NEW YORK -- One day in 2009, Russell Wilson found himself addressing hundreds of students at St. Timothy's School in Raleigh, N.C.

The topic was bullying.

At the time, Wilson was the starting quarterback for NC State and a first-team All-ACC selection. Maura Horton, the wife of Wolfpack offensive line coach Don Horton, had invited Wilson to speak at St. Timothy's because the couple's daughter attended the school and a friend of the family who worked there wanted to be proactive in starting a dialogue about the harmful effects of bullying.

Russell Wilson, with the Hortons’ daughters, was invited by Maura Horton to speak to schoolchildren about bullying, which he admitted he had been guilty of. Courtesy of Maura Horton

They all figured the amiable Wilson was the perfect guy to stand up and talk about doing the right thing. What they didn't know was that he also had a confession to make.

Turns out, Wilson had been a bit of a bully himself.

It sounds hard to believe for anyone who has followed Wilson's ascension to football's biggest stage. On Sunday, the 5-foot-11, second-year pro will lead the Seattle Seahawks against future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII.

But Maura Horton remembers watching all the kids that day at St. Timothy's as they listened with rapt attention to the young man whose ease and openness allowed him to immediately connect with his audience.

"We were surprised to learn what he said," Horton told espnW this week. "Russell doesn't seem like someone who ever could have behaved that way. But because of his honesty, the kids were blown away by him."

Wilson told the students that when he was younger he would sometimes be mean to his classmates on the playground because he thought that would make the "cool kids" like him more. It took a teacher pulling him aside one day for Wilson to realize there was nothing cool about taunting someone.

"You don't want to act like that," the teacher said, reminding Wilson that being good at sports wasn't a free pass for bad behavior. The message: Sports are fleeting, but words and deeds are permanent.

"Your actions stay with you forever," Wilson told the students, "so you want to make sure those actions are something you're proud of in the future."

The Horton family knows a thing or two about Wilson and meaningful actions. To them, he is a man whose awareness and sensitivity changed their lives.

About a year ago, Maura launched Magna Ready, a business inspired by an interaction between her husband and Wilson after NC State lost a road game during the 2009 season. Don Horton suffers from Parkinson's disease, although he had not told anyone on the team back then. Because of media obligations, Wilson was one of the last players getting dressed that day, and he noticed that Horton was struggling to button his shirt. The team bus was waiting outside, so the sophomore quarterback stopped what he was doing and, without saying a word, buttoned his coach's shirt.

When Don arrived home that night, he told his wife what had happened. He confessed his embarrassment and felt distraught that a layer of his independence had been stripped away. But an idea was born: magnetic buttons for dress shirts.