Manhood: How to Be a Better Man-or Just Live with One

by Terry Crews

  Ken got hurt during a game, and I got to go in because I was his backup. For three consecutive plays, I made all three tackles. He was on a gurney, on the sideline, and when he heard my name three times, he ran back into the game.

  “What?” I said. “Just stay out.”

  “No, no, you’ve got to get out,” he said. “I cost a couple million dollars. You cost a couple hundred thousand. Who are they going to keep if you’re doing well?”

  I used to always joke that the only obstacle to my NFL career was Ken Harvey, because if he’d just stayed out that game, I could have totally made it.

  Ken was more than just a friend. He was my hero. He took me under his wing and became my big brother in many ways. In fact, going into my second season on the Redskins, I fired my agent in favor of his, which didn’t end up being a good idea, but I wanted to do it because I admired Ken so much.

  During contract negotiations, I was told I would be given a tender offer by the team, which was the minimum I should be paid based on my tenure in the NFL, according to the NFL Players Association. Only everyone told me not to sign the tender offer, even though that’s what I was supposedly worth.

  “Don’t sign it,” my coach said. “Because once the tender offer period is over, we can resign you for whatever we want.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why are you giving it to me anyway?”

  “Well, that’s how it works,” he said. “We’re going to sign you for much less, and if you sign this now, it will count against the team’s salary cap.”

  I didn’t like being paid less than the NFL said I was worth. I wanted to earn the amount of the offer, which was a good amount of money. I went to my agent.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “If they can just sign me for whatever they want, then why are we even going through all of this?”

  “Well, you can sign it, and they’d have to pay you that amount,” he said.

  “Well, why can’t we do that?”

  “Because they’ll probably cut you.”

  “I’m tired of just fooling around,” I said. “I need to really make some money now, and with my tenure, this is what the NFL says I should be paid.”

  “Okay, let’s do it and see what happens.”

  So I went into the office to sign it. The defensive coordinator stopped me.

  “Terry, don’t do it,” he said.

  “Well, sir, this is what the NFL says I’m supposed to be getting paid,” I said.

  So he let me go. But even the secretary weighed in on the issue.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” she said.

  “Yeah, this is the offer you’re giving me.”

  So I signed it. Oh, boy. The next day, the team’s GM sought me out.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Terry.”

  “What? That’s what the NFL says I should be getting paid, that’s what I should be getting paid.”

  He gave me a look that said: You’re about to be getting paid nothing.

  We were still in training camp, and Ken pulled me aside at practice.

  “Terry, they got it in for you, man,” he said.

  He was clearly right. When I went into the weight rooms, I was ignored. When I went into the meeting rooms, I was ignored. It was like being part of a cult, something I knew a thing or two about after my time in Maranatha.

  Whoa, what happened? I wondered, trying to hang on.

  We had these depth charts for the special-team players, and I went from number one to number six. Suddenly, there were people that nobody had ever seen or heard of who were over me, and let me tell you it wasn’t because of anything I failed to do on the field. I tried to act like everything was normal. Clearly, it was not.

  “Dude, they’re going to cut you, man,” Ken said. “I can feel it.”

  I was afraid he might be right. So I went to the NFL Players Association and spoke with their representative.

  “How is this legal?” I said. “Like, what’s going on?”

  “Well, you’re not a star, and basically, there’s nothing we can really do.”

  That was my first and last experience with those NFL union guys.

  I talked to Rebecca. I talked to my agent. We tried to figure out if there was anything I could do to turn things around. Well, if I had the choice between being re-signed for too little money or being cut and earning no money, I knew which way I’d go. So my agent went to the team and said I was willing to sign the second offer, even though it was the NFL minimum for my position and less than half of the deal I’d just signed. They re-signed me for less, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I immediately went up in the depth charts again. Disaster averted. But there was still one problem. Because I’d signed when I had, the additional money in my first contract had counted against their cap. I’d cost them money.

  “Man, this is going to be ugly,” Ken said. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

  Actually, now that I’d accepted less money, everything was fine. In fact, it was really good. I had a great camp. My contract went through. There was a big barbecue with all of the coaches, and the players, and our families.

  “Congratulations, Terry, you made it,” my linebacker coach said to me.

  It was wonderful. Everyone was kissing my kids. I mean it was great. I started making plans as soon as we were driving home. Rebecca and I always waited until the absolute last minute to sign leases and enroll our kids in school, because we never knew where we were going to be from year to year. Now we knew, at least for the next season. I made it another year, I thought. What a relief.

  “Let’s put the kids in school, Becky,” I said. “We’re good.”

  That day, she signed our lease and enrolled our kids for the school year.

  The next day, I went to practice. I worked out. I did my thing. And then we all went to lunch. The quarterback, Gus Frerotte, gave me a confused look.

  “What are you doing here?” he said. “Didn’t you get cut today?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “The newspaper says you got cut.”

  “No, I didn’t. I’m here. Nobody told me.”

  “No, no, no, you got cut, man.”

  I went to the coach. He barely looked up from what he was doing.

  “Coach, what is he talking about?” I asked. “Did I get cut?”

