have any second thoughts,” said Heard. “I just reacted and wanted to get it done. If it was my parents, I would hope somebody would do the same for me. When you’re in a situation like that, you’re not thinking.”

While Heard escaped too much punishment for breaking curfew that night, he couldn’t escape the media attention that followed.

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