Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile (25 page)

Then he motions to a young man in army fatigues standing in the corner of the room and introduces him as an Iraqi war veteran. Coach wants him to say a few words to us. The football-as-war metaphor is an old motivational tactic. I have heard it evoked many times in my life. But not like this.

The vet tells us his story. He lost three friends and both of his legs in a roadside bomb attack the previous year. You can hear a pin drop. He’s an impressive man, an impressive kid, really. But like me, he seems confused as to why he is here, addressing a room full of professional football players the night before a preseason game. It soon becomes apparent why he was brought here. Mangini starts peppering him with leading questions intended to strengthen the validity of his own mantras, trying to draw an honest parallel between the bomb that killed his friends and the following evening’s preseason game against the Tennessee Titans. The soldier sees what Mangini is doing and steers away from it, choosing instead to speak candidly about what he had learned, not what Mangini had hoped he learned.

After a few cringeworthy questions from the audience, class is dismissed. I make a beeline to my room, where I lock myself behind the double bolt and scribble furiously in my notebook. This is some outlandish shit. And I don’t want to forget it.

The next night we play the Titans. I suit up in my number 85 game-day gear. I look at myself in the mirror before the game, wearing all brown. This color looks strange after years in blue and orange. But I’m in a uniform: I guess that’s what matters. The game starts and I am ready but I never set foot on the field. It’s just as well. I need another week of practice.

We have the next day off. I go into the facility for a workout, then back to my hotel room. I sit around the rest of the day. Outside is a heavy rain. I stare out the window and repeat my mantra.

The next morning I walk into the facility at around seven. As I open the door, I see the grim reaper leaning on the wall about fifty feet away. The grim reaper is the member of the staff in charge of telling players that the coach or the GM wants to see them upstairs. And bring your playbook. It’s the end of the line. The grim reaper was that pear-shaped little penguin-man with the pronounced FUPA on HBO’s
Hard Knocks
that the Cincinnati Bengals employed to rouse professional athletes out of their sleep before dawn and tell them they weren’t good enough to play anymore. There is an art to being the grim reaper. The penguin was not an artist.

But this grim reaper is. And there he is, leaning on the wall, waiting for his target to walk through the glass double doors. Poor guy, I think. Not the reaper, but whoever he is waiting for. Easy come, easy go, right? As I clear the glass double doors and make my way down the hall, he perks up and pushes himself off the wall. No fucking way.

—Nate. George needs to see you upstairs.

Up the stairs we go to complete the filthy cycle.

I sit down once again in front of that stupid mahogany desk. George hands me a manila envelope with my walking papers in it.

—Well, Nate, I’m sorry about this. We thought you could come in and add a different dimension to the offense. But it’s just too close to the start of the season to get a good look at you. I have no doubt you’re a good player, but you’d be better off in a system that . . .

Blah blah blah and on and on he goes. I’m not paying any attention. I am busy bashing his skull against his big, beautiful desk while his family members look on through the foggy lens of forgotten picture frames. But I know it’s not George’s fault. I like George. He was the only reason I was there in the first place: him and my tight end coach. George went to bat for me and convinced Mangini and Daboll to give me a shot. It was those two who decided I was no good. George just had to be the one to tell me. Yes, this is all part of the business. Yes, it’s what I signed up for. I should be happy that I got to be a part of it at all. Look at this! I was a Cleveland Brown! That’s more than most people can say. I am a lucky man. I should be thankful.

But thankful for what? Thankful that I was given the talent to play the game I love? Yes, I’ll buy that. Thankful to be subjected to the whims of the men who control the game I love? Hardly. There are thousands of George Kokinises and Eric Manginis in the football world, men who love the game but weren’t good enough to play it, so they found a way to control those who are. They are trying their best to build a perfect football team, yet they’re losing the perspective needed to do it. And they’re polluting the stream that every football-loving child in America is drinking from. They’ve forgotten about the players. A coach is only as good as his team
feels
. And if he doesn’t have their respect, what does any of it matter?