  “Oh, no, no, don’t believe the papers,” he said. “The papers are ridiculous. They got that wrong. Look, let’s just go to practice and continue to practice.”

  So I went to practice, worked as hard as I could, showered, and went home. I hadn’t been home long when the phone rang. It was my coach.

  “Terry, we need you to come back up here and bring your playbook.”

  “But I made the team.”

  “We’re going to cut you.”

  All I could think was, But yesterday, you were kissing our kids. Let me tell you, the NFL got me ready for the entertainment industry because it does not get colder than that. This truly was one of the central lessons I needed to learn in my life: Never make decisions based on money. I’d been warned, and I should have listened. Signing that contract was a mistake, pure and simple. As I learned over time, if I’m doing my dream job, that’s enough, and once I become one of the top guys, the money will come. I also got that I should never worry about minimums. The truth about a minimum salary requirement is that if they can pay you less, they will. Always. Instead of getting my ego wrapped up in numbers and what they supposedly said about my worth, I should have figured out ways to become more valuable, and never bothered myself over the other stuff. Had I increased my value to the organization, we never would have had a “minimum pay” discussion again.

  Rebecca and I ended up staying in the area for another year because the kids were in school, and during that whole time, Ken never deserted me. Even though he was on the team, he was still my friend. He even gave me a little money here and there when I needed it. His loyalty mean
t so much to me. And I have to say that, overall, this was one of the first times Rebecca and I maintained relationships and were still treated like insiders, even though I was off the team. That camaraderie got me through many dark days that year. Ken, especially, did everything he could to keep my spirits up. I really did not know what I was going to do next.

  “Hold on, man, it’s going to be great,” he always said. “It’s going to be good.”

  ———

  THAT SAME YEAR, THE EAGLES PICKED ME UP FOR THE playoffs. But I never played, and then they told me they weren’t going to re-sign me. I was filler for the team during the playoff season, and I eventually learned I wasn’t going to go to camp with them. Next, I worked out for the San Francisco 49ers. By that point, I’d been on six teams in seven years. I was running out of teams, and steam. Even more important, I could feel that something had changed for me.

  During the workout, the coach threw the ball at me so hard it dislocated my finger. I was lethargic and cynical about all of the drills. I felt horrible. I went home to Herndon, Virginia, where we lived during my stint with the Redskins. I laid it out for Becky. “I don’t think my heart’s in this anymore,” I said.

  Rebecca gave me a long look.

  “Remember when we met, and we were dating, and we got engaged, and you said, ‘I’m going to play in the NFL, and then we’re going to move to LA, and we’re going to make movies,’ ” she said. “It’s time to move to LA.”

  “Are you really serious? You think this is it?”

  “Your heart’s not in it. Let’s go. We don’t have anything here.”

  I knew she was right.

  “You know what? Let’s go. We’ve got nothing to lose.”

  My whole plan was to be behind the scenes. I’d never acted before, and that was not even a consideration for me. I was going to be an animator or special-effects artist, and, eventually, I was going to write, direct, and produce my own projects. In 1995, I’d even filmed a little movie I’d produced, Young Boys, Inc., with my old NFL buddy Anthony. We’d gotten kicked out of locations in Detroit. We’d gotten beat down. We’d run out of money. We never even finished the movie. Still, it was one of the best times of my life.

  During my time with the Redskins, I’d tried to generate heat for Young Boys, Inc., even throwing a big fund-raiser partway through the season. As was my way back then, I spent nearly $20,000 on an event meant to impress my teammates, and I didn’t earn a single cent on the whole endeavor. But now that we were going to LA, I could take the film with me and finally make something happen with it. I was an extreme dreamer.

  The only thing I felt like I had still tying me to Virginia was Ken. We went out one night, and I told him I was moving to LA.

  “Okay, do you know anybody?” he said.

  “No.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So you’re just going to up and leave?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to load up and get out of here.”

  “Man, you need anything?”

  “Thank you, man.”

  He gave me a couple thousand dollars to help us move, and that was huge. During our transition, we spent about a month at my parents’ house in Flint, during which time I arranged my official retirement from the NFL and got my severance. We moved to LA and landed in an itty-bitty extended-stay hotel in Burbank. We didn’t know a soul. At the time, Naomi was ten and Azi was eight. Not long after we arrived in LA, Rebecca got pregnant. We were overjoyed, but I was also terrified.

  That was an extremely stressful time. We didn’t have any money, and I had too much pride to get a job. I’d come from the NFL, I’d made a film, and I was going to get into the business. I was sure that all counted for something. Well, I soon found out that Hollywood didn’t give a damn. Again, Rebecca remained supportive.

  “Look, whatever you have to do, do,” she said. “But this is the thing. How long do you think it’s going to take for you to realize if it’s not going to work? Like how long will we be here? Is it three years, four years, what?”

  “We are never leaving,” I said. “Football is done. But this I can do forever. I will never be happy doing anything else.”

  It was the absolute truth. Somehow I knew: Hollywood was in my lifeblood.

