KERRY COLLINS--THE JACKASS IN US ALL


My roomie and I watched ESPN tonight, and Kerry Collins was being interviewed. For those of you who don't know, Collins was the starting quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, and a couple years ago, was their golden boy, helping get them to within a game of the Superbowl. After that, his career, well, why not just call a spade a spade, turned into a big pile of shit.

During a preseason game last year, Denver linebacker Bill Romanowski broke his jaw with a crushing hit for a sack. The Panther qb went on to have a dismal year, statwise, and managed to instantly turn the entire city of Charlotte against him, with racial epithets for all the press to ingest, and reveal himself as a drunk. With nowhere to go but up, he whipped out his shovel to go deeper this year. In another preseason game, he got sacked and his nose was broken. Upon his return, he couldn't master a new offensive system, and was a major reason Carolina is winless right now. After last week, Collins decided to bench himself because he "was not mentally prepared to play the game." Then he said he wanted to be traded, then that he didn't want to be traded. Today, he achieved neither, getting cut, and then picked up off waivers by the Saints (Apparently Saints head coach Mike Ditka wants a second heart attack so bad he can taste it.)

Collins usually carried himself with some poise in his meetings with TV media, speaking with careful deliberation. Here, he was wide-eyed, herky-jerky with his hand gestures, and speaking a million mile a minute. As if he was having a nervous breakdown. I now had a window into what was twisting in this guy's head, and saw a brief reflection of me, at 21.

I was in my third year involved with college football, and burned out. I talked on the phone to my parents, my then-girlfriend, fast, overly exhuberant, just to let them know I was okay, all the while unsure if I would be able to face the next day. I suffered from chronic back spasms...my knees ached constantly, and I had a borderline senile position coach jumping down my throat with both feet. I had finally wondered why I was doing this anymore? The question plagued me every morning as I downed a foil 12-pack of 800mg ibuprofen horse pills so I could walk to class, and then another pack so I could make it through practice, and then the game itself. It plagued me in the darkness Saturday nights after games... just wanting to down 10 muscle relaxers, turn out all my lights and just stare at the TV, laying on my futon. I'd watch TV, slackjawed, sipping from a three-liter of Mountain Dew, wishing that the trainers would give me fucking shot of Cortizone. It became a joke. I decided not to wait around for the punchline, and hang up my cleats forever that spring.

I think I understand Collins, what is going on in his head now. Is it a breakdown, or a sudden moment of clarity, and the shock to his system was too great, and the realization just burst through his denial, as lava would through the ground? I knew that I would never go pro, that this was it; I would never make the pros, this was truly the end of the line. I had played because I loved it before, and then found myself hoping that one day, my knee would finally give, that in the pile, or as I planted my mask in a running back's numbers, I'd feel that sweet pop and crumple, my knee shredded, and my body could just end it for me. It was simply pointless to go on.

Granted, Kerry Collins is a wealthy man because of football, why would he want to stop. Well, why would he want to continue? Even after his agent gets his cut, he will be set for life. The money is all that is there to play for, and he has it. Maybe he strapped on his shoulderpads and no longer felt the giddy-scared adrenaline rush before kickoff, and just had a numb dread inside, like I did. But unlike me, he went on. He's going to New Orleans to give it another shot. Why? I can't say for sure. I'm not him, but I think he knows, that once he retires, it's gone. Forever. There will be more important goals to attain, more meaningful causes, but, nothing can quite duplicate the Animal's Game Played By Gentlemen. The need for controlled chaos can never be fulfilled any other way.

Yeah, I think when he looks back on the injuries, and the pressure and pain, he would be willing to go through it all again. I look back, too, and while I am so glad I got out when I did, I know that if my old D-Line coach showed up at my door, and said the team was getting back together to crack heads one more time... I would say yes.

Hmmm... I said that I wasn't going to get personal in my rantings. Well, I lied:-P Blame on one of those overphilosophical moods... my birthday is next week and I'm getting overly reflective, I suppose.

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