Is There Life After Football? (10 page)

A training camp day might be similarly structured, except it would generally include a second practice session. And, of course, there are curfews—in your room and lights out—every night. Being absent, late, or inattentive, missing curfew, forgetting a playbook, having unauthorized female “guests” in team quarters, and a litany of other offenses are subject to hefty fines.
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While this schedule seems packed from dawn to dusk, note that it doesn't include injury treatment, rehab, routine taping, tape removal, showering, or the myriad other things that grab a few minutes here and there. On top of this, nearly all players put in additional hours of individual film study. This isn't formally mandated, but without it, a player isn't around very long.
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In addition, many players spend time with the media, and teams often encourage players to participate in promotional activities and charitable work “after hours” or on the occasional off day. As Andrew Brandt, former player agent, Packers vice president, and league consultant, suggests, NFL players' lives are thoroughly organized by the game: “Team meetings, position meetings, practices, spring practices, lifting and running sessions, team meals, bus rides, flights, team prayers, etc. The player's job is to show up and perform; the team takes care of the rest.”
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When the team “takes care of the rest,” it doesn't stop at the gates of the playing field or even the locker room doors. Among professional sports, the NFL is notorious for its desire to control every aspect of its domain.
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Emphasizing the benevolent side of control, teams pile on what they often refer to as “player assistance.” This impressed Brandt: “It always struck me how many resources we [the Packers] had for our players. When players entered Lambeau Field, staff was there to coach them, treat them, feed them, train them, counsel them, etc. And their lockers were meticulously prepared for them according to the daily schedule, with practice, workout or game gear cleanly laid out.”
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But this is only part of the story. The Packers, like other NFL organizations, have a director of player development (the “PD”), a position held by George Koonce while he and Brandt were both in the Packers' front office. While player development and assistance are presumably in a player's best interest, team activities along these lines can also be perniciously intrusive.

Most PDs are former players. Koonce took the position with Green Bay six years after he left the game, seven after his last appearance as a Packer. PDs' responsibilities vary by team. Generally, they include helping players acclimate to and manage their roles as NFL players, both on and off the field. This might involve help with mundane logistics such as orienting new players to the area, finding an apartment to rent or a house to buy, hiring a nanny to help with child care, or doing background checks on players' potential employees. But the assistance can also be more specialized, such as helping players make career decisions, seek internships, finish college, or find professional representation or investment counseling. Sometimes the PD's counseling extends into psychological and emotional realms as he tries to help players with personal problems.

The PD's biggest responsibility is helping first-year or new players make the transition into the NFL by organizing programs and teaching basic life skills, such as managing a biweekly paycheck and balancing a checkbook. Increasingly, PDs are involved in guiding older players in planning their transition out of the game. And, of course, along the way, PDs advise players regarding their expected contributions to their teammates, the community, and team chemistry. Some PDs view themselves as mentors to their players, making themselves available to talk about
football, everyday life, or anything else that might be on their minds. They try to impart insights from their own experience. “For me, I have to realize I was a young guy at one time,” offers Redskins director of player development Phillip Daniels. “I can't tell guys not to go out to the club, but I always tell them how to go out. I mean, nothing good happens after 12 o'clock. If the club closes at two, leave at 12.”
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The aim of this assistance is ostensibly to help players and their families address the practical challenges and pressures of daily life, while minimizing distractions. They help players focus on their jobs, keep their lives in order, and stay out of trouble. They even provide chapel services and bible study groups to cater to players' spiritual lives. But sometimes this special handling comes perilously close to babysitting players. Teams provide drivers and rides for players who go out on the town. They arrange and monitor drug and alcohol rehabilitation stints, check up on players' aftercare, probation and parole status, and even check in with players' parents to make sure that players' lives are on track.
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Viewed in the most positive light, these measures are ways in which teams look out for players' best interests. Skeptics, however, note that these activities resemble their insidious cousins, surveillance and subjugation.
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Regarded in these more pernicious terms, player assistance and development are subtle extensions of what sports journalist Mike Freeman calls the NFL's “irrational desire to control everything around them, every player, every member of the franchise, every reporter, every blade of grass.”
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No detail is too small or insignificant. Most NFL teams have strict dress codes for road games, when players are traveling through hotels and airports. Often, players are required to wear suits or sports coats and ties. The code may even extend to requiring black dress socks. Rules for home games might be slightly more relaxed, but still call for “professional appearance”: no T-shirts, flip-flops, or jeans.
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A dress code even shows up in the NFL rule book and on the field, specifying in great detail how players must dress on the field before and during games, including helmets, jerseys, socks, shoes, colors, materials, styles, and logos.
Players are fined thousands of dollars if they violate any rules.
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The NFL employs official inspectors—known as the “Uniform Police” or “Clothes Nazis”—to inspect players during pregame warm-ups and notify players of violations for which they could be fined.
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If socks aren't pulled up to the correct height, or the color of taped ankles isn't up to code, it costs the players money.

While it overstates matters to imply that the NFL is a “police state,” player assistance and pervasive control are two sides of the same coin. Player development requires monitoring and managing players' actions and behavior. The entailed surveillance inevitably implicates power and control over players' lives.
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While this undoubtedly has positive ramifications for the quality of the game on the field, its effects on players' lives are decidedly more mixed. It contributes to a rigidly structured, all-encompassing bubble.

The bubble comes fully equipped with benefits and perks. It's more of the exceptional treatment players have received since they were teens, but being special in the NFL is a substantial upgrade. The most obvious difference is that perks in the NFL can be “above board.” There's no need for a booster to surreptitiously slip players hundred-dollar bills in a handshake. Indeed, the teams themselves provide for almost everything imaginable related to playing the game. Off the field and outside the game, fans and followers show their appreciation any way they'd like.

