Bringing the Heat

by Mark Bowden

  “It wouldn’t be fair to bring you in because you wouldn’t even get a good look,” Tom explained.

  Scouting the situation at other pro camps, Marvin figured his best shot as a walk-on was in New York, but his dad urged him to go to the Eagles’ first practice anyway.

  “Why don’t you just go see what they’ve got?” he told his son. “See what an NFL practice looks like.”

  Marvin parked the Mustang on the lot outside the dilapidated gray stadium, set just south of the newer Vet and used as an outdoor practice field by the Eagles. It was an eerie setting, this enormous empty arena, famous for heavyweight-title bouts, rock concerts, and the annual Army-Navy football games, fallen into grand disrepair. The last major event here had been Philadelphia’s leg of the worldwide Live Aid rock concert, and pieces of the cheerful banners and handpainted wooden signage, now weathered and partially in shreds, flapped against the outside of the old press box and TV platforms above, haunting the place with souvenirs of fleeting pop glory. Rows of empty metal benches ascended evenly up to a gray, drizzly sky. For almost two hours, Marvin paced on the track, silently mingling with the other gapers as the players and prospects, who wore helmets and numbered jerseys but no pads, stretched and jogged and ran passing and blocking drills. He tried to measure his own skills against theirs from a distance, but there was no way to do that. He picked out Bellamy, Barnett, Williams, and a few of the free-agent receivers and watched as Randall and Jimbo took turns zipping precise passes at them. The more he watched, the more anxious Marvin became. He decided he had to do something.

  As the team left the field, the veterans dashing for cars they had parked inside the stadium just off the track, the rookies trudging off across the acres of parking lot back to the Vet, Marvin positioned himself among the clump of fans waiting outside the tall gate at the northeast end. When Buddy walked up, and the fans pressed in for autographs, Marvin stepped in front of the coach and looked him squarely in the eye.

  “Excuse me, Coach Ryan?”

  Buddy reflexively reached out his hands, expecting to be handed pen and paper.

  “No,” said Marvin, waving away the coach’s hands, still looking him in the eye. “My father always told me that if you wanted anything done, then you go to the boss, and since you’re the boss, I just want to tell you that I’m a wide receiver, I graduated from the University of Richmond in May and I’d like to play for your team if I can have a tryout.”

  Buddy took a half step back and eyed Marvin up and down quickly.

  “Can you run a forty for me today?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come on. We’ll time you.”

  Inside the Vet about a half hour later, Marvin stretched and ran for Joe Woolley, who timed him at 4.5 seconds over forty yards. Woolley said the time was good, not great, but that he liked his stride.

  “You get in shape, that time will come down,” he said.

  But that was all he said. He walked Marvin back inside, and they rode the elevator up to the Eagles’ offices in silence. Joe told Marvin to have a seat on a gray leather couch in the waiting room outside the executive suite and then disappeared inside for a few minutes. When he stepped back out he said, “How do I spell your name on the contract?”

  Of course, Marvin knew all he had done was secure a chance to run around on the field with the rest of the free agents. He was the lowest of the low on a preseason roster creaking with dead weight. It was like being invited to play the first hole in a golf tournament, where you could stay only if you hit a hole in one.

  But the next day, and the next day, and the day after that, Marvin hit holes in one. He lit up the practice field, one amazing catch after another. His bubbly personality was felt all over. If a frustrated defensive back gave him a quick shove from behind as he leaped to catch a pass, Marvin would hang on to the ball as he went flying to the ground, roll, pop up, and give the surly defender a playful pat on the rump as he ran back to the huddle. By the time the team had checked into Gertrude and donned pads in August, Marvin was a favorite with the fans sitting on the grass by the two practice fields.

  He made an impression on his teammates, too. The voluntary camp drills were no contact, which put defensive backs at a disadvantage covering the smaller, faster receivers. In a game or “live” drill, defenders could even the match by slamming the receiver as he came off the line or by hitting him so hard as the ball arrived that he couldn’t hang on—or, if he caught it, wished he hadn’t. Without pads, without violence, nimble receivers could win the battle all afternoon. After one such session, Seth and Andre and Wes invited Marvin out for a drink(teetotaler Marvin would accept only a Coke). Afterward, he wasn’t sure if they were befriending him or needling him—probably a little of both.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing,” Andre said. “I need that challenge. I’m gonna bust your ass in training camp.”

