Inside the Helmet: Hard Knocks, Pulling Together, and Triumph as a Sunday Afternoon Warrior

by Michael Strahan

  Family members and relatives come out of the woodwork. “I need this and I need that.” Just as we aren’t fully prepared to handle the rigors of sudden fame and fortune, our family and friends often fail to recognize the proper sensitivity as well.

  Oftentimes a player’s family feels pressure to impress their friends. The other ladies in their neighborhood will complain to them about how awful it is that their newly rich son hasn’t gotten them a big enough luxury car or a lavish enough home.

  It’s extremely difficult to turn down a parent or a sibling or a best friend. They’ll constantly ask for things that will “finally put them over the hump.” It sounds cold but you must learn to cut the cord because if you don’t, you will eventually end up broke.

  If you are the one who takes care of everyone and something happens to you, then who is going to take care of you? The same people who helped you spend the money will say, “What a failure he is for blowing all of his money.”

  There are players who have to sell their Super Bowl rings so they can survive, and that’s tough because they put so much into earning them. I once had a player ask me for $75,000 so he could make it through the off-season, yet he drove a brand-new Mercedes and Range Rover. That’s a shame.

  When I first came into the league, players drove nice but unspectacular cars. Today’s player is the complete opposite. They want to be big shots and spend, spend, spend even before they sign their rookie deals. They want to drive the biggest and best car before they even own a house. Some go and buy a car before they sign their first deal!

  The one thing that’s hard to understand is how guys like Nate Newton and Jamal Lewis got involved with drug trafficking. There is so much money involved in the sports world, we’ve already taken a shortcut, so why cut even more corners? Patience is key, but some guys want instant gratification and make stupid, adolescent, costly mistakes.

  Look at big Nate. The former Cowboys Pro Bowl guard had a great future ahead of him. He was the most likable man in the NFL at one point. He’s hilarious and a very caring type of guy. But I guess he couldn’t find ways to cash his personality in for more money after the game. Instead, he decided to become a drug dealer, and a really bad one at that.

  He got busted twice with a car full of weed. What kind of drug dealer cruises around with his own big stash? His poor choices put him behind bars, killed his reputation forever. Had he stayed on the right path and worked at it, he’d have a nice little gig right about now. Instead, the most affable guy I’ve ever come across in this league is a convicted felon.

  The great Falcons perennial Pro Bowl running back Warrick Dunn had raised his siblings after his mother, Betty, a police officer, was murdered in 1993 during a robbery while she was at her second job. Warrick still went to college yet helped raise his siblings. When he got into the pros, he continued to raise them. The problem was, as adults, they continued to rely on Warrick for support. They never made a life of their own.

  Warrick was suffocating until at one point he cut the cord. He went to a psychiatrist to deal with the guilt and pain. Warrick eventually found the best word a professional athlete can have in his vocabulary: “No.” So simple but so powerful, and at times a player’s best friend.

  Finally, there are those people who break guys’ bank accounts along with their hearts.

  Women.

  Isn’t it amazing how good-looking we suddenly become when our paychecks get a couple of zeroes added to the end? The more commas, the more handsome we grow. It wasn’t too long ago I was just another knucklehead with dental problems. Now I’m a handsome hound dog with a distinguished, recognizable smile. Trust me, I don’t look anything different from the way I did when I drove a Ford Festiva back in my college days.

  Guys go back to their college or hometown and the women come out of the woodwork. They’ll figure out some excuse why they blew us off in the past. That same girl who wouldn’t have anything to do with you…all of a sudden you’re full of wit and charm.

  You get a feel for which women are looking for a “baller.” There are certain spots in each city where players regularly hang out. It’s not hard to find those places and the groupies that come with it. They’re hoping a player will fall in love, marry them, and have some babies. Even the ones we date for a while. They want to be part of a world filled with what they think is the easy road to glamour, success, fame, fortune and status. Often the same girl will date and sleep with multiple players.

