Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile (3 page)

Minicamps end in late June. We have a month-long break before training camp starts. I can hardly wait to get back on the field. I go into the facility and work out by myself. I shadowbox in the steam room. I stare into the mirror and flex my muscles. I’m ready.

Training camp is in Stockton, California, on the campus of the University of the Pacific. On the day we report, I drive my green 1996 Honda Civic to the campus and pull into the players’ parking lot, sliding in between a Mercedes and a BMW. I check into the dorms and get my room assignment. I’m on the third floor in the rookie hall. My roommate is a center from Miami named Ty Wise. We are both free agents, both long shots. The fear of the unknown is almost crippling. It takes my breath away. I want to get the pads on and get on the field right away. Enough with all of the talking! But the NFL, it turns out, is mostly talking. I sit at attention while head coach Steve Mariucci (we call him Mooch) sets the scene for us in the auditorium-style classroom. Tomorrow we hit. Get ready.

On the morning of our first practice, I lie awake in my squeaky metal twin bed listening to Ty snore as the light creeps through the blinds. At six thirty I hear the sound that will soon attach itself to my football dreams. It’s a sound that is linked to hope, to sweat, to pain, to glory. It’s a sweet sound. It’s the sound of the devil. At six thirty on the dot, a coffee-drunk assistant walks through the dorm halls and lets the air horn blow. Wake the fuck up. It’s time to hit.

Practices are open to the public. I walk onto the field with my helmet in my hand and the stands erupt. What a welcome, I think. Bay Area kid makes good. Yeah, it’s a great story. I glance to my left. There is T.O., and our starting quarterback, Jeff Garcia, walking beside me. They probably think the cheering is for them.

From day one I become aware of a powerful dynamic within each position group. We are all competing against each other for roster spots. We are sword fighting. There are five veteran receivers and five of us rookie free agents. Teams usually only keep five wide receivers on the roster. We all know this. And we know that in order to make the team, one of us has to unseat a proven NFL veteran. That means taking advantage of precious few opportunities. For those of us at the bottom of the depth chart, the reps are harder to come by. Some guys get discouraged. Others hang on to the coaching clichés. “Don’t count your reps. Make your reps count.” This is the ominous base note to the training camp death song. No one talks about it but we hear it loud and clear. Half of us will be gone by the end of the month.

Adding to the reverb of the death knell is my shitty left shoulder. I dislocated it twice in college and the Niner doctors spotted it during the pre-minicamp physical to which every player must submit.

IMPRESSION: This 22-year-old right-hand dominant running back [
sic
] from Menlo College has a history of two prior left-shoulder dislocations. He is currently asymptomatic. The patient was seen and examined with Dr. Dillingham. At this point he will be graded 4–5. Dr. Dillingham and head trainer Lindsy McLean will have him sign a waiver.

I had to sign the waiver to get on the field. Now if I hurt the shoulder again, they can cut me with no liability. A week into training camp I slip on the wet grass making an in-cut, a 90-degree break toward the middle of the field. I drop my hand to the ground to stop my fall and my shoulder pops out of the front of the socket. It feels, strangely, like my head is on backward. While I lie on the turf Lindsy McLean, the head trainer, arrives to slide it back in. Of the two dislocations I had in college, one slid back in easily, the other didn’t. The opposing team’s trainer had her foot on my chest and was pulling on my arm as if to free the sword in the stone. But she was no King Arthur. The muscles were spasming around the dislocated humeral head and wouldn’t let go. So I rode in the back of an ambulance to the hospital, dressed in my full Menlo Oak regalia, where I was sedated, my muscles relaxed and my skeleton realigned. Thankfully there are no humeral complications this time. Lindsy reaches under my shoulder pads, lifts, twists, and pulls. Whoosh. I feel a powerful relief and jump to my feet. The more you dislocate your shoulder, the more likely you’ll do it again. But the recovery time improves with each dislocation.

Nate dislocated his left shoulder two days ago. He has near full range of motion. He had signed a waiver on this shoulder and had dislocated it in college on several occasions. He is going to rehab and get a shoulder immobilizer. He will be allowed to play but he does know that he has a risk of further dislocation and further damage both soft tissue and bony damage in the shoulder [
sic
]. . . . We did talk also about the possibility of stabilizing his shoulder if he desires at some point before or after the season depending on how things go.

