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Nawrocki during
his playing days
at Illinois
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Snow covered the ground on the south side of Chicago. I would
race home from school, bundle myself in layers of clothing and rush to the park with my
brother to join friends for a game of tackle football. At the age of 8, I was the youngest
player from the neighborhood lacing my shoes before the game. Playing with guys, some of
whom were twice my size and age, I was given few opportunities to prove I belonged on that
field. I could be standing wide open in the endzone, and the quarterback would dump the
ball off to an older player. I would scurry back to the huddle, run another route and hope
the ball would be thrown my way.
The spirit of the underdog thrives off of hunger, determination and an eagerness to
prove critics wrong. I have been an underdog all my life, fighting for honor, respect and
glory. Whether it was making a tackle at the park, walking on to the University of
Illinois football team or trying to realize my dream of becoming a professional football
player, the odds have been stacked against me. It has never stopped me from reaching for
my goals until now.
It was Oct. 28, 2001, the first day of the inaugural XFL draft. I was in
California with my girlfriend of six years, accompanying my brother on a business trip.
The XFL had signed 1,600 athletes to professional football contracts and placed them in a
draft pool of eligible candidates to be selected. As one of those athletes, the XFL draft
was an opportunity to move a step closer to realizing my dream, a steppingstone to reach
my ultimate destination — the NFL. Seventy names were called the first day of the
draft. My name was not one of them.
On the following day, the skies were clear as waves crashed against the side of a
19-foot Boston whaler in San Francisco’s Sausalito Bay. Inside the boat’s cabin
were a half-dozen roses, five red and one white. Tied to the white rose was a two-tone
gold ring.
I hoped two dreams would be realized that day. My girlfriend Christie walked down the
aisle as a flower girl when she was 5, dreaming of the day she would get married. From an
equally young age, I watched Walter Payton fight off defenders with a dogged determination
and relentless drive, dreaming of the day I would compete at Soldier Field.
I had no control over being drafted, but I made certain one dream was coming true on
that cool, autumn day. I woke up that morning, told my girlfriend I was going to work out
and headed straight to Sausalito Bay with my brother. There we rented a boat, sped to
Angel Island and looked for a place to hang a sign I had made before leaving Chicago.
After spotting some trees high on a cliff, we quickly climbed the side of the hill and
hurriedly tied the sign to the trees with rope. As I was making a knot in the rope, a gust
of wind swept across the hill, knocking a branch across my forehead and opening a two-inch
wound.
By the time we reached the mainland and drove back to our hotel, three hours had
passed. Thinking we had been exercising, my girlfriend was not too happy by our extended
absence. She was even more disgruntled when I came back looking like Frankenstein, blood
trickling down my forehead. To explain our absence, I told her I had dropped a dumbbell on
my head and had to stay at the gym to fill out an injury report. Her blood was boiling,
but I managed to calm her anger. I told her I had called a boat company on the way back
and rented a boat for us to visit Alcatraz.
After showering quickly, we headed back out to Sausalito Bay, boarded the boat and set
out toward Alcatraz. As the boat jumped waves, I kept one hand on the railing and tried to
keep the other hand still to snap pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. Soon Alcatraz was
within our sights, as well as the jewel of the bay, Angel Island. The engine slowed as the
boat neared the island.
High on a cliff was a blue bed sheet tied between two trees. Painted on the sheet in
white letters were the words, "Will you marry me Christie?" Not wearing her
glasses, Christie didn’t notice the sign, at least not until I stood up, walked to
the cabin and pulled out the roses. I pointed to the sign, dropped down on one knee,
removed the white rose and presented it to my future bride.
While my personal life was sailing smoothly, my football career felt as though it had
hit a bed of rocks. The draft was complete the following day. A total of 560 players had
been drafted, but my name had never been called. It was disheartening to learn, but
overcoming adversity was not foreign to me. I thought back to the advice I received in
training camp during the summer of 1998.
Former Illini WR John Wright Sr. (1965-67), now CEO of the Wright Financial Group,
walked into the team meeting room carrying a black, leather bag containing two items
— an unloaded 9 mm Colt, semiautomatic handgun with a laser sight and 10 bricks of
tightly packaged bills totaling $1 million. He picked up the gun, turned on the gun’s
laser pointer, aimed it at the wall and said, "Our philosophies in life are like a
laser. We are an energy source, and our philosophy guides us just like a laser guides a
bullet. If you point that laser on the wall, and you squeeze that trigger, all that energy
from that bullet is going to go right where that laser is. If your philosophy is
controlling all of your energy, you can do amazing things when you focus your aim. The
difference between a flashlight and a laser is nothing more than focus."
Wright picked up a few bricks of money, each $100,000, and tossed them into the crowd
of players. After he relocated the bricks that players tried hiding, Wright said anybody
in the room was capable of attaining the wealth in his bag. He said success boils down to
mental toughness.
"The definition of mental toughness is the ability to be at your best on command
— skill in controlling your emotions," Wright said. "If you really believe
that and work at it, you can be at your best on command. But that’s a trained skill;
nobody was born mentally tough. … If you don’t like the way something is in your
life, you have a choice of how you are going to respond. Mental mush accepts life as it
is. The mentally tough individual evaluates what he does not like and seeks to change
it."