  All through the weeks in West Chester, Andre would grin at him on the field, reminding him of the promise. It gave Marvin pause. Waters’s concussive torpedo tackles were feared throughout the league.

  “Ah, you’ll never get a chance to hit me,” Marvin bragged.

  They loved this kid’s daring. Once, in a full-pads live drill, when Seth thought Marvin’s feeble attempt at a crack-back block was aimed too low, he came charging at the rookie, 240 pounds of ferocious linebacker, flattening the slight receiver and then pummeling him. Andre came over and added a few kicks to Marvin’s ribs—all in good fun. It lasted until Reverend Reggie and Mike Golic pulled the two veterans off. Marvin hopped up unbowed, swinging his fists (careful to let Golic hold him back), challenging Seth, “You want more?”

  Which made everybody laugh—including Seth, which wasn’t easy.

  Meanwhile, obstacles began to shift fortuitously. Quick’s aching knees wouldn’t allow him to practice much. Barnett and Bellamy were busy for the first weeks of training camp doing what top draft picks do, holding out for a better contract, and when they did return, they both promptly popped hamstrings. That gave Marvin lots of chances to impress the coaches, the quarterbacks, and please the fans up on the hill. The Pack, always desperate for a story line in the long, aimless preseason, fell in love with the Marvin story, turning him into something of a camp sensation. After practices, Marvin would draw knowing chuckles from the veterans by hanging around in the parking lot, sweat streaming from every pore, signing his name with a flourish for all comers, “Marvin Hargrove, #18,” savoring every minute of his new pro status.

  Up in Gertrude, Marvin’s cocky way made him the favorite rookie target of the season. When he suffered a minor groin pull, the team’s trainer, Otho Davis, gave him a couple of pills and rigged one of his famous menthol heat balm wraps that set Marvin’s nuts on fire—as intended.

  That night, when he got up to urinate, Marvin’s stream was bright blue. He screamed.

  Down in the training room, having frantically awakened Otho and his assistant, David Price, Marvin squirmed as the trainer, with his slow-talking sincerity and basset-hound face, told him that blue pee was a symptom of a rare and dreadful form of the clap, and it probably served Marvin right.

  “But I haven’t been sleeping around!”

  The trainers rolled their eyes.

  “It’s true! Ask the guys. I go to bed early. I don’t go out drinking at night. I’ve got a steady girlfriend back in Richmond!”

  Otho considered this gravely, nodding. Then he said, with grim authority, “Well, it’s very rare to get it this way, but it is possible to get it just from showering with somebody who has it.”

  The trainers said they could remember one other case. Longterm consequences could be dire.

  “Sometimes a vasectomy can stop the swelling,” said Otho.

  “Get the hell out of here!”

  “No, it’s true,” said Price. “Your balls swell up on you. They have pictures of African tribesmen with, like, elephantiasis of the pecker and balls.”

  “But usually the vasectomy stops it,�
�� reassured Otho. “If it gets too far, though … well, then they have to castrate.”

  Everybody was in on it, coaches, players, equipment guys—everybody. People were walking up to Marvin the next morning (he was still peeing blue) telling him how sorry they were for him. Marvin was ready to cry that afternoon when Otho and Dave couldn’t hold in the laughter any longer. Otho explained that the pills they had given him to help “cure” that groin pull were actually Urised, a medication that acidifies the urine and produces a numbing effect in the urinary tract. It was harmless and had this startling little side effect … damn if those little pills didn’t work every time!

