| Two games later, we were set to play Iowa. The ball was
kicked off to us to start the game. My job was to help double-team a 6-2, 250-pound Iowa
fullback sprinting full speed downfield. As I peeled back to make the block, I saw the
ball being kicked through our endzone and slowed down. While the whistle was being
sounded, the player kept running full speed and trucked my teammate who was to have joined
me in the double-team block. The next time they kicked off, it was my turn. Like the first
time they kicked off, I started on the front line of the kickoff-return team, peeled back
20 yards and saw the same Iowa player preparing to smear my teammate. Right before they
were about to meet head-on, the Hawkeye noticed me coming at him full throttle, too late
to avoid. I buried my helmet under his chin and brought his acceleration to a burning
halt, knocking him straight off his feet and opening a wide lane. Illini KR Rocky Harvey
scooted behind my block and returned the ball 47 yards. After playing on special teams
that year, I earned my first college letter. Because I redshirted my freshman season, I
had a fifth year of eligibility remaining. I was set to graduate in four years and had to
make a decision. Would I continue playing my fifth year and work toward my goal of playing
professional football or graduate and step into the workforce?
In my first four years, the team’s records were 5-5-1, 3-8, 0-11, and 3-8. I had
never been to a college bowl game. Twenty-four seniors were returning the following year,
the strongest senior class that had been at Illinois since I arrived. We all had one thing
in common: We wanted to go to a bowl game. My decision was simple. I would enroll in
graduate school and complete my final year of eligibility.
When the spring football season began, I knew time was running out. That spring, I
participated in more plays than any other linebacker. Due to injuries to two starting
linebackers, I was working with the first-team defense. In the spring game, I led the
defense with seven tackles and two forced fumbles. I felt as though I was slowly creeping
closer to realizing my dream of playing professional football.
Before my final season, the senior class decided it was going to implement some new
team rules to help us get to a bowl game. Along with banning alcohol consumption during
the season, we agreed upon attending a nonstop 24-hour military program at the
Experimental Training Center in Homer, Ill. — about 25 miles southeast of Champaign.
I awoke at 4 a.m. on July 24, 1999, and began my trek to Champaign from
Chicago in the dark. After two hours of traveling, I met the team at Memorial Stadium, and
we headed to the center. The program is used to train soldiers and law-enforcement
officers. Among the activities planned, the whole team had to complete a rigorous obstacle
course without touching the ground. If any player touched the ground, the whole team had
to restart the activity.
Ten different players took turns trying to complete the course, each touching the
ground. With every attempt, we learned a new way to conquer an obstacle. Soon a system was
set in place. Players would complete one part of the obstacle and wait to assist the next
person before moving on. With the sun blistering to the tune of 96-degree heat, we
finished the task in six hours. The activity forced the team to work together and
continually experiment by trial and error until a surefire solution was achieved.
According to program director Andy Casavant, the program is memorable to many people
because, in addition to teaching teamwork, it forces participants to accomplish feats on
their own. Participants are given nothing beforehand, and facilitators will not answer any
question in regard to an assignment. Just as in football, people must achieve as
individuals before putting it all together as a collective unit.
"Of experimental base training, the main purpose is to allow the participants to
discover, through the experience, answers," Casavant said. "Contrary to
popular teaching, the less we say, and the more you do, the more you learn, and the better
it is. Participants have to learn and do everything on their own, which is important
because we know just from adult learning methodology that, as a trainer or teacher, when
you get involved, even if you have good intentions, you still reduce the student’s
feeling of accomplishment. They like to know that they did it."
Two other tasks in the program involved scaling a five-story wall and completing a
series of high-wire tasks on a platform three stories high with nothing but ground below.
From an early age, I have always had a natural fear of heights. That same fear caused one
6-7, 305-pound offensive lineman to hyperventilate as he began the task. I did not
hyperventilate, but the task was equally petrifying to me. Instead of concentrating on my
fear, I listened to the instructors and focused on the task. Worrying about the
consequence of falling only hindered my performance. I learned fear is only a factor if
you let it be. To complete a task successfully, you must be able to block out negative
energy and concentrate on the task at hand.
With everyone healthy during the season, my role diminished to playing only on special
teams again, and I was back competing with the scout team. While I did not compete as much
as I would have liked on Saturdays, I was competing against our first-team offense every
day in practice. In my final season, I played against the most productive offense in
Illinois history, which averaged 407 yards a game and scored 388 points. In my time at
Illinois, I regularly competed against OG J.P. Machado (New York Jets), C Tom Schau (Green
Bay Packers), OG Ryan Schau (Philadelphia Eagles), FB Robert Holcombe (St. Louis Rams) and
TE Matt Cushing (Pittsburgh Steelers). I banged heads with them every day, and they all
went on to play professionally. I hoped to join them at the next level.