  “If we’re ninety-nine years old, and we hit it big then, it will all be worth it,” I said.

  “Okay, got it,” she said. “That was all I needed to know. We’re going to be in California. Cool. I’ve got you. So let’s do it.”

  Rebecca’s faith in me never wavered, but now she was all about talking sense into my stubborn, lumpy head. We were broke, because I wasn’t being smart.

  “Terry, you need a job,” she said. “We’re running out of money, and you’re doing the filmmaker thing, but you need to do the workman thing.”

  “But I can’t do that,” I said. “That would hurt my image.”

  I still thought having Hollywood see me as a former football player was going to help, but as I was learning again and again, Hollywood didn’t care. I’d created a portfolio and put it in at Disney’s hand-drawn animation department. People there were taking notice, but their method often was to give notes on applicants’ work five or six times before deciding to hire them, and I didn’t have that long. I went over to DreamWorks, and their animation department was creating Prince of Egypt. I did some hand drawing for them, and I got some notes on my portfolio, but again, it would have been a long time coming. Trying to make money as an artist in Hollywood just seemed too ridiculous.

  During this time, Ken was my lifeline. He kept sending me gold coins from this gold bullion he had in his savings.

  “Look, when you get into trouble, take the coin to a jeweler. Each coin is an ounce, and whatever the price of gold is per ounce that day, they’ll give you.”

  Every couple of months, he sent me eight or ten coins. Looking back now, it seems like such a crazy way for me to have lived and supported my family for that long, but at the time I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I had hocked Rebecca’s ring, my watch. Whatever we had that I could sell, I had pawned.

  Finally, I got ready to pawn our car. Rebecca stopped me at that.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “We’ve got to do this.”

  “No, we don’t. You need a job. You need to just go to work.”

  “No, babe, it’s going to work,” I said.

  That’s what I’d always told her in college. It had worked then, but this was different. Our NFL dream was over, and we were about to have our third child.

  “But if we lose the car, what are we going to do then?”

  “I don’t know, we’ll find a way,” I said. “I’ll bike it. I don’t care. We’ve got to do this to just get us by. We’re only a minute away. We’re almost there.”

  Of course, we were really far away, but I didn’t know it then. This went on for about a year. I hocked the car at this place that gave us about $2,500 and let us continue to use it. We had to pay back the money at an exorbitant interest rate, and if we missed even one payment, they would come and take the car. Rebecca couldn’t believe it. She threw up her hands at me and prayed: Lord, please help this man, because he’s being a fool and nobody can talk any sense into him!

  We had nothing left. One day, I called Ken. “Ken, hey, dude, I need some help,” I said. “You know, we’ve pawned everything. Can you just send me a little bit?”

  “Terry, I can’t do it.”

  In all of the years we’d been friends, it was the first time I’d ever heard him say no, ever. I was stunned, and I didn’t know what to say.

  “I can’t do it,” he said again.

  He was really saying no. I didn’t get it.

  “Why?”

  “Hey, man, I just, that’s enough,” he said. “I have officially given you all of the money I can. The reason I gave you the coins was because my wife would have felt uncomfortable with me writing checks, and so I wa
s just trying to slip things to you like that, but it’s not right. I can’t give you any more money.”

  He had given me a lot of money over the years. But instead of being grateful, I got mad. What is this? I thought. But, of course, I knew I couldn’t say that to him.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “Hey, I understand. No problem. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I hung up mad. And then it hit me: Why are you angry with the only man who ever helped you? Why does it bother you so much that he told you no? You feel like he owes you, and he’s the only one who’s ever helped you. He doesn’t owe you anything. You are a grown man. You are on your own. You need to do whatever it takes, and your wife has been telling you this the whole time, but you didn’t listen to her.

  And then I had an epiphany that changed my life: There’s no looking cool. There’s no being hip. There’s no pro-football-player image. I need to start all over again, because no one is coming to save me. I’ve got to do it for myself, and I’ve got to do anything it takes.

  That was it for me. I knew what I had to do. I went to Rebecca.

  “Ken’s not doing it anymore,” I said. “I’ve got to do it. I’m going to get a job.”

  “Yeah,” she said, as in, WHAT HAVE I BEEN TELLING YOU ALL ALONG?

  That week, I went to a place called Labor Ready in North Hollywood. Every morning, I showed up at five a.m., and they assigned me manual labor for the day, for which I was paid $8 an hour. For an eight-hour day, after taxes, I earned $50. It was basically a halfway house, because so many of the workers had just come out of prison. There were a lot of drug addicts. They were in really rough shape. On my first day, I looked at the people around me. They were itching, scratching and dirty, and they were there to sign up to earn their money, just like me.

  The boss sent me to a place in the Valley called White Cap, and they handed me a broom. I had tears in my eyes when I started sweeping. I swept for eight hours.

  I’ve got to do anything it takes. I’ve got to do anything it takes.

  Some of the other workers came up to me.

  “Hey, hey, hey, man,” one of the guys said. “You look familiar.”

  It was clear he didn’t really know who I was, but I didn’t look like any of the other guys. I looked like a pro-football player. So he wanted to prove something.