  Buddy named Marvin a starter for the first preseason game against the Jets, but as the draft picks signed contracts and reported to camp, he dropped perilously on the depth chart. Fred Barnett’s size and speed and leaping ability quickly distinguished him as the prize catch of the draft, and Calvin Williams impressed with his good hands and an ability to run pass routes with machinelike precision. Buddy then abruptly dumped Cris Carter at midsummer, a move that surprised everyone, especially Carter, who would go on to a long and distinguished career with the Vikings—Buddy just didn’t like him, something about the look in his eye. Quick’s knees weren’t getting better, and Mike Bellamy, the most expensive and highly rated of the bunch, pulled a groin muscle after his hamstring healed and immediately landed on Buddy’s shit list. Marvin was cut in the final week of training camp, but Buddy told him not to worry.

  “Wait by the phone,” the coach said.

  When Bellamy (who was waived after his first year and never caught a pass in pro ball) reinjured his groin in the season opener, Buddy called Marvin and placed him on the roster as a backup receiver and punt returner. Marvin wasn’t about to tell Coach he had never returned a punt in his life.

  On Sunday afternoon, September 16, twelve weeks and two days after tossing his cleats in the backseat of his brother’s Mustang, Marvin Hargrove stepped out into the giant sunny bowl of Veterans Stadium wearing a Philadelphia Eagles uniform with the number 80 on his back—Cris Carter’s old number. The Eagles were about to play the Cardinals. His father and brother were watching up in the three hundred level. He felt charged with destiny.

  “This is were I belong,” he said.

  Buddy sent him in to catch the Cardinals’ first punt of the afternoon, but the ball bounced way short and rolled out-of-bounds without Marvin’s touching it. On the Eagles’ first offensive series, Randall ran a little flea-flicker, handing the ball off to Keith Byars, who took three steps forward, turned, and pitched it back to the quarterback. Randall then threw deep to Calvin, who was wide open. The ball was underthrown, so Calvin had to double back for it. Instead of a touchdown, the Eagles got the ball on Phoenix’s thirty-four-yard line. The crowd, watching their team’s first home game of the season, was on its feet, filling the stadium with an expectant roar.

  Buddy sent Marvin in as a third wide receiver.

  Richie signaled a running play, so when Marvin trotted out wide right, he expected just to be running a decoy pattern downfield. The Cardinals sent veteran cornerback Cedric Mack out to cover the rookie one-on-one, and Mack positioned himself about five yards off the line of scrimmage. Randall, looking over, could see that Mack intended to bump Marvin as he came off the line and try to run with him. The quarterback had been throwing to the rookie all summer, and he knew Marvin’s surprising speed, so he changed the play, giving a hand signal that Marvin knew meant he was to run a fade route to the end zone.

  The pass was perfect. Marvin caught it in full stride and stepped unmolested across the goal line. Few of us will ever have a childhood fantasy so vividly, literally, and publicly fulfilled. And there in the throttled-up roar of his home stadium, football in hand, Marvin felt the glorious shared thrill of sixty-four thousand fans cascading down from all sides, catching him in a momentary confluence of dream and destiny, where he was at once a cheering fan in his three-hundred-level seat and the player who now crumpled beneath the happy mob of teammates in the end zone.

  After the game (which the Eagles lost), Marvin stood in the spot light before his locker wearing a broad smile and nothing else and gilded the performance with charm.

  “In Philly they’re calling you Rocky, the guy who comes out of nowhere and becomes a hero,” one hound said, working his lead.

  “Well, I hope I get as many sequels as Rocky,” quipped Marvin.

  He didn’t. It was the last pass that would ever be thrown to Marvin Hargrove in the NFL.

  He lasted six more games, returning punts and kickoffs. He did well, but not spectacularly so. A few times Marvin seemed close to breaking loose on a return, but never did—which is the nature of the job; even the best return men break loose only once or twice a season. When Quick’s knees continued to ache, Buddy started Fred and Calvin at wide receiver and used Quick as a third receiver and sometimes put Marvin out there as a fourth, but he was never thrown a pass. When the Eagles tried to shore up their paltry running game with Thomas Sanders, a former Bear, Buddy decided to use the bigger veteran for kickoff returns, which shrank Marvin’s role. In the locker room, the Pack started to ask the kid if he was afraid of getting cut, which made him worry all the more about getting cut— Why are they asking me that? Do they know something I don’t? He couldn’t sleep at all the night before games.

