Guts vs Glory (17 page)

In the week that followed the
National Championship Game, Mike and I began collecting newspaper and magazine
articles that talked about the game.  We cut out any articles or pictures of us
and hung them on the walls of our dorm room.  Most of the articles discussed
the entire game, but sometimes they talked about his performance or my
game-winning touchdown.  There were numerous pictures of me in the stands with
the student section.  I looked like I was having a great time because, of
course, I was.  That was the day I got my 15 minutes of fame.

With the new season starting soon,
we had little time off to ourselves.  My plan was to simply enjoy the time off
until spring practice started in March.  Mike had different plans, however. 
When I returned from class one day with Christine, he needed to talk.  He knew
I would end up sharing with her anyway, so he didn’t mind if she stayed to
listen.  He told me that his grades were getting worse.  We had just started
the second semester of our junior year and he was already in academic trouble. 
If he stayed in school, he was sure he would be kicked out and would not be
able to play his senior year.  And that would, of course, jeopardize our
chances of playing in the pros together.  His solution was to declare himself
eligible early for the pros.

Although it didn’t happen often,
only juniors in college could leave early to go to the pros.  Just because they
declared themselves, though, they weren’t guaranteed a spot on a professional
football team.  And once he declared, he would no longer be eligible to play
for USM.  For him to declare, he would have to be confident that his talent was
good enough for the professional level, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to play
football again.  Unfortunately, his grades didn’t leave him much of a choice.

While I enjoyed my time off in
February, Mike was using that time to impress the professional scouts.  During
the month, the scouts invited potential candidates to attend an event that
assessed the athletes based on numerous activities.  The format was very
similar to the try-out format at Southern Michigan.  At the end of the week,
athletes were compared to other athletes at their position, and were given a
numerical grade based on those comparisons.  That information would be used
later by professional football teams, as they analyzed players they may
consider for their team.

In March, as I was getting ready
for spring practices, the scouts came to our campus.  It was a chance for our
athletes trying out for the pros to show off.  During that time, the athletes
would use the assistance of their coaches, and possibly other players, to show
the scouts whatever they thought would impress them.  That was their last
chance to improve their odds of being considered by professional football
teams.

In April, as I was participating in
our annual spring scrimmage, he was with the other top athletes at the
Selection Showcase, waiting to see if he made it.  During Selection Showcase
Week, all of the general managers representing professional football teams
would gather together during a televised event and would take turns picking
which college football players they wanted on their teams.  Each team received
one pick per round, in a seven-round format.  Selection order was based on the
team’s performance during the previous season.  The worst team got the first
pick, while the best team got the last.  As it turned out, our Michigan Knights
had the worst record the previous season, winning only one game, so they were
rewarded with the first pick.  After a few minutes of the country wondering
which college football player would be picked first, Michigan chose a running
back.  Suddenly Mike was not only the best running back in major college
football that season, but also the first college football player picked that
year to play at the professional level.

As they announced his name, he came
on stage and stood with the team’s general manager.  The general manager was
the one who made all of the important decisions for the Michigan Knights. 
Having made his best decision ever, they were now both facing a crowd of nearly
200 athletes, also waiting to be called, and twice as many reporters.  Mike was
handed a team hat and jersey to wear while pictures were taken of him shaking
the hand of the general manager.  Because Mike was the first player picked
during the Selection Showcase, he was guaranteed to be the highest paid rookie
that next season.

As Mike was becoming a millionaire,
I was getting ready for my final season of college football.  I knew I wouldn’t
be one of the first ones picked during my Selection Showcase Week, but I also
knew that I wouldn’t be picked at all if I didn’t have an impressive season. 
Much of that success would be contingent upon becoming a starter on an elite
team.  Luckily, the center that I backed up the previous season would no longer
be on the team as he was graduating at the end of the school year.  In fact, he
was one of 14 starters not coming back after winning the title. 

In our title run the previous
season, 11 seniors were marking their fourth season of playing at USM
together.  During their sophomore year, those 11 athletes were all starting and
had made it to a New Year’s Day game.  After losing that game, they blamed
their loss on inexperience.  The following year, that same group would be
returning with a year of experience playing at the major college level.  The
additional experience attributed to their victory the following New Year’s Day. 
During their senior year, that group would return for yet a third season
together as starters, that time adding a running back who would end up being
voted as the best football player in the country.  Even though he made a big
difference in the game, the national championship was in large part due to the
three years of experience by the group of 11 starters who were able to form a
strong team bond over their four seasons playing together.  Unfortunately, with
them graduating, and an additional three juniors declaring for the pros, our
team was left with only eight experienced starters from our national
championship team.

On one hand, our team was
inexperienced, which dropped our pre-season rank to the lower half of the
top-25 major college football teams.  On the other hand, our coach would need
players with experience to step up and fill the numerous vacant spots.  Even
though we may have had an inexperienced team, I had a great chance to step up
and prove myself.  The bonus was, as a returning championship team, most of our
games would be televised around the country as more fans would be interested in
our team.  That meant my performance, if selected as a starter, would be
witnessed by people outside of our conference, including scouts and general
managers from professional teams.

At the spring scrimmage game, I got
my first chance at starting.  Because of my experience, I was placed on the
first-string offense.  The coach informed me that just because I was starting
on the scrimmage team, didn’t mean I would be a guaranteed starter and I would
have to use the summer to earn my spot.  During the spring game, I continued my
streak of not letting anyone by me.  The guard next to me had a similar
record.  He was the guard that played at Byron Junior College while I was at
Whitaker.  He would later become my new roommate.

