Norman Einstein's
ISSUE 06 (11/09)
"Heroes Once Removed"
by Johnny Saward
[Johnny is a writer based in Danbury, Connecticut. He celebrates his Michigan Wolverines, in victory and in loss, at his site Ronald Bellamy's Underachieving All-Stars. Highly recommended reading for fans and foes.]
A siren was going off like the world's end was imminent. In the distance two people were standing in place, each waving a giant Miami Dolphins flag. Behind Chad hovered a man, who looked like he spent most of his evenings picking up girls in the bar of the Marriot off the highway, anxiously waiting for him to stop talking so he could escort the quarterback to the locker room. The man had a pair of sunglasses resting on top of his head even though it was dark and had been so for the last five hours.
Suzy Kolber asked Chad something about being undaunted by the Jets defense, which was a sensible question to ask, considering it had recently held Andre Johnson, Randy Moss, and Marques Colston to a combined 92 yards receiving, and, that to many of the people watching, Chad was just a young gunslinger with a chin like a Disney prince.
Chad Henne had been there before, several times. But it had been a while.
"I think our guys just had the determination inside," he said. "And we just made a lot of more plays than they did."
Credit: ChristopherTaylor (Flickr)
This was the only way I have ever known the man. Chad the bumbling rube who stutters nervously and struggles to execute basic grammar and Chad the Robot are not a uniformed identity. He will throw a ball 55 yards in the air, over three defensive backs, and into a receiver's arms... and then afterward say "a lot of more."
I like fantasy football and gambling on the Colts to cover, but above all the NFL is an excuse for me to keep watching all the Michigan players that have left; it is an outlet for lingering affection. They still exist, but sometimes they're gone for a while and re-emerge unshaven and probably a little terrified that it could all end in an instant. The NFL is the worshipped final destination but it is not a paradise. It is cold and it is humbling, littered with the decaying egos and downtrodden men who once roamed the college landscape like folk heroes, winking at girls from across the room, and destroying safeties from East Lansing. They disappear. And I wait for them to come back.
...
For the first three years he spent at Michigan, Chad Henne was the intrepid commander of a team that above all had a powerful ability to salvage a drive or a day or sometimes a season with something transcendent. It usually happened when there wasn't much time left and we'd put our heads down to wonder how it got this far. (Michigan burns things to the ground and then pulls survivors from the rubble, of that I am certain.)
He was disinterested in public perception and seemed to have little use for the press or fans outside of a polite obligation. It's 6:30 p.m. in November and I'm in Columbus. It's dark, it's third and long, and, for now, this is a career. You want to know what it felt like? Did it feel worse because Bo just died? Go wrestle a bear with your eyes closed in a stadium that rises in the sky like a mountain and trembles like it's on the verge of an avalanche, filled with thousands of people who want you to fail. Focus on how that feels. I'll be back on Monday; you can tell me then.
He had been bad but rarely so when we had expected him to be good. Most of the time, we expected him to be good and he was. And there were moments when he played flawlessly and oblivious to pressure as if existed in a world where the only noises were a slight breeze or someone breathing hard. Notre Dame in 2006; the fourth quarter against Michigan State in 2007. He would drop back quickly, almost eagerly (we know how this ends, so let's get on with it) hop forward in the pocket, head boldly upright like some painting of a Revolutionary war general standing at the front of a boat or a sheriff who just emptied a revolver on an outlaw in the back of a saloon. A mystifyingly, unfathomably perfect pass. And then Mario Manningham was standing there, far away with the band gone quiet, waiting for Chad, running to catch up to him with one raised arm. Sometimes entire days went like that.
But when he was a senior and he hurt his knee and his shoulder only worked some of the time, there were doubts. The season was gone (most thought) and whatever dignity remained would be completely lost against Ohio State. Bring in Ryan Mallett, I guess. He's tall and his throws can dent planets and he seems awfully sure of himself. That didn't go so well. And when it didn't, it was Chad who resurrected the season. He had rarely spoken beyond platitudes and awkward, disoriented forays into bad comedy, but when the time came to revel in his rescue act, he punched us all in the side of the head and asked us where we got the fucking audacity to tell him it was time to go. Well, I suppose I just wished there was that much hostility.
"After the second half, there's no doubt I should be playing quarterback," he said midway through the season, after Michigan had just beaten Northwestern. "There's no doubt I should be playing the rest of the season. Ryan is a great person, and I have a lot of respect for him, but it's my team, it's my senior year."
...
