A moment later, a nurse showed Gwenie to Carrie for the first time. Sometimes a mother’s intuition—maybe most of the time—supersedes a doctor’s training. “Yes,” Carrie said immediately, “she does have Down syndrome.”
Another doctor soon confirmed Carrie’s statement.
I’d known it was a possibility. Even so, the reality of her condition stunned me. My mind flashed to all the special moments I thought my new daughter would miss out on: going to the prom, getting married, having a family. Her life had just begun and I was already mourning her future. Down syndrome? It just didn’t seem right.
Before I could think more about the future, though, we had to get through the first day. The hospital staff took Gwenie to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit because so many Down syndrome babies have serious health issues, including heart or intestinal problems requiring surgery. I hoped and prayed she’d be all right.
The next day brought good news: Gwenie was healthy as a horse. She was doing great, but her parents were still reeling.
Carrie had always turned the birth of each of our children into a celebration. She would decorate her hospital room with banners and garlands, put on a fancy robe, and get out a picnic basket that she’d packed ahead of time. I’d come in with the kids and we’d have a little party. As she lay in bed on the morning after Gwenie’s birth, however, partying wasn’t on her mind.
“What am I going to do with a special-needs child?” she worried. “How am I going to care for her when I have six other kids?”
In the next instant, though, Carrie made an important decision—she would celebrate Gwenie just as much as she’d celebrated the rest of her children. Gwenie wouldn’t be shortchanged just because she had Down syndrome. In a way, it was like the decision my mom and dad made so many years before about Brad and Ray—they would be treated exactly the same as their siblings.
You better get up and do what you do, Carrie thought. One day, you’ll look back on this moment, look at the pictures, and be so glad that you celebrated her.
Later that morning, when I showed up at the hospital with the kids, Carrie was in her party robe and the room was decorated just like always. We have pictures from that day of everyone in the family holding Gwenie. In each one, our smiles stretch from ear to ear.
We may have given Gwenie a proper welcome into the family, but I still struggled with adjusting to our new reality. I went through a month of feeling depressed for her and us before I began to remember that God had a plan for Gwenie, just as He did for the rest of my family.
It wasn’t easy for Carrie either, especially since she took on most of the responsibility of caring for our new addition. As Gwenie got older, we realized how much we took for granted with our other kids. Gwenie is mostly nonverbal. She speaks only a few words, so communication can be a challenge. She needs help with bathing, and someone always has to be with her. Carrie invests an enormous amount of time in caring for Gwenie. I appreciate my wife so much for that.
Yet I know we both feel that the joys Gwenie brings us far outweigh the hard work. For instance, in many ways she’s an easy child—she doesn’t complain and is nearly always content. She gives me something to look forward to every school-day morning. When I’m reading in my recliner, Gwenie will come downstairs, grab a box of each of her two favorite cereals—Cocoa Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch—and give me a hug, crushing the boxes between us. She has her priorities—a girl needs to eat breakfast, after all—yet she makes sure to fit Dad in too.
Hugs are one of Gwenie’s special talents. I remember walking into Houston’s NRG Stadium with some of the family to see one of the boys’ football games. All of a sudden, Gwenie broke away from us and ran up to a security guard who wasn’t much taller than Gwenie. The security guard, startled, put her hands up and said, “Whoa, easy.” But once she looked at Gwenie, her hands dropped. Gwenie gave the woman a big hug.
“Thank you so much,” the woman said to Gwenie, smiling. “I really needed that today.”
That happens all the time. Gwenie may be lacking in some areas, but it’s almost as if she has a sixth sense for people who are hurting and need encouragement. Though a few are surprised at first, hardly anyone turns down a hug when Gwenie approaches them. It’s amazing how often she picks someone out who responds just like that security guard.
In some ways, I’m envious of my daughter. She makes no pretense and has no worries. She doesn’t care if her shirt doesn’t match her shorts, if her hair’s out of place, or if she has a chocolate milk goatee after eating her Cocoa Puffs. For her, life is all about loving and being loved. Nothing else matters.
I often take Gwenie swimming, which used to be her favorite thing to do. But her new favorite thing is going to dance class. When Carrie asks if she wants to dance, she races upstairs with Carrie to get dressed, runs back down, grabs her dance bag, and is raring to go. When she performs in a recital, you can tell she has no butterflies or cares—she frolics and leaps with unmistakable joy. If she makes a mistake, she just laughs. If she breaks out of the line to do something original, who cares?
I wish I lived with that sense of abandon and freedom.
When our family goes out in public, Gwenie is more comfortable than I am. I’m usually the one that reaches for her hand, not the other way around. She’s my security blanket.
Maybe what I’m most thankful for is the impact Gwenie’s had on our family and even extended family. Simply put, Gwenie offers unconditional love. She’s showed us how to love and appreciate each other more. She’s also taught us to have even greater compassion for people who aren’t like us.
My dad told me when Gwenie was born that all she wants to do is love and be loved. She’s so innocent. When you’re in a room with her, she smiles and you smile too. She’s been so good for our family.
