Collision Low Crossers by Nicholas Dawidoff

Author:Nicholas Dawidoff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sports & Recreation / Football
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2013-11-19T05:00:00+00:00

Early in the week Sanchez had a fine day of practice, completing nineteen of twenty-five passes. In the quarterbacks’ meeting that followed, the Southern California–bred starter wore shorts, flip-flops, and bracelets made of rubber and yarn. On the wall, somebody had scrawled “19-25!” They were discussing a 5:30 a.m. text Sanchez had sent McElroy informing McElroy that he needed to take a shower before arriving at the facility. McElroy deemed the morning shower excessive since they showered at the facility after every workout. “I don’t want you coming in here all scuzzy like everyone else,” Sanchez explained. I’d been told that Sanchez’s belief in proper hygiene was such that in the locker room on game days he applied deodorant before putting on his uniform and that at halftime he brushed his teeth. In the history of athletics, this made him just one more guy with a ritual. Revis’s uncle, the retired NFL defensive lineman Sean Gilbert, was spending some time at training camp as a coaching intern, and Gilbert talked often about the necessity of becoming a different person to play professional football, that when you changed into the uniform, you had to change yourself: “Everybody in football has a split personality. It’s a switch. The light goes on and you have to think, Kill! Kill! Afterwards, you have to turn it off. You can’t go to the mall thinking, Kill! Kill!” Yet in the bedlam of a game, players also had to remain collected, especially the quarterback.

Sanchez clearly considered McElroy to be his rookie. In the time-honored veteran way, so did Mark Brunell, the forty-one-year-old backup. McElroy was always being asked to fetch smoothies or omelets from the dining hall. They’d watch him enter Schotty’s office, watch him settle into his chair, watch him thinking maybe this time they’d give him a break, let him see a little of the film Schotty and Cav were showing, let him imagine that finally he was going to learn something he could use, and then it would come—“Hey, Greg”—and off he’d go, on the trot.

McElroy had led Alabama to a collegiate national championship by being the sturdy vinculum binding more gifted elements. At the facility, everybody knew that he’d been an excellent student at Alabama; that he’d completed his degree in three years and graduated from the business program, where athletes rarely ventured; that he’d then pursued his master’s; that he’d been a Rhodes Scholarship finalist; that on the Wonderlic intelligence test, he’d scored a very high 43 out of 50. (Sanchez had scored 28; Brunell 22.) Although McElroy could throw a football into a trash can from forty yards, his arm was considered weak by NFL standards, and he presented no evident threat to Sanchez or even Brunell.

Even so, Sanchez seemed preoccupied with him. After viewing some practice film of McElroy scrambling, Sanchez asked, “Greg, what did you run at the Combine?”

“Four-eight-four,” said McElroy. “Why? Do I look slow?”

“No!” said Sanchez. “You looked faster than I thought you’d be.” He paused for many seconds.

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