  Status is everything. Who always gets the girls? People with status. As a result, the girls are plentiful. If you wanted, you could score pretty much any night you feel like it, but these girls view us with dollar signs in their eyes.

  Women can sure take a guy to the cleaners. Why do you think I started this chapter sitting in my lawyer’s office? My ex-wife absolutely loved the lifestyle. Before we were together, she was living in the most lavish apartment I’d ever seen, an apartment that even after I made millions I don’t think I could afford.

  But here I was, a young guy from Germany and Texas who got caught up in dating someone who passed herself off as a successful Oxford University–educated fashion model. The reality? She was a clerk at a retail store yet always lived the good life. What did I know? I was dumb and in love.

  Although sometimes I do think she loved me, I realize she loved the money and status more. A major incident that makes this clear is one I didn’t know about until after we were divorced.

  Before I was in the NFL, I told my parents that if I ever made it, I would buy them a house. Ten years later, when I wanted to fulfill my promise, I didn’t put a price limit on finding their dream house. My parents didn’t have an extravagant lifestyle, but I also didn’t expect it to be under $500,000.

  I was in training camp in the middle of two-a-day workouts at the time, so I asked Jean to help get the house they picked out. My parents had found a place for $160,000. Talk about modest; they certainly could have gone the extra distance, but they held back.

  According to my parents’ knowledge, Jean balked at this price and told them it was out of the budget and to find another house. There was no budget, yet Jean made them find another house. My parents found another place for $147,000, which was acceptable to Jean. She told them they couldn’t have their dream home for an extra measly $13,000. I shouldn’t have been surprised by this, judging by the way she treated my family overall. I wish I had figured this out sooner.

  Now because of this woman, I’m sitting in my lawyer’s office counting my last dollar, keeping track of every penny. But I don’t mind sorting through the money, the ledgers and the receipts if it gets me closer to fixing my marital mistakes. I don’t hate the woman, but I do hate what I didn’t know then and what I know now.

  It’s okay, though; you take your lumps and learn your lessons. Despite Jean fighting me over the money, I’ll never have to cram my oversize body in a tiny little Ford Festiva ever again.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Living a Private Life in the Public Eye

  “Yo, Strahan, Favre took a dive, you know it’s still Gastineau’s record!” an oh-so-endearing fan screamed at me as I walked into a restaurant with my friend’s sister. “You suck, Strahan! J-E-T-S, JETS, JETS, JETS!”

  If I go out to dinner a hundred nights a year, a majority of those times, people feel compelled to challenge my manhood, insult me or whisper while staring and pointing like I’m some circus freak.

  That’s what I risk every time I leave the security of my own home. I know, I know, you’re thinking boo-hoo-hoo, big millionaire star has to deal with a few insults from the big bad public. Suck it up and shut up, Strahan! Right?

  I agree. But one of the most difficult things a professional football player has to deal with is learning how to lower his boiling point in public. It’s harder than you think. Some of the same people yelling for me to become an enraged violent New York Giant on Sundays expect me to be the nicest, most genteel Giant Sunday night through Saturday evening.

 
; There is no course in the NFL to teach players how to cope with hecklers, drunks, autograph seekers and paparazzi. Some fans carry over their Sunday routines into the week when they see a player. It doesn’t happen now and then. It happens nearly every day I’m out and about. For example, I was standing in line the other day waiting for my frappuccino when one of the guys who worked behind the counter says, completely out of the blue, “Strahan, my buddy who works here thinks he can take you out.”

  Huh? Why would anybody want to take me out on a Monday morning while I’m standing in line for coffee?

  “That’s great and thanks for the offer, but I’m not looking to fight anybody. I just want my frappuccino and I’ll be on my way.”

  Many times I get the “You’re not as big as I thought you were” line. I also get challenged to fights on the train, at amusement parks, at restaurants, walking the streets of New York City and at the grocery store. Men love to challenge somebody bigger than them.

