The end of a dream

An inside look at when pro football has no room for a college player

(continued)

After settling on Illinois, my high school football coach at St. Rita, Todd Wernet, told me I should be prepared to face a situation similar to the one experienced by the title character in the movie "Rudy" — overcome by bigger, stronger and faster athletes. When I arrived in Champaign, I was surprised to find that I was one of biggest and strongest players in the defensive secondary. I had played linebacker in high school and had trained all summer long for this opportunity. My size and strength were up to par with most college safeties. What I quickly realized is that another factor is more important than size — the ability to run.

On my first day of practice, the team had already completed summer camp. It was the first day walk-ons were dressed in helmets and shoulder pads. Special-teams coach McMahon was working on a double-team drill — a drill players like to call "suicide" for walk-ons. The walk-ons take their turn running downfield before facing two blockers, one who is coming straight on and setting up the walk-on to be blindsided by another blocker. While walk-ons are preparing to elude the oncoming blocker, they very often are decleated before they ever see the blind-side block. With players like future NFL LB Kevin Hardy delivering these blocks, it was not uncommon for walk-ons to get knocked five yards in the air or get somersaulted before landing on their backs.

The first time I donned the orange and blue helmet, I raced downfield as hard as I could, ran past the blind-side blocker and crashed into the oncoming blocker. As he was falling on his back, the blocker grabbed onto my shorts to brace himself, and ripped them right off. Coach McMahon ran to the site of the collision, screaming, "Yeahhhhhh, I like this kid! What’s your name, son?" He directed an equipment manager to get me a new pair of shorts.

As a freshman, team doctors tested players’ body composition. To play in the defensive secondary, a player’s body fat is expected to be 5-8 percent in order to have the stamina to play an entire game. After learning my body fat composition was 12 percent, I quickly changed my diet and began working to decrease my body fat. I started eating lean chicken, vegetables and raw oats. Met-Rx, Myoplex and many other sports supplement drinks became a regular meal on my menu. I completely eliminated fast food from my diet — no more McDonald’s, Burger King or White Castle. When I reported to summer camp the following year, my body fat was measured at 5 percent. In the weight room, I became the all-time leading strength leader at the safety position. Weighing 201 pounds, my combined total of 1,170 pounds for the squat (550), power clean (275) and bench press (345) was more than any safety had ever lifted at Illinois.

Keeping my body in peak physical condition became a religion to me. To be efficient in any endeavor, you need the right tools. My body became an instrument to my success on the field. I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything to provide myself with the optimal opportunity for success. I even geared part of my college education toward improving my sport performance. I took several courses focusing on the anatomy of the body related to sport performance. I wrote several papers and articles about physical training. I contacted NFL players, such as Tampa Bay S John Lynch, and picked their brains for knowledge that could enhance my performance. I read books, bought special training equipment and did everything in my power to move closer to my goal.

Former President Calvin Coolidge once said, "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved, and always will solve, the problems of the human race."

Coolidge’s words sit framed on my desk, and I look at them every morning when I rise. As an avid believer in persistence and determination, it has been extremely difficult letting go of my dreams. If I had given up after high school, I would never have become a two-year letterman, four-time Academic All-Big Ten selection and Fighting Illini all-time strength leader. I watched the plight of Kurt Warner and how he beat the odds to become a Super Bowl MVP. I know there’s a sliver of a chance that I might be able to follow in his steps and in the steps of every NFL athlete who has overcome adversity to get where he is. But reason has finally overcome me.

In my Arena tryout, I had roughly 15 full-contact collisions with opposing players. After not buckling a chin strap for more than a year, it took my body about five days before I felt fully recovered from the impact. In my 13 years of organized football, the worst injury that I sustained occurred in seventh grade. Games were played at a local park, which was poorly maintained. After making a tackle, a piece of glass lodged in my hand as I pushed myself off the ground to stand up. I quickly removed the glass, but my hand was bleeding uncontrollably. I ran to the sideline to have it taped so I could get back in the game, but my coach quickly summoned my father. The wound was going to require stitches, the only serious injury I have sustained in football.

I have never broken any bones or torn any ligaments, at least not to my knowledge. In college, I’ve had double vision in one of my eyes, had my shin gashed by metal cleats and felt my arms and neck go numb on several occasions, but I’ve never taken myself out of a game or practice since that childhood game. It is the nature of the gladiator to assume and withstand pain in the heat of battle. If the opportunity had arisen to play professional football, I would just as quickly have withstood more pain for the opportunity. In retrospect, however, the game takes a tremendous toll on one’s body.

After 15 years in the NFL, Hall of Fame C Jim Otto could no longer get out of bed without assistance when he was 36. I will soon have a wife to support, and it will be as important to her as it is to me to show concern for my body. Along with a new family, I have other goals and larger contributions I would like to make to society. While it has not been easy letting go of my football dreams, I am excited about the new opportunities and challenges that abound beyond football.