  Disaster struck in the seventh game of the season, in a 48-20 win over the Patriots on a (for a return man) treacherously windy afternoon. On his first try, surprised by a weak punt, Marvin let the football bounce in front of him and then roll past. The Patriots downed it on the Eagles’ seventeen, at least twenty yards behind where it would have been if he had stepped up and caught it. On his next try, playing short this time, Marvin saw the ball fly over his head. He backpedaled furiously on the turf, only to stumble and fall as the ball bounced into his chest. This time the Patriots recovered the fumble on the Eagles’ twenty-four, and four plays later scored their first points of the game.

  Buddy didn’t say anything. As Marvin came off the field after the fumble, the coach just took his arm, pulled him close, and looked intently into his eyes.

  Anthony Edwards was sent in to catch the next punt. Marvin sat dejected on the bench as his teammates came over to offer consolation and advice. Andre told Marvin his problem was the snazzy long-sleeved spandex black body shirt he was wearing under his uniform; it was making his arms slippery and that’s why he was having trouble hanging on to the ball. Marvin knew he’d yet to even get his arms on the ball, but he tore off his jersey and pads and removed the shirt anyway.

  Edwards had his own troubles with the wind. He fumbled the next punt, then, at the end of the next Phoenix series, bobbled another one. A penalty annulled the play, and as the teams sorted out for the rekick, defensive back William Frizzell confronted Buddy.

  “It’s Hargrove’s damn job. Put Hargrove in the damn game!”

  Buddy, now furious with Edwards, too, waved the veteran off the field and gave Marvin another chance. He caught the punt and returned it twelve yards, nearly breaking free. He caught one more punt, and, when Buddy stuck him back in with the kick return team, broke loose for sixteen yards, one of his best returns yet.

  It wasn’t enough. Summoned to the coach’s office Monday morning, Marvin took the chair opposite Buddy’s desk.

  “Yesterday, when I looked into your eyes, you know what I saw?” Buddy asked.

  “No. What did you see, boss?” Marvin always called Buddy that.

  “A tired kid.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This is what I have to do,” Buddy said. He explained that Harry was impatient for him to use Mike Bellamy. Bellamy was, after all, a second-round draft pick, the receiving end of the fabulous passing stats accumulated by quarterback Jeff George the year before at the University of Illinois. Bellamy had been paid a big signing bonus and was pulling down a salary of $170,000—almost three times what they were paying Marvin. And, so far, Bellamy was just
watching. Truth was, Buddy didn’t like the kid and didn’t intend to use him, but Bellamy’s groin pull was healed, and he had to take him off the injured list.

  “So I’m going to put you on the practice squad and let you get some rest,” Buddy said. “And when you’re ready to go again, I’m going to put you back on the roster.”

  It was sugarcoated, but it was a demotion. Marvin was angry, mostly at himself, but also at Buddy for not giving him more of a chance. The roster maneuver required placing Marvin’s name on the waiver wire for twenty-four hours, giving other teams an opportunity to claim him. Buddy told Marvin to report back after he cleared waivers and re-sign for the practice squad.

  If I clear waivers, thought Marvin—anticipating a crush of interest from other teams. He called his dad and then phoned his agent and asked him to call around, let other teams know that Marvin Hargrove of the Philadelphia Eagles was going to be available.

  He’d show Buddy.

  That night he drove his girlfriend, who had witnessed the disaster, back home to Richmond. Tuesday was the players’ day off, so Marvin stayed in Virginia all day, still in a bit of a pique. He didn’t hear from his agent, and he didn’t bother calling home. He drove back early the next morning, getting to his new apartment in New Jersey at 9:00 a.m., and telephoned his agent, who wasn’t in yet. Having heard nothing, Marvin reluctantly concluded that another dreadful oversight had occurred. So he phoned the Eagles’ front office to see about coming in. As he would long remember it, first George Azar came on the phone sounding bothered.

  “Marvin, where have you been?”

  “I just got back in town.”