  Sports provides escapism. We shouldn’t have that much effect on people’s moods and emotions. We’re football players! How can some fans get so angry that they feel obliged to scream threats at us, tell us how much we suck, pelt us with insults and even, at times, barrage our children, wives and girlfriends with insults? I can’t understand it.

  What if everyone’s life were as public as mine? What if people screamed out at a neighbor, “Hey, Joe Schmoe, your kid got a C-minus in math, what a little dummy!” Or “Hey, Joe, you suck! Your wife is gonna drop your ass for the pool boy!” “Hey Joe, you got your ass kicked in the stock market this week, hah, hah, hah, you jerk.” What if they yelled at their neighbors’ kids and told them how much of a moron their daddy is?

  Why, when some people see a professional athlete, do they feel compelled to say what they’d never say to another stranger? Luckily, it’s not the majority. Most fans are respectable and intelligent people. But the other few make it difficult.

  I had a guy at the Super Bowl in 2007 who wanted to fight me because I declined to take a picture with him. I told him as politely as possible. I was trying to get to an event and I would have been held up in Miami’s South Beach taking a bunch of pictures. Literally dozens of people stop you for photo ops on cell phones and cameras.

  “I can’t take a picture right now, I’ll never get to where I’m going.”

  But that wasn’t good enough for Mr. Joe Cool Fan. “Oh, come on, man, just one.”

  I offered to shake the guy’s hand but he kept pressing the issue and rudely responded with, “Come on, man, don’t be an asshole.”

  “That’s why I’m not stopping,” I snapped back. Pretty soon he was yelling insults about how I sucked and that I’m washed up. He threw in a Favre reference and I jawed back, which I shouldn’t have done. He kept yapping and the next thing you know, here I am with some knucklehead I don’t even know, trading insults from across the street on Super Bowl week. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  I’ve had fans yell things at me about my divorce. “Hey, Strahan, need a loan?” Of course, that’s a cheap-shot reference to my ex-wife, Jean. Living in the public eye brings out people who love to pile on.

  Some fans feel obligated to pontificate about my teammates. “Eli sucks!” “Shockey’s an idiot!” Why do fans say something nasty about a man they don’t even know? What kind of reaction are they looking for?

  It comes with the job, because without the fans, I’d be broke. I owe fans a lot of what I’ve become off the field.

  I’ve often thought of screaming back or responding physically, but only once in my career did somebody push my buttons and I actually got physical. You must never go that route. There’s way too much at stake and many times the aggressive fan is only trying to score a payday.

  The guy who yelled at me that Favre took a dive and that it was still Gastineau’s record really pissed me off. I made the mistake of getting aggressive because he crossed the line. I sent the woman I was at dinner with to our table, then walked back over to his group, and the moment he opened his mouth to yell another “Strahan sucks” remark, I palmed the man’s jaw and started squeezing his mouth and lips shut. His eyes bulging wide in shock, I told him that if he said one more thing to me, I would knock him out.

  Yup, not one of my brighter moments. The real insult would have been if the idiot sued me for my hard-earned money. Really stupid, but, man, did it feel great at the time. One moment of short-term pleasure could have led to long-term grief.

  I was in a terrible mood to begin with and was in the company of a young woman who was a friend’s sister from out of town and who did not know me. Plus, he was so offensive that about twenty minutes later, he tried to crash my dinner and interrupt my meal. All I could say was, “Come on, man, just leave me alone!”

  It turned out the guy was drunk. Drunk or sober, there was no excuse for getting aggressive with insults with somebody he doesn’t know. It was a lousy combination of alcohol, testosterone and a guy wanting to show off for his friends. Guys like him make it harder for us to open up to real fans when we are out. He makes it harder for everyone else.

  Sometimes I’ll have a private dinner meeting or a date and some stranger will come and sit down at the table without saying a word and just barge in on the conversation. Wow!

  During my rookie year, when people approached LT, he was sometimes unbelievably rude about it. You’d get rejection plus a handful of expletives. I vowed back then, “I won’t be like that.” Years later, I understand his demeanor. You get pushed and you want people to respect your personal space. I sometimes forget that it’s all part of the job. Hey, you want to be famous? This is part of the deal.