“I'm Spoiled and I Love It”

With geopolitical tensions running high over the Berlin Crisis of 1961, President Kennedy ordered a buildup of the U.S. armed forces, called National Guard and reserve forces to active duty, and doubled the military draft quota. Among others, Green Bay Packers Ray Nitschke, Boyd Dowler, and Paul Hornung were ordered to report for active duty. Almost immediately, Senator Alexander Wiley from Wisconsin requested that
the Department of Defense defer Hornung and Nitschke until the end of the season. Widespread public outcry scotched that proposal, so the players all reported. Through the regular season, however, all three were granted weekend passes allowing Nitschke and Dowler to play in every game and Hornung in all but two. The Packers rolled to the NFL's Western Division championship and were set to face the New York Giants in the title game in late December. Hornung was scheduled to begin a six-day leave beginning the Tuesday after the championship game, but when he asked for the leave to be moved up a few days, his captain refused. Hornung immediately called Coach Vince Lombardi and explained the situation. This was apparently the final straw for Lombardi. He told Hornung, “Let me make a phone call, and I'll call you back in 20 minutes.” A few minutes later, Lombardi was back on the line: “I think your captain is about ready to get a phone call that will get you off to play.” Lombardi had called President Kennedy, and Hornung was soon on his way to Green Bay to play the Giants.
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Very few NFL players get presidential favors, but most of them get special handling. Baltimore Colts linebacker Mike Curtis once proclaimed: “I haven't held a job in my life. I play a game for a living. I'm spoiled and I love it.”
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Most players would agree. Inside teams' training facilities, players have lavish creature comforts. Off the field, teams supply special perks for players and their families, such as movie tickets, guest passes to Disneyland, golf club memberships, and the like. Outside the team's realm, NFL players get assorted “freebies” or other tokens of generosity. Players seldom need reservations to be immediately seated in a restaurant. Many get their meals and drinks “on the house.” Special deals on automobiles, jewelry, and clothing constantly beckon. Family members take advantage, too. Says one former player's wife, “Some NFL women have a virtual Rolodex of hook-ups. They talk about dropping the ‘Eagle bomb' or the ‘Forty-Niner bomb' during conversations with merchants in hopes of getting a lower price.”
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The bubble indeed has its privileges.

Adulation and Adoration

For some players, there's nothing more gratifying than the respect and adulation of others. Fans are eager to oblige. They recognize players and want their autographs. They go to outlandish lengths simply to be in a player's presence, to grab a piece of greatness. Today, even though nearly 15 years have passed since he last donned a Packers uniform, when George Koonce walks the streets of Green Bay, the neighborhood reverberates with chants of “Kooooonce, Kooooonce.” Bart Starr or Donald Driver can literally stop traffic. Of course Green Bay is a small town, where unabashed hero worship abounds. But it's not just a small-town phenomenon; it's a prominent feature of most players' everyday lives. High-profile players are recognized thousands of miles from home, even outside the U.S.
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And it's not just rabid fans or autograph hounds. There's little that hasn't already been said about the “adoration” and “affection” that women shower upon NFL players. Most football biographies and autobiographies have a section, if not an entire chapter, devoted to players' “romantic” escapades. It's seldom a problem for players to find willing female partners. The 1990s Dallas Cowboys may have set the pace. Many of the players on those teams were constantly on the lookout for sexual liaisons. Safety James Washington boasted that many of the players were “addicted” to sex and pursued every opportunity—of which there were plenty. Placekicker Lin Elliott chimed in: “Being a Cowboy—the women came easy. I was a slightly out-of shape balding guy who wore glasses, but the star on the helmet works magic. If I had practiced kicking footballs as hard as I worked chasing girls and drinking beers, I'd have had a 15-year career.” All-Pro receiver Michael Irvin topped them all, reportedly ushering a dozen women to his room over a four-day span just before Super Bowl XXVII.
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Shannon O'Toole, wife of former NFL player and current coach John Morton, says players are constantly hounded by “starstruck groupies.”
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Most wives agree that these women eagerly pursue players, who don't
have to be nice or charming to curry their favor. Groupies show up just about any place NFL players congregate: bars, autograph signings, hotels on the road, even the players' private parking lots. Reggie White once complained that women even showed up at the funeral of teammate Jerome Brown: “I saw a lot of women in short sexy dresses who looked more like they were going to a cocktail party than a funeral . . . they were there to pick up guys.”
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Above the Law

The NFL is a bastion of rules and regulations, but when players run amok, teams and sympathetic others are generally quick to intervene. Teams routinely fine and discipline wayward players, but monetary penalties typically amount to “chump change” for many of today's players who cash six-figure biweekly paychecks. In December 2010, the NFL fined Brett Favre $50,000 for his involvement in an alleged “sexting” scandal (Favre apparently sent lewd text messages and photos to a former Jets game hostess).
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With a base salary of $11.6 million, Favre reportedly made about $10,000 per minute of game time in 2010, so he could pay off the fine in five minutes.
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Enforcing the rules is important, but a team seldom suspends or releases a player who flaunts team policy—although threats abound and players nevertheless worry. Teams actively monitor their players, but disciplinary measures are typically tempered by the need to keep players on the field. Stories of the “Renegade Raiders” in their heyday under Al Davis or of Paul Hornung's and Max McGee's extracurricular escapades with Vince Lombardi's Packers seldom end with anything other than a good laugh at the players' (or coaches') expense. Even when legal transgressions are involved, there's no shortage of reports of players getting special treatment by the law. Incidents stemming from drug use and drinking are too numerous to chronicle. George Koonce remembers his brushes with the law during times when he was “imprudent” in his use of alcohol.