During the summer, it was clear why
Tony and I were roommates.  During junior college, we were competitors.  Two
seasons later, we were clearly the best offensive linemen on the team with
starting potential.  If given the opportunity to start, we would make great
dorm mates as we would be able to study plays together while forming a strong
bond off the field.

While the walk-ons were trying out,
I took advantage of the one week break by going home.  Because Mike would be
making enough money in the pros to buy whatever car he wanted, he let me keep
the car that we had purchased together.  Tony had nowhere else to go, so he
ended up going back home with me.  The long car ride to Whitaker flew by as we
were able to talk football for most of the time.  When we weren’t talking, we
were jamming out our new favorite band ‘Mike Mains and the Branches’.  When we
arrived home, my parents were excited to meet a player from a national
championship team.  As the week went on, the excitement began to dissolve as
they saw how much food Tony and I went through.  When it was time to leave, my
dad’s wallet was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

When we returned to campus, we got
right back into summer practices.  Those practices had a different feel as a
player on the regular roster than it did as a player on the scout team the
previous season.  Even with a different feel, though, the practices were still
something I was very comfortable with.  During those practices, I continued to
become stronger and faster.  When I wasn’t practicing, I was studying for
summer school or spending time with Christine on an almost daily basis. 
Finally, after a long and hot summer, it was time to get ready for my final
season as a college football player. 

The first week of regular-season
practice was completely different than it had been the previous season.  Just
like with the scout team, the regular team didn’t waste any time at practice. 
Rather than spending the first two days studying the opponent, my new team used
that time to hit hard and hit often.  As a starting center, I got a lot of
practice time to work on my snaps, standing up as soon as I snapped the ball
and blocking hard the person standing in front of me. 

At our practices, the coaches
wanted more intensity out of us.  They wanted us to be the biggest and fastest
team in college football.  Anytime we slowed down, our opponent could gain an
advantage.  Not only were we expected to work fast; there was also no concern
for injury during practice.  The only one who couldn’t be hit during practice
was the quarterback.  Even though our offensive line was doing a great job at
blocking for him, the quarterback was still protected by wearing a red jersey
indicating that he couldn’t be touched.  Everyone else, however, was
expendable.  If a player was injured during practice, there were other players
ready to take his place.  That meant that the defender coming at me wasn’t
allowed to slow down at any point and wouldn’t worry about injuring me.  The
fear of death made me that much quicker with my snaps. 

After using the first two days to
work on lots of plays and lots of hitting, the next two days were spent
scrimmaging against the scout team.  We walked through our plays on the third
day, while the fourth day of practice was a full blown scrimmage.  Scrimmage
for me was the same being starter, as it had been on the scout team.  The
speed, intensity, and hitting were identical in both situations.  The only
difference was that even though the scrimmage felt like a real game, our team
of starters always won.

By the end of the week, taking a
day off made more sense.  While on the scout team, we spent the first three
days going at a slow pace with an intense weight room session afterwards.  The
scrimmage on the fourth day was intense, but that only lasted a few hours.  As
a backup, the first two days were intense, but the second two were almost
relaxing as I stood on the sidelines for more than half of the scrimmage. 
During my senior year, however, all four days were intense, and there was no
way my body would’ve been able to handle a full game without some time off. 
During that day off, most of us never left our dorm rooms and rarely got out of
our beds.  Fortunately, I didn’t have any Friday classes scheduled during the
upcoming school year.

On my last play as a major college
football player the previous season, I scored a game winning touchdown in the
Major College Championship Game.  I knew, though, that most of the plays that
followed that game wouldn’t have the same outcome.  In fact, all of the plays
during the first game of my senior season were all pretty similar in that I
snapped the ball perfectly, I stood up quickly, and I stopped the defender from
getting in the way of our offense.  After winning that first game, our team of
young starters had the confidence needed to push on through the rest of the
games that season.

We took that confidence and won the
next three games.  After four weeks, we had won all four non-conference games
and were getting ready for the Midwestern Conference schedule to begin.  In
major college football, a team was guaranteed to play in the post-season as
long as they had more wins than they had losses.  In a 12 game season, we only
needed three more wins that season to make it to the post-season.

In that four-week time span, my
relationship with Christine continued to get more and more serious and we
rarely spent time apart.  Both of our grade point averages remained high.  We
were both closing in on a 3.9 average, and were still making a competition out
of it.  Unfortunately, Mike wasn’t having a very successful first couple of
weeks in the pros.

Even though the Knights had only
won one game the previous season, they still decided to stick with their same
game plan.  They were known as a pass-heavy team and passed the ball twice as
much as they ran.  They weren’t ready to use Mike as an all-star because they
wanted him to adjust to life as a professional football player.  He had the
desired speed, but at the professional level, defenders were still able to
catch him.  They wanted him to work on not getting tackled once he got caught. 
That meant he had to spend more time in the weight room and less time on the
practice field.  He was still their starting running back; he just wasn’t
getting the ball as often as he had been in college.

Sadly, during the conference
season, we were only able to add two more victories to our overall record. 
With six wins for the season, we were one game short of going to the
post-season.  For the first time in three seasons, the University of Southern
Michigan football team ended their year early and didn’t make it into the
rankings of the top-25 major college football teams in the league.

Mike, meanwhile, was finally able
to find success in the pros.  The team started balancing out their play
selection once they could depend on him more.  Not only was he fast, but he was
finally a challenge to take down.  With more chances at carrying the ball, his
stats increased exponentially.  As he got the ball more, the team got better. 
They didn’t make it to the playoffs, nor did he receive any awards, but they
did tell him that because of his performance in the second half of the season,
he would get the ball more often the following season.