JAKE MATTHEWS
Apparently Gwenie’s impact extends even beyond our family. Once, a bunch of people were standing in a line at a Houston-area mall. One of the little boys in line was a special-needs kid and some of his older siblings were treating him badly.
Another boy there happened to be Max Queen, son of my old friend from California, Bob Queen. The Queens had moved to Houston years ago. When Max saw what was going on, he spoke up. “My friends have a daughter with Down syndrome,” he said, “and they don’t treat her like that.”
It’s amazing, sometimes, what our kids can teach us.
I know that many parents do not choose to keep their babies if they discover during pregnancy that they have Down syndrome. As the technology for detection has advanced over the years, abortion rates for Down syndrome babies have increased. I can’t help wondering if those moms and dads see our family when we’re out in public and notice this beautiful little girl and how loving we all are with each other. What do they think? Is it painful? Do they have regrets?
I never would have asked for a Down syndrome child, but now I can’t imagine not having Gwenie or her being anyone other than who she is. Carrie feels the same way. Once when Gwenie was nearly eighteen months old, she and Carrie were lying on our family-room floor, just enjoying some time together. It was April 5, 2005. Carrie thought, I have so much to do. I need to get up and get to work. In the next instant, however, her attitude changed. But I just don’t care. I don’t want to get up. I just want to lie here and play with this little baby.
That’s when she had an epiphany: Gwenie did not come to be a burden. Gwenie came to free me from my burdens.
Most people don’t understand what a blessing it is to have someone in your life with special needs. From afar, it can seem like a burden. But you wouldn’t believe the amount of unconditional love Gwenie gives. She’s not influenced by the outside world; everything she does is based from good. She’s the most liked of all the Matthews, because she’s so pure. It’s humbling to be around her.
CLAY MATTHEWS III (G WENIE’S COUSIN )
The more I’m around Gwenie, the easier it is for me to see God’s hand in all of this. It’s a
s if He’s saying, “Look, you leave all the heavy lifting to Me. You quit trying to figure it out. Just trust Me.” She has helped me come to terms with my questions about Brad’s hard life and, like Brad, see the bigger picture. The Lord had a purpose for Brad that included encouraging me and others. God took care of him in this life, and He’s still taking care of him, just as He’s taking care of me and Gwenie and my family.
When I first learned that Gwenie had Down syndrome, I definitely did not think of it as a blessing. I could not have been more wrong. She brings me love and joy every day. Without doubt, she is one of the greatest blessings of my life.
18
* * *
CALL ME COACH
* * *
* * *
* * *
Team spirit means you are willing to sacrifice personal considerations for the welfare of all. That defines a team player.
JOHN WOODEN
* * *
* * *
* * *
FOOTBALL IS A TEAM GAME. That may be an obvious statement that applies to many sports, but it’s most true of football. No other major sports carry more players on their team rosters. An NFL squad is made up of fifty-three active players and maybe twenty coaches, and each one has a role. The quarterback and head coach may get a disproportionate amount of the glory for the team’s victories, but the truth is that neither succeeds unless everyone else does his job. When any one of those players or coaches starts to put his own needs ahead of the team’s, everything starts to unravel.
That was one of the lessons I learned from my dad when I was a kid, and saw played out in high school, college, and the pros. It was something I tried to pass on to my kids. But I never expected to do it in an official role after I retired as a player. Unlike many of my peers, I planned to stay far away from coaching.
My resolve came from that year living alone in Tennessee in 1997, when I got my first close-up view of the NFL coaching life. I watched Munch put in long hours week after week as the Titans’ offensive line coach. Since my apartment was closer to our practice facility than his house, he’d show up on Tuesday night—or sometimes, at two or three on Wednesday morning—to crash with me, then get up at six the next morning to go back. After seeing that all season, I said, “Heck, no, I ain’t doing that.”
I still felt that way in fall 2002, the beginning of my first season as a football spectator. That’s when my old friend Bob Queen approached me. Bob’s son and Mikey, who was eight, were going to be on the same youth football team, the First Colony Broncos. Bob and two other dads I knew from Little League, Jeff Ebarb and Barin Wise, were the coaches. “Hey,” Bob said, “the guys would love to have you involved. What do you think?”
“Nah,” I said. “I don’t want to do the coaching thing. I’m just going to watch.” Then, I thought about it for a minute. “Maybe I could sit in on your first meeting. Just to see what’s going on.”
At the meeting, somebody mentioned using the wishbone, an offense that had been out-of-date for decades. Oh, my gosh, I thought. I can’t sit by and have my boy run the wishbone.
“All right,” I said, “I’ll coach the offensive line. But we’ll run my offense.”
Coaching eight- and nine-year-olds was like herding cats, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s rewarding to watch a kid try to do what you tell him and have success, to see that switch flip on in his mind when he believes in what you’re teaching him. It was also great developing friendships with the other dads. I ended up coaching that team with those guys for the next four years. To my surprise, I was hooked.
I did suffer one letdown during my second year with that team. I was throwing passes to the kids before a practice. It had rained recently and the ground was muddy and slick. I slipped, felt my knee pop, and went down. For nineteen years in the NFL, my knees had held up beautifully. Apparently coaching was more hazardous to my health—I’d torn a quad tendon and needed knee surgery.