After Wright had finished speaking to the team, I walked out of the meeting
revitalized. I was not happy with my third-string position on the team, and the great
thing was, I had an opportunity to change it. The next time I buckled my chin strap, I was
going to make sure I did everything in my power to earn a spot on the field. I found a new
sense of purpose.
Two weeks later, the team was preparing to play our first opponent — defending
Pac-10 champion Washington State. While my position had been safety for Illinois, head
coach Ron Turner thought I would serve the team best by imitating WSU All-Pac-10 LB Steve
Gleason on the scout team that week. I relished the opportunity. WSU employed an
attacking, blitz-intensive defense, and Gleason was the center of its attack.
As I pulled Gleason’s No. 34 jersey over my shoulder pads before practice,
Wright’s words kept reverberating through my head. I had played three years on the
defensive scout team and had nothing to show for it. I didn’t like the way things
were, and now was the time to change it.
The blow horn sounded, signaling a change of period. The team had just finished
stretching and completing a special-teams period. The next period was group
"run" — a period that allows the offense to execute its running plays
against the upcoming opponent’s defense. It is nine-on-nine — no receivers
needed — first-team offense vs. scout-team defense. It was my time to shine, to show
coaches and players that I wasn’t happy with my role, and I was ready to step up to
heightened responsibilities.
The play was called. My job was to blitz the B gap between the guard and tackle on the
snap of the ball and disrupt the backfield. As Illinois QB Kurt Kittner called the
cadence, my anger grew. I had given so much of my life to Illinois football. I dedicated
countless hours in the weight room, spent hours at practice every day and nights watching
film. Playing college football was no different from working a job and going to school. I
gave at least 20 hours a week to the team, and where had it gotten me?
Kittner shouted, "Red 19, Red 19, set, hut."
The ball was snapped. Like a launched missile, I shot between guard and tackle, stunned
the fullback five yards deep in the backfield as he was coming out of his stance, and
grabbed the jersey of the tailback being handed the ball.
The OL coach sounded his whistle in frustration and yelled, "Line it up. Back on
the ball."
We walked through the play, allowing the linemen and fullback to learn their
assignments and pick up the blitz.
Every time a blitz was called, I fought my way into the backfield. If I wasn’t
blitzing, I was reading, reacting and looking for someone to attack. I played like a bear
that had just watched his cubs' carcasses being dragged from a lion's jaw. In the game of
football, you are either the hunter or the hunted, the seeker or the sought. I am a
Darwinist. I believe in the survival of the fittest. I enjoy hunting, and I craved the
opportunity to "hunt" on Saturdays.
The NCAA allows 65 players to travel to away games. About 120 players usually comprise
the Illinois team. After every Thursday’s practice, a list would be posted in the
locker room of the 65 players who would be traveling. As players would file into the
locker room after practice, starting players would walk by the list and yell in jest,
"Yesssss, I made the traveling team," without looking at the list. While
humorous, it burned me that I wouldn’t be on that list.
After Thursday’s practice prior to the WSU game, special-teams coach Greg McMahon
visited me at my locker. He said coach Turner liked my intensity in practice all week and
wanted me on the field. For the first time, I joined the traveling team.
When game time arrived, I was eager to get on the field. I was told to be ready to run
downfield on the kickoff unit. I envisioned myself sprinting 40 yards full speed, eluding
blockers and delivering a thunderous blow reminiscent of NFL special-teams kamikazes Steve
Tasker and Larry Izzo. Like a movie, I kept rewinding that scene and playing it over and
over again in my mind. On the sideline, I felt like a mental-health patient strapped to a
bed in an insane asylum. Constrained to the white chalk on the sideline, I desperately
wanted to get on that field, but I would have to wait until our next game against Middle
Tennessee State.
When I was a freshman, my mother snapped photos of me standing on the sideline around
an Illinois defensive huddle, which included future NFL defensive players Simeon Rice and
Kevin Hardy. When the photos were developed, I was embarrassed she had taken them. I told
her to save her film for when I was playing in a game, not standing on the sideline. After
three years of waiting, she finally got the opportunity. With the team riding an 18-game
losing streak, I was going to step on the field during a live game for the first time
since high school.
As we took the field for kickoff, adrenaline rushed through my body. I raced downfield
as fast as I could and continued straight through the endzone as we were coached to do
when the ball was kicked past the uprights. Most walk-ons quit before they ever experience
a live snap. Many scholarship athletes flunk out, quit or transfer without ever stepping
on the field in the heat of battle. My mother knew how much I had dedicated my life to get
to this point. Without her strong support and the support of my father, I very well may
never have been on the field that day. My success was their success. As we were breaking
the huddle before the kickoff, a tear formed in my mother’s eye and streamed down her
cheek as she focused her camera. As I took the field, the camera clicked. She snapped as
many photos as she could.
As the final seconds ticked off the clock, we were in control 48-20. Fans rushed the
field and tried to tear down the goalposts. We did not win a national championship or
clinch a birth to the Rose Bowl, but the losing streak had come to an end. My journey was
just beginning.
Continued on Page 2
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