  Ironically, it takes one second to be nice to someone and usually that person excitedly tells ten others about your sweet disposition. Conversely, it takes one second to be a jerk and those stories reach a hundred or more.

  The more polite the other person is, the more polite I’m likely to be. Life is a catch-22. I’ve got to make sure I set the proper boundaries with fans. If I don’t, I’ll drive my friends crazy. I need to give my friends my attention, but at the same time I don’t want to insult any of our fans. Still, in setting these boundaries, people get offended and often take it the wrong way.

  Everybody is human. We all have moods. I apologize to all those fans I may have ticked off. But try for a moment to put yourself in my shoes. What if you were an accountant and every time you went out to dinner or out on the street, you were constantly hit up by strangers about their personal tax returns? You’d probably tear your hair out.

  Since most everyone talks sports all day long, they forget it’s a business for me and I don’t want to talk about it all the time.

  One thing that makes pro athletes bitter is how sleazy the memorabilia business has become. Autographs are great for kids. Who wouldn’t want to sign one for genuine fans? Today fans are outnumbered by profiteers who use autographs as a business. It ruins the whole experience because it takes away from giving a genuine fan your autograph. The autograph business has made it all seem so impersonal now.

  I know firsthand how great it feels to get an autograph, especially as a kid. When I was thirteen, I shyly asked Herschel Walker for his autograph. (How crazy is it that he would later become my teammate when the Giants signed him as a free agent in the mid-1990s?) It made me feel like the coolest kid, and I’d asked out of the purest of motives.

  Nowadays I’ll see the same guys every day asking for autographs at training camp. They have pictures, helmets, jerseys, balls, hats and bags of stuff, and often they have two or three people working with them. Some of these guys hire children to act like fans asking for your autograph. It’s a sham. Then when you decline an autograph to these people, they tell other people what a jerk you are.

  I’ve been asked to sign just about every body part, but the craziest thing is that some people ask if I’ll sign their baby. Folks, don’t ask me to sign an infant! Who in their right mind would ask me to put ink on a little baby? It’s ridicu
lous, but it happens.

  These are examples of some of the extreme fans. But there are also great ones. Two fans named Scott and Ron Wolf used to come to Giants road games during my rookie season and very politely struck up a conversation with me. They were cool and weren’t overbearing. The Wolf cousins are funny guys and recognize the boundaries. They’d see me at the team hotel and wait until I was finished with my other guests. I’d end up sitting downstairs with them schmoozing until I had either meetings or curfew.

  We became friends and for the next nine years, I had an annual dinner with them in New York City to talk Giants football. Another super fan is Sam Hazen, the head chef at restaurant Tao in New York City and Vegas. I love his passion so much I’ve actually gotten him field passes to watch games from our sidelines. It’s great when you can get close to fans who have the passion these guys do.

  I love that my career makes people excited for me to sign my name for them. I thank G-d every day that I command such love and respect from people. I once met a fan at IHOP who had a Giants helmet tattooed on his arm. He rolled up his sleeve and asked, “Would you sign my arm on top of the helmet?”

  A few weeks later I ran into him again after a game. He reminded me that I had signed his arm above his tattoo. Then he rolled his sleeve up again. The helmet was now accompanied by a tattoo of my autograph! He had gone straight to the tattoo parlor and had them permanently ink it in. I was flattered and speechless.

  As a high-profile player in the NFL, after my divorce, I became a favorite of the paparazzi for a while. My ex-wife loves the paparazzi; she wants to be known. She got caught up wanting to be famous, but the only thing she’s famous for is marrying someone famous. If she sics the paparazzi on me, then that keeps her in the public eye.

  I try to spin it in a positive way. If the paparazzi follow me, I really must have done something right. But I don’t like when they camp out in front of your apartment and invade your routine. Besides, I have young kids and I really don’t want some crazy knowing where we live.