Hometown Favorite: A Novel (18 page)

When the elevator doors opened onto a quiet thirty-fifth
floor, Dewayne pulled the sports agent's card from his coat
pocket and dropped it through the slit between the carriage
and the hallway floor. He smiled as he walked to his room at
the thought of the agent's card spinning end over end as it
floated the thirty-five floors to the lowest level of the hotel.

The light was blinking on the phone when he stepped into
the room and threw his bag on the bed. He went through the
list of messages, jotting down the names and numbers of those
coaches who expressed a desire to set up a private meeting.
He knew the next several days would tax his mental and emotional strength more than the physical demands on his body.
His daily workouts at the SportsPlex would prove their worth
in this setting.

After the official opening remarks in a special dining area,
the hotel served a buffet dinner. He tried to eat alone, but staff
members from the front offices of different teams kept sitting
down beside him and asking him inane questions about his personal life: What kind of car did he drive? How long had he been
married? Did he have any hobbies? What jobs-if any-did he
have as a kid growing up in Springdale? Did he prefer one type
of weather to another? Was he a "dog person" or a "cat person"?
When he replied, "Dog person;" the next question was, "What
kind of dog would he be?" Dewayne reacted with a severe look
of scorn, and the questioner excused himself. Dewayne did not bother with dessert and went back to his room. After calling
Rosella, he told the front desk not to put calls through, messages
only, and he went to bed.

"Let the slave trade begin," whispered a quarterback from one
of the Big Ten teams who stood beside Dewayne. They were in
the large room at the RCA Dome designed for the weight and
measurement induction on the first day. It was the only portion
of the combines opened to the media, and sportswriters and
network television crews filled every square inch not taken up
by the players and coaches.

Like cattle, players formed groups according to their positions, and designated handlers herded each group onto the
stage. They weighed each young man to the half pound and
measured him to the quarter inch. Within seconds, the results
of each player's height and weight flashed onto a giant screen
for the teams to record and the media to broadcast.

When the receivers took the stage, Dewayne was a good two
inches taller than any in his group. The numbers of 6'6"/265
pounds flashed on the screen, and the coaches and staff kept
their poker faces as they recorded Dewayne's numbers. No one
was showing any interest in anyone.

After a series of psychological tests, a marathon of physicals
began with an evaluation of the players' general skills. They did
a vertical jump and a standing broad jump. Each player was
required to bench-press two hundred twenty-five pounds as
many times as he could. Then in their position groups, they had
to do a twenty-yard shuttle drill. All of this happened before
going through a workout specific to their position.

Team doctors and trainers twisted, pulled, and bent all the
joints in Dewayne's body. Next he went through head-to-toe X-rays and a dental exam. They questioned him repeatedly
about any personal injuries on or off the field, and he reported
that there were none. By the time the day ended, Dewayne
felt as though he understood the experience of the auction
block, the intrinsic worth of his physical and mental merits
appraised by all those come to evaluate their future purchase.
He described his humiliation that night to Rosella, but she did
not have a great deal of pity since she was lying on the sofa in
their apartment with a plastic bucket next to her.

Early the next day the running backs and receivers sprinted
onto the Astroturf of the RCA Dome and were put through
their paces with a series of running, jumping, and agility drills
before the quarterbacks appeared to test them on their running
routes and catching ability. There was no small talk among the
players, each one mentally committed to his best performance
and not wanting the slightest distraction.

An unusual quiet came over the field when Dewayne's name
echoed through the sound system to prepare to run the fortyyard dash. It was the day's shortest event, but the most critical.
No other statistic carried more influence for any NFL prospect;
no single number had more impact on a player's draft fortunes.
Dewayne's speed was legendary, but there was always a higher
margin of error with on-campus workouts plus the penchant
for hyperbole within the world of sports, and these coaches
wanted to see for themselves under the scrutiny of electronic
timing machines whether he was capable of living up to the
advertising. The businesslike atmosphere of players shuffling
from one station to the next ended as Dewayne approached the
starting line. Scouts, players, spectators, the media, coaches,
staff, and the league-sanctioned film crew snapped to attention
as Dewayne crouched down in his start position.

It is impossible to understand the mystery of a time of 4.28 seconds. How many times can someone blink his eyes in 4.28
seconds? How many words can you say? How many times can
you tap your foot, snap your fingers, or clap your hands in
4.28 seconds? Coaches who had clocked Dewayne with their
personal stopwatches kept looking back and forth from their
clocks to the timer display. Even with the millisecond of human
error that factored into a handheld stopwatch, the margin still
made little difference in the outcome. It was the fastest time
of all the players at the Combine, and the fastest time that had
ever been seen by a man his size.

In slightly over four seconds, Dewayne had become the combine media story. All Sports Network broke into its morning
news programming with a live shot of the RCA Dome and replayed several times the tape of Dewayne running the forty-yard
dash and the 4.28 seconds flashing on the electronic board with
commentary explaining the observable fact ranging from clock
malfunction to performance-enhancing drugs. How could the
experts explain this phenomenon any other way? The buzz of
reaction took awhile to subside, and Dewayne kept his attention
on the three-cone drill that was coming up. He would not allow
the commotion of his forty-yard dash to distract him.