Shortly after the XFL draft, the Arena Football League announced it would be hosting
tryouts for its newest team, the Chicago Rush. I quickly contacted the Rush and continued
to train my body for hours every day.
I lifted weights for more than an hour every day, five days a week, and ran for another
hour. I sought out former landfills, such as the hill Walter Payton used to climb in
Arlington Heights (now Nickol Knoll golf course) and the hill known as Mt. Trashmore that
the 1995 Northwestern Rose Bowl football team surmounted in Evanston. Climbing that
treacherous hill united a Northwestern team that hadn’t gone to a bowl game since
1949 and made it the college football story of the season. Drenched in sweat, I would run
up and down the hills 10 times initially, gradually working my way up to running it 20
times as Sweetness did. The workouts were so exhausting they left me dizzy and vomiting,
as Payton used to claim they would do to him.
I also sought out the advice of speed coach Tim Graf in Joliet. After correcting my
running technique, I decreased my 40-time two-tenths of a second to the mid-4.4s. I
weighed 226 pounds and bench-pressed 225 pounds 27 times, the same number that NFL
Defensive Rookie of the Year Brian Urlacher performed the lift at the NFL’s
Indianapolis Scouting Combine.
I had the speed and strength, but I did not have much game experience. Every time
I’d try to get my foot in the door of professional football, people would ask for
game films, and I hadn’t played much more than special teams. The other issue was my
height and weight.
While I did not meet prototypical NFL size standards for a linebacker (6-2, 240) at
5-10 3/4, I hoped my above-average strength and speed would compensate for the difference.
Sam Mills (5-9, 225), Zach Thomas (5-11, 235), Dat Nguyen (5-11, 231), Dexter Coakley
(5-10, 228), London Fletcher (510, 241) — the list of dominant, undersized NFL
linebackers goes on. My dream was to add my name to that list.
When the Arena tryout came, roughly 100 players were in attendance. Team personnel
evaluators quickly tested our speed and strength before moving on to the real test. They
wheeled out a stack of shoulder pads and helmets and began lining players across from one
another. On the sound of a whistle, I had one of two objectives — touch the cone
behind a blocker or prevent a defender from getting to the cone. Each player rotated
between the positions of fullback and linebacker.
Every time I lined up in a two-point stance on defense, I ran full speed, bull-rushed
or ripped past the blocker and tapped the cone. Every time I crouched down in a
three-point stance on offense, I fired off the ball and met the oncoming linebacker on his
side of the line of scrimmage. None of them got near the cone. The team video-recorded our
play and advised all players not to contact the team. They would review the tape. If they
were interested in you, they would find you. A month passed. I was never contacted.
While I knew they only planned to take a few of the 100-or-so players at the tryout, I
felt as if I had come close to domination. Had my lack of playing experience been too much
for me to overcome?
You choose your battles. You choose the path you take in life. I believe in choosing
goals and going after them wholeheartedly. I spent the last six months running, lifting,
consulting speed coaches, reading books about conditioning and technique, contacting
different agents, sending articles about myself to teams. I visited the Chicago
Bears’ summer camp in Platteville, Wis., for the first time and took note of
linebacker drills. I played racquetball, basketball, practiced tae kwon do and boxed
— all to improve my quickness, hand-eye coordination and flexibility. With my head
down and legs pumping, I pushed my rusted 1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88 up a hill as I had read
Tampa Bay FB Mike Alstott had done to strengthen his legs in college. I ran up toboggan
sleds so steep that my legs could be pumping full speed and I would only be moving at the
pace of a jog.
As Vince Lombardi said, "The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender."
I worked hard and with the creation of the XFL and the expansion of the Arena League, two
new professional football teams were coming to Chicago at the same time I happened to be
graduating. I thought it was destiny — that I was meant to play football in Chicago.
I tried everything I could to get a chance, but it has not come.
It’s a time that inevitably comes in every athlete’s life. The helmet
transforms from a weapon and shield to protect the head to a symbol of pride and loyalty
adorning a player’s living room or office. New battles are waged. The time comes to
put one dream to rest and begin realizing another. For some, it comes in high school; for
others, after injury or a lengthy professional career. For me, it has come sooner than
expected. What’s important to me is that I tried. I didn’t want to live my life
with any regrets, wondering what could have been.
Continued on Page 3
Top of page |