I go back home to Denver this time and swan dive into the pit of despair. A week later, the day after the last preseason game of the summer, I get a call from the Saints. Their second tight end, Billy Miller, tore his Achilles tendon in the game and they need a veteran to come in right away. They fly in four of us, all of whom have at least five years of experience. I know two of them well: Jeb Putzier from Denver and Daniel Wilcox from NFL Europe. We are all veterans, we are all in good shape, and we all want the job.

The workouts for the Eagles and the Browns were led by an assistant coach who also served as the quarterback. But in New Orleans, head coach Sean Payton is leading the workout and quarterback Drew Brees is throwing us the passes. It feels more important. I have another solid workout. I run another 4.6 and catch everything. But we all do. And after we shower and change, we all hop back in the van and are dropped off at the airport. None of us gets the gig.

The season starts and I’m unemployed. I have to make a choice. UFL training camp is starting in a week. In the conversations I had over the summer with Eric Van Heusen, we talked about a lot of things. One was, well, what’s the point? EVH, as I called him, assured me that the NFL would be plucking men off UFL rosters when their own players got hurt because the UFL guys would be in football shape. They would be polished and ready. EVH and the rest of the coaches had to really sell this one because all of the UFL guys believed they should be NFL guys, believed they
would
be NFL guys; all they needed was another chance.

Another thing we talked about was money. EVH said they hadn’t worked out the particulars yet but it would definitely be six figures. Well, that is good. Certainly it won’t be NFL money, but six figures is good. Playing in the NFL warps your perception of money, and after earning large sums of it to play a violent game a certain way, the prospect of living that same strange, brutal life for a fraction of the reward is unappealing. This was a major obstacle the UFL was facing. Football is fun when you don’t know any better. But when your body starts to break, unless you are getting paid well, there is no incentive to continue. There’s a reason why you don’t see grown men at the park in full pads playing football games. They claim to love the game so much. They claim that the pros are so lucky to play it. Well, you, too, Johnny Crotchscratcher, can play the game you love. Put an ad on Craigslist. Start your own league. Go hit somebody.

When I talked to EVH after getting cut by the Browns, he told me it was going to be more like $80,000. Not what I was expecting but still good for three months of work. After my final workout in New Orleans, whenever I worked out, I broke out in hives. They crawled all the way up my back and sides onto my neck and face. Large, raised boils and coagulated blood islands formed on the sea of my skin and begged me to reconsider whatever my body knew I was about to do. What beeping? I ignored the cries and pushed on. I was in great shape. I had trained all summer. And for what? To pack it in? Then what would I do with this ax I’d been sharpening? There’s nowhere else I can swing it. I call EVH and tell him I’m in.

Great! Oh, but one thing, EVH says, now it’s $50,000. That’s all they can do. Eh, fuck it. I’ll do it. I drive from San Diego to Arizona, where all of the UFL festivities are taking place. First order of business: pick up my playbook. Jim Fassel’s Scottsdale home doubles as the Locos’ off-season coaching offices and it’s where I go to meet EVH and Fassel in person. They are nice guys and tell me they’re happy to have me. EVH gives me my playbook and I leave for the hotel in Scottsdale where we’ll stay for three nights and go through extensive physicals and meetings and orientations. But hold on! First we have to sign the contract. Get it in ink! We all showed up despite being misled by the numbers. But the big surprise comes in the hotel ballroom, when they hand us the pen. The real salary, the one we’ll all be receiving for our services, is $35,000: $35,000 to keep the dream alive. I sign it in blood. Look, Ma, I’m a Las Vegas Loco.

T
raining camp, and the Locos’ home base for the duration of the six-game season, will be located in Casa Grande, Arizona. One hour southeast of Phoenix. Population: 48,571. Climate: the fucking desert. Notable landmarks: none. Recreational activities: drinking alone in the dark. After the three days in Scottsdale, this is where I’m headed: the 10 East to the 387 South. The 387 is where shit gets real: tumbleweeds and cacti and a lonely highway as straight and hot as the devil’s dick. As I drive along repeating my mantra, my mind runs away from me.