That night in his room, he scrambled through the calls from
agents, team reps, and media, deleting most of the inquiries.
The last call was from Sly: "My man, who was chasing you
today, or were you trying to outrun one of my passes? Love
you, my brother"

Rosella was in bed, bucket at her side, when he called. "Baby,
you've been all over the television today;" she said, her throat
raspy from dehydration. "They must have played your fortyyard dash a hundred times"

"I figured the faster I ran, the quicker this combine thing
would be over and I could get back to you."

In hopes of cheering her up, he said his impressive time
would change their lives in a positive way when it came time
for different teams to make their offers.

In response to his suggestion that they celebrate soon with
a big steak dinner, Rosella dropped the phone on the floor and
put her head in the bucket.

Dewayne proved he had speed, but he had to prove he had the
hands to go with it.

The next morning, the players ran a series of routes: the tenyard-out route, a fifteen-yard curl, a corner route, and a deep
route. His footwork and route running were on the money,
and he caught everything thrown to him. The quarterbacks
were also under the microscope, evaluated in this drill for
their accuracy, so most of the passes were direct hits and even
the ones that were either high or low were still well within
Dewayne's wingspan.

The afternoon drills were even more taxing. All the receivers
lined up between two quarterbacks. The first quarterback would
be fifteen yards in front of the receiver. The second, fifteen yards
behind, with five more quarterbacks stretched out across the
field on each side. The receivers had to catch the ball, get rid
of it, and turn around and catch the next one as they ran the
width of the field for a total of twelve catches-all on the run.
This drill was fast and unforgiving. If anyone dropped a pass,
it was almost impossible to catch up. Dewayne's strategy was
to keep his thumbs and index fingers touching, with his fingers
flared in a wide circle always ready.

This worked for the first six passes. The seventh pass was
low, and Dewayne had to go down to his knees to catch it. He
caught the ball, but when he spun around, out of the corner of his eye he saw the next ball about to sail past him. He reached
up with one hand and snatched the ball out of the air, like a
baseball pitcher reacting to a line drive hit right at him. He
spun back in the other direction and was from that point on
ahead of the quarterbacks.

After the drills were complete, the final days were devoted
to formal meetings, with coaches and general managers talking to players considered good additions to their organizations. These gatherings gave a player and the staff an early
look into the chemistry factor. Everyone wanted Dewayne
to explain the unexplainable: the exceptional combination
of his size and speed. The query was always the same, and it
began to feel like a series of ominous interrogations right out
of The Twilight Zone-same question, different faces. He had
lost count of the number of urine samples he had supplied
the doctors, but the most powerful performance-enhancing
drug they could find flowing through his bloodstream was
Gatorade. Through it all, he never lost his cool or felt as though
he was unjustly accused or harassed. His reputation was all
he had, and he never forgot its importance.

On the last night of the combines, Robert Hickman snatched
Dewayne on the way to dinner and requested a live interview.
Dewayne had avoided giving any in-depth interviews throughout the combine process, but he thought it would be easier to
do an interview with one person and quell the rumors flying
through the world of sports.

Hickman led Dewayne down the tunnel and onto the onlocation set constructed in the middle of the football field.

"This is Robert Hickman live from the RCA Dome with
special guest Dewayne Jobe who just this week at the annual
combines here in Indianapolis has fired the shot heard round
the sports world.

"The combines separate the men from the supermen. It is a
rite of spring and the rite of passage for top players from college
football teams to go through a succession of grueling physicals
and psychological tests, and if that weren't enough, to then be
put through a punishing progression of specialty drills that
leave a player in total exhaustion at the end of each day. When
you add these activities to all the meetings with the coaches
and their staff, the week goes by faster than Halley's Comet. I
suspect my special guest broke the record this week for having
the most meetings. Wouldn't you say, Dewayne?"

"I had my share, but so did many other players;' Dewayne
said.

"Modesty is not acceptable in one so young and talented"
Hickman grinned before he looked back into the camera. "It's
the combine's shortest event. It's the combine's most critical
event. No other statistic carries more punch. No single number
has more impact on the future of a prospective draftee. It's the
forty-yard dash. To be the fastest at the combine each year, well,
somebody has to do it, but to be the fastest and come within a
millisecond of breaking a record, that's when you get people's
attention. But to be the fastest at the combine, nearly breaking
a human land speed record, and be six foot six and weigh two
hundred and sixty-five pounds, now that's a feat that could
only be performed on Mount Olympus."

The network ran the footage of Dewayne's forty-yard sprint
repeatedly as Hickman continued his commentary.

"No, TV land, that was not played at fast speed. That was
actual speed, and the time of four point twenty-eight seconds
is documented and in the books. Raw speed ... that's what
fascinates every coach and athlete. Raw speed fascinates us
all. Not every athlete can say he is fast. Speed is that one thing
that's out of reach for many athletes. Speed is the one elusive quality a coach can't give to an athlete. It's all in the DNA. It's
all in the genetic codes. Or is it? So, my friend, look me in
the eye and answer the question that has been flying around
the RCA Dome like debris in a tornado. Are you taking any
performance-enhancing drugs of any kind?"