December 25th, 2016

Rams' Tavon Austin, Robert Quinn bring holiday joy to single mother of six

LOS ANGELES -- Tavon Austin thought about his mother on Wednesday afternoon. He always does, but on this day it was different.

*Rebecca Carter and her six children, shown with the Rams' Tavon Austin and Robert Quinn, are living under one roof for the first time. (Photo: Ric Tapia/Rams)*

The Rams wide receiver was standing inside a four-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood called Sun Valley, nestled in the northwest section of Los Angeles. Austin and teammate Robert Quinn had spent more than $20,000 from their own bank accounts to furnish this place for a single mother named Rebecca Carter who had just been reunited with her six young children and was doing her best to put six years of periodic homelessness behind her.

Carter walked in, and her eyes lit up -- and Austin thought back to Baltimore, and Cathy Green, and all the odd jobs she worked to provide for four children, and the drive Austin felt to someday pay her back for it all.

"My mom was pretty young, and she did what she could do," Austin said. "We had six people in the house [his grandmother lived there, too], so I know how this feels. It put the drive in me to get to where I want to today. That’s how I looked at it, that’s how I approached it and that’s how I took it. Hopefully one of them little boys in there take it the same way that I took it. 'I’m going to get Mommy out of here. I’m going to get us out of here.' That’s what I did."

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