. . . alone on the highway of my football dreams, I keep my thumb outstretched. Cactus, sand, and rock as far as I can see, cleats over my shoulder, my teeth are grinding, chewing on a coca leaf. I haven’t eaten in days and my eyes are getting heavy. I pack more leaves in my mouth so I can stay awake, stay alert, because I know at any time the right truck will come down this road and spot me, wild-eyed with the madness, and it will pull over and throw open the door for me. I stay awake for this possibility. That’s all that I have ever needed. The possibility. Faint recollections of youth flash behind my eyes. I don’t know what it means. Is it keeping me alive or killing me? This is the madness creeping in. I shake my head a few times and scream the alphabet backward. Do this enough and truth starts to go backward, too. When my body was young, growing, I stepped with a certain rhythm, a certain bounce that I can picture here on this dusty road. In fact I can feel it. I still have it, and without a soul anywhere near this highway I bounce back and forth across the lanes, simulating the routes I’ve been running in empty streets since 1984, pushing back the tears with speed. Keep running, keep lifting, keep hitting, keep throwing, keep pushing, keep chasing, keep chasing, keep chasing the life you believe in. I’m kicking up dust on this two-lane highway. I haven’t eaten in days, but I’m never hungry anymore. I’ve got enough money to feed a village forever but not enough to feed me for a day. The money in my account gives me no peace and no appetite my mother tells me it should. She tells me to learn about my money, what it can do for me, what it can do for my future, my family’s future. But I’ve got no interest in money and no time for a family. I’ve got things to do, mother. I pack my cheek with more leaves and dig into the pavement with the balls of my feet. I think I see something ahead. Yes, I see something. But I’ve been saying this for weeks now, and every time it ends up being a bush or a rock or a broken-down Chevy or a fucking carcass. Stupid little kid that I am, I get excited every time. I’m back to my old optimistic tricks, circling the imaginary defenders that can’t cover me out here in the desert or anywhere for that matter. All I need is a quarterback who understands me. That’s all I need. So I keep moving, alone down this two-lane highway, wild-eyed and mad with love and fear and pain and hope. Mad and scared that I was wrong all along, afraid to stop moving, stop running, because it will all be over. My thumb will go down and I’ll start learning about my money and I’ll start a family and be very secure and everything will be just fine. But I know when all this happens, when I quit hitchhiking for good, part of me will die. That bounce, that rhythm, the patterns in the street, the wild eyes, the pain, the pain I have learned to cherish, it will all be over. I’m not r—

Blinker, right on 84, and there’s my new home: the Holiday Inn. We will stay here for the duration of the season and bus to Las Vegas for our home games. I needn’t stress the regularity with which my mantra is running through my head. Casa Grande feels like rural Mexico. I love Mexico and all, but this is no bueno.

D
ay one of training camp reveals the many ways that the UFL differs from the NFL. One is equipment. In the NFL, everyone gets everything they need. In Casa Grande—affectionately mispronounced “cassa grand”—we have to fight over the piles of face masks and shoulder pads and thigh pads and knee pads on the floor. Fifty men are rummaging through them simultaneously. The equipment manager is an ornery control freak with a wobbly gait and a lazy eye who initially withholds his services so he can show us all who’s boss. Simple questions are met with sharp retorts.

—Where do I get a mouthpiece?

—Oh
now
you want a fucking
mouthpiece
? Shit!

I’m not the only one with a mantra.

There are four tight ends on our team. All of us have NFL experience and we all get along. One of my fellow tight ends, John Madsen, played for the Raiders when I was a Bronco. I knew who he was from playing special teams against him. We studied our opponents and watched so much film that I often felt like I knew the men I was playing against. John and I are similar players, too. We both excel in the passing game and consider ourselves pure receivers. And we both gain very little pleasure from blocking. We also share another fun fact: we are both failed experiments of the Cleveland Browns organization. The nameless face I assumed was watching me try out on the indoor turf of the Browns facility was John. They cut him when they signed me. And here we both are, brothers in misery.

Football is football anywhere. There are tenets of the game that do not change. But the unpleasantness of these tenets can be exacerbated by the conditions that support them. In this regard, football in Casa Grande takes on a new luster. The Holiday Inn supplies us with all of our meals, which aren’t horrible, but any meal eaten in the dining area of a desert Holiday Inn, no matter how delicious, is seasoned with the flakes of self-loathing.