With 10:10 left in the game against the Jets, Chad completed a 53-yard touchdown to Ted Ginn, a man whose failures Chad cherished when he was at Michigan and Ginn was at Ohio State. In 2006, the game between the two decided which team would play in the National Championship. Ginn caught eight passes for 104 yards and a touchdown that day. Afterward I went in my room and laid in the dark for an hour because there was no one in the universe who could comprehend how I felt. I cherished Ginn's failures. But against the Jets I wanted him to do well; this happened involuntarily and without hesitation. If he did well, Chad did well. Chad called him Teddy and ran to meet him as he once met Mario, and for now, Chad's happiness is inexorably linked to Ginn's success. Enemies, friends, silent partners committed to the destruction of the AFC East; in the NFL, the boundaries of these relationships bleed into each other. Nice to meet you, now here, catch this ball so we can keep our jobs.
I know Mike Hart is conscious of that. Mike Hart is survival. At Michigan he casually defied expectations with wide eyes, a poorly-concealed smile and some charmingly delusional statement that never seemed so outlandish one week later. He was shorter than most of the people watching him and ran the 40-yard dash in about the time it takes you do to a load of laundry but none of it mattered. I am still here, and you never saw me coming. Only when I'm out of chances to prove you wrong do I feel overwhelmed.
His declarations were always sort of daring and vengeful, but it usually just came across as calculated mischief. You didn't fear him as much as you honored his word. Because he'd earned it. He spoke like he was calling from a payphone and didn't have enough change to call back and finish his story if his time ran out. And sometimes he had to wipe the sweat off his forehead in the middle of your question, but most of the time you believed him. Not that anyone would have blamed you if you didn't. I guess he just always had a way of making things all right in the end.
But I never see him now. About a year ago he was interviewed by a local news station; he was wearing an old t-shirt and needed a haircut. He looked like he'd spent the last few weeks on a deserted island and had given up on appearances and only wanted to find his way back home. He tore his ACL, sprained both ankles, was cut by the Colts, re-signed to their practice squad, and then added to the active roster again. He used to sit in the corner of a tree house devising a plan to take over the world with a slingshot, wearing a bath towel tied around his neck as a cape. But it isn't that way any more. He once ruled an empire. Now he wanders the outskirts of town digging through the trash for empty cans.
...
In the summer between Mike Hart's sophomore and junior seasons, he spent a few weekends with Braylon Edwards. They were teammates in 2004.
"That's one thing special about college football... I look at Braylon, he said even with all the money he's making, with the atmosphere and all he'd still want to be in the Big House one more time," Mike said. "Man, it's special. He's making $17 million and he said he'd rather be in the Big House playing."
In Braylon's first interview with the New York media after being traded to the Jets, he occasionally alluded to his time at Michigan. Not intentionally, in some effort to display that he had been "re-born" by the trade, but because there was a time when things were easier. And, in a small way, maybe he's always wanted to go back. He referenced advice his college receivers coach had given him. For 20 minutes, he had his alleged misdeeds examined and he let most of that go. But when someone accidentally said that he had won a Rose Bowl, he quickly corrected him. He said when he was 14 football was fun but somewhere in there it stopped being that way.
In 2003, he put a rose between his teeth and pointed a clenched fist in the air while he stood in the middle of thousands of people who weren't sure how someone could be so good at something yet knew that it felt right. It was the last time Michigan beat Ohio State.
He is an ambitious pubic speaker who searches for big words, professional words, but he gets tangled in incorrect tenses and cliches. He chartered a helicopter to fly him to the Michigan-Ohio State game in 2006, but missed a practice in the process and was reprimanded by his coach. Late one night, he bought oceans of booze for his friends and teammates, but Donte' Stallworth drove home drunk later on and hit a man with his car. He personally responds to complete strangers when they insult him on Twitter and he gets into fights with the entourage of more iconic players; he is an amateur superstar who desperately wants to be something more. He advertises for energy supplement, and low-grade crystal meth derivative, 5-Hour Energy while Adrian Peterson and LeBron James do commercials for Nike and Gatorade. They move in slow motion through thunder and rain, indifferent to the lightning bolts behind them that look like they were hurled from the arm of Zeus. They are aliens from outer space who have briefly landed to examine this odd planet of mortal beings. There are booming voiceovers and then the screen turns black. Braylon sees this and knows this is not him. Maybe it used to be, but not now.
There are moments when I see these players as they used to be. Chad's pass to Ginn and not knowing what to say when it was over. Steve Breaston as a flailing, slender blur drifting underneath a linebacker and getting nine yards on 3rd and 8. Mike Hart running with one shoe on, one shoe lost, two years ago in the preseason. I see them and for a moment it all looks familiar, feels familiar, a flash of what once was.
And then most of the time, it's all gone again.
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