012 | Life After Football

What do you do after football? Here's my story.
Episode 012:

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Why Subscribe? April 28, 2009
I hung up the pads today. Football has been good to me. It has been that extra factor that has gotten me to where I am. But you can’t rely on it forever. Life isn’t football, and football isn’t life. A lot of people lose perspective on that and end up not knowing what they want to do when the journey suddenly ends. There are a lot of things that I want to do with and in my life, and today I will start pursuing those things. For when I read this in the future: remember that statement. If you haven’t yet, do those things. Hike Hadrian’s Wall with Garrett. Paddle Maine’s islands. Ride across the U.S. Write. Learn. Listen. Continue to challenge yourself; get out of the comfort zone.
Football. What can you say about it? It’s a game best enjoyed from the stands with a cold beer and friends. But truly, football is like a rose. It’s a beautiful game that will teach you about life, and it is totally glorified and fun to look at. But the thorns will also get you, and they will leave you with blood running down your skin. Deal with it.
Whenever I stepped on that field, I always thought of Ivory Christian. I hated the game. I wanted it to leave me alone. Yet, I kept doing it. And, when I strapped up for gameday, the Devil emerged. The mean streak was on; rage in my heart.
Today, I leave with nothing but a bag of memories and lessons to carry with me in life (and a couple of stolen t-shirts). And I couldn’t imagine a grander ending. I walked into the bright sunshine and blooming flowers on this beautiful spring morning and I cried with a smile on my face for the memories and the guys who put their hand down in the dirt next to mine. And then it was gone.
Even now, only an hour or two later, I can’t cry for it anymore. I am running into the next phase of my life, with a beautiful future ahead. May I have strength and endurance in my journeys.
When a lot of guys end their playing careers, its a very emotional moment. There can be lots of crying and thinking about how they will never feel that rush again, that knotted stomach before a game as they go over plays in their head, that moment when the stomach unknots and all that fear turns to anger that swells, making them want to injure anyone in a different colored jersey by any means possible, as long as they don't get caught. And finally, that temporary high after a game, before the swelling and the headaches set in, that moment after a win when they just feel so alive.
I took a different path. When I hung up the pads and walked away from the fresh cut grass and dried dirt soaked in my own sweat, blood, and vomit, I had a smile on my face. It was time to be done, and I had and still have things to do before I (get old? Lose function in my knees?). Lots of them. First on the list was get out of the comfort zone and go to new places in the world to learn from new people about different sides of life. I bought a bike to do it.
I took a job working in a new place over the summer, Woods Hole, Cape Cod, and I got a lot of traveling by bike in. All over Massachussetts. I fell in love with my steel frame Surly touring bike. The next summer I cut the frame in half and put steel couplers in it so that I could fit it in a suitcase and travel with it without any detriment to the function of the frame, and I took it to Alaska with me and rode across the state. But that’s not what I am here to tell you about. I am here to tell you about athletics. And during the school year I can’t travel with my bike. So I decided to race it.
My bike is a steel frame touring bike - probably the last choice of bike for any cyclist to complete a criterium with. For that matter, probably the last choice for a time trial, too, and a hilly road race! The frame is too heavy, the wheelbase is too long, the bottom bracket too low, the tan finish and leather seat are certainly too ugly.
When I clipped in for my first race on a slick New York city street in the middle of monsoon-like conditions that foreboded the disasters ahead for an offensive lineman trying to race bikes, my pedals rang like a church bell on Sunday morning. The stiff frame responded to my lightest motion and the unsightly tan frame shone gold.
With the shot of a gun we were off... cautiously. Drops of water sprayed in everyone’s eyes, and I tried to settle into a good position about three riders back. At that point in time,...