After Mikey moved on to a junior high–level team, I agreed to coach Luke’s grade school–age team. Then Sid Smith, a former USC offensive lineman and first-round NFL draft pick, asked me to be the offensive coordinator at a local Christian high school. I said yes. Between the two teams, I was suddenly coaching five hours a day. Jake was going to be a high school freshman the next season. If I’m going to work this hard at coaching, I thought, I might as well coach my own kids.
According to district policy at Elkins High, where Jake was headed, you couldn’t coach as a volunteer. You had to be a full-time member of the staff. Since there was an opening, I applied for and was hired as a full-time substitute teacher at the high school. I went into that experience with a zero-tolerance policy. I figured if kids didn’t want to learn, then I didn’t need them in the classroom. My thinking soon changed. I found out that some of the kids came from homes with distant and verbally abusive parents. It was no wonder they acted out at school. They just wanted attention and to know that someone cared. My heart softened toward them. When possible, I sat down with them, listened, and tried to give them advice. It reinforced what I already believed as a coach, that most players and people don’t need to be yelled at for motivation. They just want to be around someone who cares about them and wants to help them get better.
At Elkins, I was head coach of the freshman team. Jake was our quarterback. I also helped with the varsity offensive line and ran the end-zone camera. I coached there for three seasons, which included Jake’s junior year and Mikey’s freshman year. Once again, even though I put in a lot of hours, I enjoyed it tremendously. I decided I wanted to try my hand at the highest level.
By this time the NFL had put a new franchise in Houston, the Texans. Their coach was Gary Kubiak. I had played with Gary back in the 1983 Hula Bowl, a college all-star game held in Hawaii, and gotten to know him then. I asked if I could join the staff, so that I could learn the ropes. I told Gary I’d do the grunt work, whatever they needed. That’s just what happened. For the 2009 and 2010 seasons, I was the Texans’ offensive quality-control coach. I wrote up and stuffed playbooks, coached the show team, and helped with the offensive line. I learned a ton.
Being part of Gary’s staff was a great situation for me, since I was able to coach in the NFL and still live at my home in Houston. I had no desire to chase higher-responsibility jobs around the league and uproot my family. I anticipated staying with the Texans for the foreseeable future.
Right after the 2010 season, Bruz flew to Houston and the two of us drove to Mobile, Alabama, to watch his son Casey practice for the Senior Bowl, another college all-star contest. Casey had just finished an outstanding career as a linebacker at the University of Oregon and had played in the national championship game earlier in January.
Munch, who still coached for the Titans, was also in Mobile to evaluate talent for the upcoming draft. We started talking. “Hey,” he said to me, “if I ever get a head-coaching job, I want you to be my offensive-line coach.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. I treated it more as a joke than a serious possibility. NFL head-coaching offers don’t exactly pop up every day, even for someone as qualified as Munch. I didn’t give it another thought.
After a couple days in Mobile, Bruz and I got in my car to drive back to Houston. We had just gotten underway on I-10 and were relaxing and observing all the casino billboards when a radio broadcaster announced breaking news: the Titans had just fired Jeff Fisher.
It was one of those moments where time seemed to stop. Never in a million years did I think Jeff would be let go. I felt bad for him. I also had the sudden feeling that Munch’s invitation had just taken on new significance.
Sure enough, within ten days Munch interviewed for, was offered, and accepted the job as head coach of the Titans. He repeated his offer to me, and this time it was no joke.
Mikey was in his junior year of high school at the time. We wouldn’t move him with only one year of school left, which meant Carrie and rest of the family wouldn’t move either. As attractive as the opport
unity was for me to coach for Munch, I did not want to leave my family and Houston. I’d done that once already and knew how tough it would be.
“Carrie,” I said, “give me a reason not to do this.”
“You’ve got to do this,” she said. “You’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t go up there and coach with Mike.”
I realized she was right. Though a month earlier I couldn’t have imagined it, I was once again going to be a Titan.
Coaching is all about helping players get better. I told the Titans offensive linemen, “I’ve had the benefit of playing with some great players and being coached by some great coaches. I’m confident that what I’m teaching you here will help you. But if you have a suggestion or know a better way to do it, I’m all ears.”
Most of the guys were receptive to that approach. Once they realize you have their best interests at heart, most players are more than willing to let you help them along the journey. That relationship with the players and the opportunity to see them get the most out of their talent is what makes coaching so rewarding.
One of my goals going into coaching in the NFL was to speak to players as a mentor, not only to help them improve their performance on the field but also to offer some guidance for life off the field. For the most part, that turned out to be unrealistic. The hours for an NFL coach are crazy. A typical schedule during the season might be Monday, seven in the morning to ten at night; Tuesday, seven in the morning until midnight; Wednesday, seven in the morning to ten at night; Thursday, seven in the morning to eight in the evening; Friday, seven in the morning to two in the afternoon; and Saturday, seven in the morning until eleven at night. Sunday was game day. There just wasn’t time for one-on-one interaction with the players that went beyond football.
Inside the NFL’s First Family Page 17