In 1935, the New York Giants retired Ray Flaherty’s No. 1 jersey. It was the first retired number in pro football history. Eighty-nine years later, the Giants drafted Malik Nabers sixth overall in the 2024 NFL draft. Nabers had worn No. 8 while becoming LSU’s all-time leader in receptions and receiving yards, and No. 8 was taken by Daniel Jones at the time. So, Nabers took a risk and asked for No. 1. With the Flaherty family’s blessing, the Giants took No. 1 out of retirement for Nabers. It was an appropriate revivification, perhaps best foreshadowed by Flaherty’s 1976 Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement speech: “There were many disappointments and hours of glory.”

None of us get to choose the ways in which we may be extraordinary. We want to believe extraordinary means glory, but oftentimes, it can mean suffering. 

Nabers learned just that from an early age. He had to morph disappointment into motivation—if not for ambition, for survival. He can trace his fierce competitive spirit back to his childhood apartment complex, where he spent almost all of his time playing outside and competing with older kids. “I never cried, I didn’t quit, I always got back up,” Nabers tells me. 

So, last September, when he contorted for the ball, hit the MetLife Stadium turf clutching his knee, and didn’t immediately bounce back up, Nabers knew he’d torn his ACL. He swelled with anger, but then he remembered a conversation from two months prior in which he’d craved another obstacle to enrich his story, even if he wouldn’t dare wish for injury.

“Leek, do you think it was hard?” His uncle asked.

“Nah, not really,” Nabers said. “A lot of people have it way harder than me. I’m so strong that even if I was to hit rock bottom, I would come back even stronger.”

“And then [the injury] happened,” Nabers recalls. “I had to remember what I asked for. I went through a lot in my life, but I never felt like it was really hard because I overcame it so easily. I was always the kid that, even when I was injured, it looked like I wasn’t. I fought through a lot. I always felt like the team was more important than what I was battling, what I was going through. So this injury is the first time I’ve been stuck, just stopped in my tracks. It’s the only time I’ve felt like I’m human.”

Before that point, Nabers was never allowed to take his time. He recalls growing up in Lafayette and Youngsville, Louisiana, raised by his mother, Tonya, who worked tirelessly. He was bullied at school for wearing old shoes, he says, but he didn’t care because he knew how hard his mom worked for those shoes. His childhood was “rough,” but the saving grace was playing outside with the neighborhood kids. He found football there.

When he was 8, Nabers casually walked over to his mom and declared, “I’m going to play in the NFL one day.” He had been staying over with his cousin, Jordan Allen, and witnessed Jordan win the flag football championship. “I’d just seen how [Jordan] and his friends all bonded over football,” Nabers says. “They all fell in love with winning. It brought all the parents together. You just seen everybody happy. And my whole life, after I’d seen that, I just wanted to be a part of that.” Tonya Nabers didn’t flinch. She promised him she’d do whatever he needed from her. 

Nabers dominated every sport he tried. Baseball, basketball, football, track. He went all in on football as a high school freshman. At 15, he heard rumors about the Louisiana Bootleggers 7-on-7 club near Baton Rouge, about an hour away, and knew he needed to attempt camps to have a shot at college offers. His talent was useless if he wasn’t visible. Tonya prayed for the right person to discover him, so despite only having $20 to her name, she drove him to Baton Rouge. “She said she had faith,” Nabers says. His mother bet everything she had on her son, and it paid off. Nabers became a staple on the Bootleggers—earning offers and putting himself on the map—later returning to Baton Rouge to star at LSU. Now, he keeps a photo in his wallet of him and his mother beaming after his draft night. 

Immediately after the Giants drafted Nabers on April 25, 2024, Nabers appeared on The Pivot, a podcast hosted by ex-NFLers Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor, and Channing Crowder. When asked if he was ready to become a face of New York City, Nabers coolly said, “I got a nice smile, I got nice style, so yeah, I’m ready.” 

Over the past two years, Nabers has come into his own off the field. He’s making up for lost time. “Everything I wanted to do as a kid, I’m doing now,” he says with a giggle. “Dirt bikes, four-wheelers, I’m buying it now.” It extends to fashion. He describes his personal style as “real smooth,” currently evolving from young and “hype” to older and more refined. He constantly has a custom, icy “LEEK” chain hanging around his neck and can finally indulge in his lifelong affinity for luxury timepieces. 

“I’ve been looking at Breitling watches since college; I’ve been on watches since I was young,” Nabers says, speaking of his new Breitling partnership. “The watches that they come out with stand out to me because it’s a smooth fit. It fits anywhere. It speaks volumes in the room when you step in with a nice timepiece.”

Timepieces are more than just accessories to Nabers. He views each piece as unique; a time capsule. He commemorates milestones with timepieces. He bought one after getting drafted, after his 1,000-yard receiving rookie season. Youngsville Mayor Ken Ritter gave him a key to the city, so he bought a nice watch. He’ll expand his collection after he earns his first All-Pro nod, wins his first playoff game, and, hopefully, helps bring the Lombardi Trophy back to the Giants for the first time in 15 years. Maybe the Giants will retire No. 1 again someday. 

“I think about legacy more than anybody,”  Nabers says. “I don’t really think about the money. I think about what people will say when I’m done playing the game. I’m chasing me, where I know I can be.”

Nabers thought even more about his place in the game, his love for the game, and his drive to leave it better than he found it while sidelined. He thinks about it now. Sure, he’s had his fun this summer, but nothing can distract him from turning the most grueling year of his football life into the launching pad for the rest of his life.

Last summer, Nabers walked in Kith’s Fall 2025 runway show and had a rush of reassurance when he realized the boy from Lafayette was strutting down Lafayette Street—confident and expressing himself freely. All roads lead back home, to the place that made him believe. To the people who sacrificed. To his mom, most of all. To the people who loved him as “Leek” before stadiums chanted it. He believes his hours—their hours—of glory are imminent.

“If I speak to my friends, if I speak to my family, if I speak to the world, saying I’m this person that can do anything and can get through anything, this was a test to see if I am who I really say I am,” Nabers says. And the verdict? “I definitely am who I thought I was. I can’t wait to show it. I’m just waiting for the time to be right.” 

Photographed by Fernando Sippel

Styled by Marc Anthony George

Written by Megan Armstrong 

Grooming: Regina Harris

Style Assistants: Adam Haddad, Maria Lord

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