A few days later I strap on a neoprene shoulder harness that looks like I’d got it at a sex shop in North Beach and go back on the field a day before our trip to Osaka, Japan. We are set to play the Washington Redskins in the American Bowl in our first preseason game. During minicamps we had our passport photos taken at the facility between practices and filled out the necessary forms. By training camp we have our brand-new passports. We board the huge plane and set sail to Glory. They stamp my passport as “Entertainer.”

Five days in Japan flies by in a jet-lagged blur. Coach Mariucci gives us a good amount of time to ourselves, time we spend wandering the streets of Osaka, frightening the locals. Eminem blasts from storefront speakers. Adolescent Japanese girls sing along, unaware of what they are describing. We walk through the crowded streets as a pack of lanyard-clad Godzillas. The locals point and stare and run inside screaming. Big black man! Big black man! I’m given my own room at the hotel because another rookie did not make the trip. I push the small beds together and stretch out. I turn on the bidet, chuckle, use toilet paper instead. The Redskins are staying at our hotel. So are their cheerleaders. I spot one in the lobby who shoots an arrow through my heart. We fall in love immediately. She chooses not to acknowledge it, though, and so I give her the space she needs. I’m still waiting.

On one of our nights out I tag along with some of the veterans, a few girls who work for the Niners and some Niner cheerleaders. We go to a club on the top floor of a nondescript office building. The rookie-veteran barrier seems broken down, if only temporarily. We’re united as strangers in a strange land. To the locals, we are interchangeable monsters. There are fifteen of us. When we walk in the record screeches to a stop and the entire club recoils in fear. The Japanese patrons slowly back into the corners of the room and watch us the rest of the night as if we are a multi-culti variety show. We party NFL-style: shots and dancing and yelling. And a few buff dudes with their shirts off. Jeff Garcia dances on the bar and passes out beers. Terrell Owens knows better than to get drunk during camp. But he takes off his shirt anyway.

We play the game a few days later. I watch from the sideline with my neoprene harness cinched up tight. Stew had told me I wasn’t going to play. Rest the shoulder, he said. Don’t worry about this game. You’ll get your chance. But it’s hard not to worry. I can feel my chance slipping away, like the Japanese girls when we walked into the room.
Konnichiwa!

W
e fly back to California and back to training camp in Stockton and I am back in my metal bed, lying awake once again as the light cuts through the blinds. Soon the assistant coach with the air horn makes it official. Wake the fuck up. It’s time to hit—again.

The next week we have a home game against the Kansas City Chiefs. I put on my wifebeater and go out to warm up early. I stand on the grass of Candlestick Park and feel fully immersed in my new profession. I look up to the spot where Ryan and I sat the previous year and smile to myself. I don’t get in the game until late in the fourth quarter. On my first play, I catch a slant from Brandon Doman for five yards. On the next play I catch another slant for 10 yards. Football is easy. Our drive stalls out. The game goes into overtime. On our first possession of overtime, Brandon throws an interception down the middle. The DB is dancing around and cutting back against the grain, trying to end the game on a walk-off interception return for a touchdown. He cuts back one too many times. I stick him under his chin and body-slam him. They kick a field goal on the next play and win the game. The next day we watch film and Stew dissects our performances. Stew’s favorite play from the game, besides T.O.’s freaky 71-yard touchdown, is my tackle in overtime. Receiver coaches love that shit.

On the last day of camp in Stockton, the offensive linemen go out for dinner. As is customary, they get the rookies shitfaced. Ty comes back to the room like a tornado and plops down on the bed. John Engelberger is a veteran defensive end—a big, corn-fed bruiser, who likes hanging with us rookies. We sit around the room laughing. Ty is a funny man, even more so after too many tequila shots. After one of his jokes, he hiccups and reaches for the closest receptacle. It’s an empty water bottle. He attempts to vomit into it but instead creates a suction. It sprays out the sides of his mouth and all over the room.

—Ty! C’mon!

—Shut up,
Rapper
!

