Phillippi Dwain Sparks (born April 15, 1969) 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 with ...

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create tur ...

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 ...

. Sparks graduated from Maryvale High School in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

, in 1987. He attended and played football for Glendale Community College in Glendale, Arizona, from 1987 through 1989. Sparks played a key role on Glendale Community College's 1988

National Junior College Athletic Association The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), founded in 1938, is the governing association of community college, state college and junior college athletics throughout the United States. Currently the NJCAA holds 24 separate regions ...

national championship football team. He then attended

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

, where he was a member of the

Sigma Chi Sigma Chi () International Fraternity is one of the largest North American fraternal literary societies. The fraternity has 244 active (undergraduate) chapters and 152 alumni chapters across the United States and Canada and has initiated more tha ...

fraternity. He was drafted by the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

as the 13th pick in the second round of the

1992 NFL Draft The 1992 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 26–27, 1992, at the Marriott Mar ...

. He played left

opposite

Jason Sehorn Jason Heath Sehorn (born April 15, 1971) is a former American football cornerback who played professionally in the National Football League (NFL) for the New York Giants from 1994 to 2002 and St. Louis Rams in 2003. He played college football a ...

for six years and formed a talented defensive backfield tandem. He played for the Giants until

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

. In

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, he was signed by the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisi ...

. Sparks announced his retirement on August 28, 2001, having played for nine seasons. He now resides in San Diego. Sparks has a son and a daughter. His daughter, Jordin, is a Grammy nominated singer who won the sixth season of ''

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...

'' in 2007.

References

External links

ESPN Phillippi Sparks player page

SI.com Player page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sparks, Phillippi Sportspeople from Glendale, Arizona Players of American football from Phoenix, Arizona Sportspeople from Oklahoma City American evangelicals African-American players of American football American football cornerbacks Arizona State Sun Devils football players Dallas Cowboys players New York Giants players 1969 births Living people African-American Christians Glendale Gauchos football players 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople