Behind the Line of Scrimmage by Michael Huyghue

Author:Michael Huyghue [Huyghue, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Center Street
Published: 2018-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Tying the Knot

Kim and I were married on July 3, 1993, in a beautiful ceremony; a reception followed at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn, Michigan, with 350 guests (mostly her family). Following a honeymoon in Saint Martin, we settled into our new expansive brick home in Rochester Hills, a suburb just ten minutes from the Pontiac Silverdome. Kim’s parents and a majority of her relatives were still residing in Detroit, and visiting them helped occupy her time since I was at the office every day from early morning to late evening. We also learned shortly after our honeymoon that our first baby girl was on the way.

Having won our division, the Lions were optimistic about another winning season heading into the 1994 schedule. In February, we were preparing for the upcoming Indianapolis Combine, where some three hundred draft-eligible college players would convene to take extensive physical examinations and undergo positional skills workouts for the thirty-two NFL clubs.

The league now comprised thirty-two teams because both Carolina (Panthers) and Jacksonville (Jaguars) had recently been awarded expansion franchises, in October and November 1993, respectively. I hadn’t been following the expansion process closely, but I knew Jacksonville was a surprise winner. Their group, led by shoe magnate Wayne Weaver, beat out Baltimore, St. Louis, and Memphis in the eleventh hour based upon a commitment from the city of Jacksonville to spend $121 million to update the Gator Bowl stadium. Also, Weaver’s group reportedly had sold ten thousand club-seat tickets with a five-year commitment in a record ten days. That apparently sealed the deal for the NFL owners, who wanted expansion into the Southeast, notwithstanding Jacksonville’s rather small television market.

I found a message on my desk to call the “Jaguars.” Oddly, the number wasn’t local. Ford Motor Company had purchased Jaguar a few years before, and Coach Fontes was driving one of their luxury models as a company car. I was driving a regular Ford SUV as a company car and assumed I was being upgraded to a Jag by the club after our successful season.

I hurriedly returned the call and reached someone named David Seldin, who was with the Jaguars football team but not the car company. “Hi, Michael, this is David Seldin, and I am president of the Jacksonville Jaguars,” he said assuredly, as if it were a team with a long history in the league.

I paused, first coming to grips with the fact that I probably wasn’t going to be driving a new Jag. “Uh, oh, hey David, how are you?” I responded. “I heard you guys were up and running. Something I can help you with?” I asked, assuming he wanted to pick my brain about something.

“Yes,” he said. “We would like to speak with you about running football operations for our club. Would you be interested in meeting?”

Visions of all the previous jobs I had departed so abruptly suddenly popped into my head. I jumped ship in less than a year from the NFL Players Association to join the NFL Management Council.

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