I had mistakenly told my teammates about my hip-hop aspirations, and now they tease me relentlessly. At least we can laugh. Training camp is over. That night I lie awake in bed and listen to the last of the partying linemen run wild underneath our window. They have found a golf cart and turned the campus into their own personal bumper car playground. I fall asleep a better man. The next day we pack up our dorm rooms and go back to the 49ers facility.

We’re back to a regular schedule, done every day by five instead of ten. On one of our nights off I go to a movie with some friends and see Mooch outside the theater with his family. We talk for a few minutes. I meet his kids. He says see you tomorrow. The next day he approaches me as I’m standing on the sideline with ice on my shoulder.

—How’s that shoulder?

—Ah, it’s okay.

—You know, Nate. You’ve had a good camp. But you’re hurt. I appreciate you toughing it out. And I’d love to keep you on the practice squad. But practice squad players need to be healthy, they need to be able to
practice
, you know what I mean?

—Yeah, I know what you mean, Coach.

A few days later I’m stopped as I walk through the locker room. An assistant tells me to come upstairs, and bring my playbook. My days as a 49er are over, it’s obvious—only formalities remain. I saw this moment coming in slow motion ever since I slipped on the wet grass and my shoulder went pop. I am a broken machine. On the way out the door GM Terry Donahue tells me that if I get healthy they’ll sign me back the next season. I know I have Bill to thank for that gesture. He is serving as a consultant for the Niners.

I go home and move back in with my parents. They have always been supportive of my football dreams, but we are not a football family. I’m the only athlete of all my siblings. My parents are schoolteachers. We live in a middle-class California neighborhood in a small one-story home. I spent my summer days as a child at the cabana club down the street. A lifeguarded pool is a great babysitter. My friends and I were fish. I swam competitively and played soccer, but I had my eye on the oblong ball with laces. I was a 49ers child. But my parents wouldn’t let me play competitive football until I was in high school. That I ended up in a 49ers uniform after not playing until high school, not getting recruited out of high school, and getting cut from Division IAA Cal Poly probably surprised them. So when I move back home after getting cut from my hometown team, they are extra-supportive. My dream came true, for a second. And now I’m licking my wounds in my childhood bedroom.

I have shoulder surgery paid for by my own insurance and I rehab at a clinic three times a week. My physical therapist is used to fraudulent worker’s compensation cases and old people who have fallen down. She marvels at my recovery time and my dedication. I explain that I’m headed back to the NFL. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s true but I have no idea. I’m holding on to Donahue’s words. But maybe he was just being nice. Maybe my football days are over. My shoulder heals very fast but my mind is a mess. I sit around in my bedroom and have panic attacks. I try dating but can’t relax. I scribble in my journal, trying to exorcise the demons, summon the angels, build future mental stairways. I watch the 49ers on TV all year with a new appreciation of the machine. For the first time I’m seeing the big picture through the small screen. I listen to the announcers and read the papers. The media narratives are sensational and simplistic, and when compared to what I know about the team, sound like drivel.

From the couch, my dad and I watch the football season unfold. The 49ers go 10-6 and slide in the back door of the playoffs, beating the Giants in the wild-card round at Candlestick Park in a thrilling comeback. But they lose badly the next week to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A few days later Mooch is fired. I never understand firing a winning coach, but apparently there were some philosophical differences between Mooch and Donahue. There’s so much more to it than anyone ever knows. After the dust settles on Mooch’s firing, Ryan reaches out to Donahue and reminds him that I am still around. They need camp bodies. They always need camp bodies, especially at wide receiver. Receivers drop like flies during training camp. Donahue keeps good on his word and I drive back to the facility in my Civic. They put another contract in front of me. No signing bonus this time. Here’s the pen. Look, Ma, I’m a 49er again.

The next week is the Super Bowl in San Diego between the Oakland Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ryan and his cousin Bruce have just joined forces with super-agent Leigh Steinberg. Leigh throws a Super Bowl party every year. Ryan invites me. It’s at the San Diego Zoo. I’ll be on the list plus one, he says. I have friends who live in San Diego so I make the trip.

I bring my friend Justin to the party. He’s in town working for Pepsi, driving around in a souped-up two-door Lexus with a custom Pepsi Blue paint job. He sets up his Pepsi table in the Gaslamp Quarter and passes out free “Pepsi Blue” samples from a carbonated backpack hose.