The lessons I have learned in football are invaluable, and I will take them with me in whatever I do. According to sociological research, Chicago is one of the most segregated communities in the country. Neighborhoods are divided by race and ethnicity, and tensions brew from those divisions. On the field, it doesn’t matter what color your skin is or what neighborhood you came from. All that matters is that you work together and get the job done. In my five years at Illinois, I was exposed to different cultures and different races and learned that race provides no indication of what type of person someone is.

I have learned the importance of suppressing one’s ego for the good of the team. When I arrived at Illinois, few players were quick to acknowledge me. Walk-ons come and go in college sports. Twenty-six walk-ons started their careers at Illinois when I did. Two finished. In five years, many passed through the locker room, so it’s natural that players don’t give walk-ons much attention until they have shown they are committed to the cause. I could have walked away after four years like several scholarship players who forwent their final year of eligibility. Instead I contributed to bringing Illinois to its first bowl game in five years. I helped rookies break down film, encouraged them to put in extra time in the weight room and helped them adjust from being a high school sensation to a college role player. I was not an All-Big Ten performer, but I was a senior, and I exerted what leadership I could to the team.

In college football, if you are not 10 minutes early to meetings, you are considered late. If you miss a block, the ballcarrier gets smeared. Not completing your assignments hurts the team more than it hurts you. And if you don’t make those blocks, you don’t see the field. Competition is fierce. You prepare and execute, or you don’t play. Playing college football has taught me what it means to prepare and to overcome competition.

When I came to Illinois in 1995, the team was coming off an impressive Liberty Bowl victory. In my first two years, we did not go to a bowl, and our coach was fired. A new coaching staff was hired, and we did not win a single game the next year. Losing takes a toll on a person’s self-worth. During that 0-11 season, head coach Ron Turner said he was embarrassed to go out in public. He hated losing as any fierce competitor does and didn’t even want to visit the barber to have his hair cut. He didn’t want to deal with the questions. He just wanted to bury himself in his work and get things right. As times worsened, many players quit or transferred to other schools. When I came to Illinois, there were so many players on the team that I had to share a locker with another player as many walk-ons did. During that winless season, fewer than 100 of the 124 lockers were filled. I have been through the good times and the bad at Illinois. I stayed loyal to my team. As we struggled, my commitment only grew stronger. I saw it as an opportunity and dedicated myself more to the cause.

Since I was 13 years old, I have been lifting weights to improve my athletic performance. I read research stating you lose 5 percent of your strength with every week you do not train. Since that time, a week has not gone by where I have not trained. Anytime I have gone on vacation, I found a place to exercise. If not, I would wake up in the morning and run or do push-ups, sit-ups and other exercises not requiring equipment. Every year when many teammates are in Cancun on spring break, I have been at home, in the gym, on the track, trying to advance one step ahead of the competition. Through sports, I have not only learned how to stay dedicated to a cause, but have learned a new appreciation for health. My football career may be over, but I will still train hard and stay in shape.

Life will never match our plans exactly how we want, but that doesn’t mean you cannot continue to fulfill other dreams. As former Illinois coach Lou Tepper preached, life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it. There will always be something we wished we had or hadn’t done. Life is always going to throw you setbacks, but it’s not important how many times you get knocked down. What’s important is that you get back up, counter those punches with more jabs and more hooks and keep trying to land that knockout shot.

It was late in the final quarter of the MicronPC.com Bowl in Miami. My knees were bent, back arched and arms hanging above my knees in linebacker form. My eyes were glued on the hips of the tailback. On the snap of the ball, the tailback took a step to the right. I mirrored his movement, shuffled a step to the right and saw the C gap opening between the tackle and end. I sprinted to the gap and met the ballcarrier as he stepped through the hole, making the final tackle of the millennium for Illinois in what would be a 63-21 victory over Virginia. When the game ended, I looked up in the stands at my waving family and knew it might be the last time I stood on the fighting grounds of a coliseum.

It was unclear whether I would have a chance in the NFL, but I had come a long way since my days as an 8-year-old standing uncovered in the corner of the endzone, only to be ignored by the older players. With my football aspirations now behind me, I think back to all the adversity I have overcome. I think back to a quote I heard by Justice Benjamin Cardozo in a psychology class my sophomore year in college: "In the end, the great truth will have been learned, that the quest is greater than what is sought, the effort finer than the prize, the victory cheap and hollow were it not for the rigor of the game."

I think of how my children, when conceived, will heed my past actions as much as my words and hope they, too, will never give up on themselves. I think not of my loss, but of my gain. One chapter of my life has been written, and I am ready to begin forging another. As I walked off that field, I was energized by the thought that I had walked down the long road, fought the hard fight and never stopped trying. I may have made my last tackle, but I will take all that I’ve learned and continue to overcome obstacles, continue to fight adversity and continue to prove critics wrong.

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