by Josh Luchs
But when I got back to Los Angeles, I called and asked if we could talk about a big move I might make. I sat in Gary’s office overlooking the ocean, with his framed articles, pictures with players, and awards everywhere, all very impressive. And he knocked Doc as we talked, saying Doc was a dinosaur, an old-time hustler at best, ill-equipped to land big-name players in the modern game. I explained to him I’d been selling Doc more than myself because I was a kid in my twenties and the best way to build myself was to build on someone else. He acknowledged I had been able to get some good players. “You’ve been hitting singles with a twig for a bat,” he told me. “If you were selling me, you’d have a real piece of lumber. Let’s see what you could do then.” He was cautious, saying I’d have to meet John Blake, the guy he referred to as his “partner,” which eventually turned out to be a subject of controversy. Much later Blake would become defensive line coach at the University of North Carolina. And then, later still, he resigned from that job after—guess what—being accused of funneling clients to Gary Wichard (his former partner?) in exchange for money. None of this had happened at the time, though. I was just making a career move, and meeting a future colleague.
I spent the afternoon with Blake and it was great. He had a Super Bowl ring for coaching the defensive line for the 1993 Cowboys; he was the former head coach at Oklahoma; and he was an incredibly persuasive communicator. I could sell this guy. What a mentor he’d be for players, working on technique, going over game films, grading their skills, telling them how the pros were going to size them up. Instead of having to give a kid money, I could give him something better: John Blake. He could be worth a fortune to a kid’s career. And we hit it off right away. Gary dragged his feet but finally agreed to take me on to start recruiting. He made it clear from the start that he didn’t recruit the traditional way, cold-calling, going to games, hanging out in tunnels. He had relationships with coaches, assistants, and trainers who were influential with players and created a pipeline for him. And he had been a Heisman Trophy candidate (even if he only got one vote) and had the ballot hanging on his wall. He made it clear he wouldn’t be associated with giving money to players. He referred to other agents as “scumbags” and “slapdicks” and said he’d never do the things they did to get a client. (Of course, his “pipelines” from coaches and agents were every bit as improper as paying college kids, but he didn’t see it that way, at least until he was investigated for it.) He was closing 40 to 50 percent of the players he talked to, way above the 10 percent I was used to. Gary said I had talent and ability but needed to be “completely reprogrammed” to do things his way, which was fine with me.
I didn’t get an office. Gary had a guy, Mike Sasson, trying to build a baseball business, and Jeff Friedman, a PR and marketing guy, plus John Blake, and they each had offices and paychecks. Not me. I made my calls from the conference room, a step up from the trunk of Doc’s car, and I didn’t get a salary or benefits. I got 25 percent of anybody we signed who was in the Pacific and Mountain time zones, except for Utah, where Gary had some history and a contact in the football program. If I got somebody from farther east, it was on a player-by-player basis and had to be approved by Gary ahead of time. I was going from 50 percent of the commissions down to 25, but I also knew that Doc’s style of doing business was on its way out so my cut could soon be 50 percent of very little. Marvin Demoff had taken Tony Banks, and he would’ve taken Ryan Leaf if he’d had the chance. Leigh Steinberg was the king of quarterbacks, IMG was the sports rep powerhouse, and Octagon had reinvented sports marketing. The era of Doc Daniels types was coming to an end.
And Doc himself was coming to the end. He got very sick in the next year, developing an infection in his leg, and kept traveling anyway. Between trips he’d go to the hospital for treatment and I visited him pretty regularly. He kept deteriorating and was ultimately put into the ICU. The day I was to go to my first Senior Bowl with Gary, I got a call from Doc’s first wife, Patricia, who I barely knew, to tell me Doc had died. I was supposed to leave for Mobile, Alabama, for what amounts to the second most important event of the football year, just behind the draft. That year we had Willie Howard from Stanford and Adam Archuleta from Arizona State, plus Todd Heap, who wasn’t playing because he was still a junior. But there was Doc’s funeral. I thought about what he’d have told me to do … and I got on the plane to Mobile for the game. He’d have told me to take care of myself and take care of my players.
As soon as I got back from the Senior Bowl, I went to the cemetery and had my own private memorial for Doc. I put flowers at his gravesite and reflected on our time together, as unlikely a pair as there had ever been. I’d never had a friend like him and may never again. I thanked him for his love and guidance. And I said good-bye to him.
Doc took care of me right up to his last days. Even beyond. A couple days after he died, I got an envelope with a check for $16,000, my share of the commission for Carlos Jenkins, who’d been a veteran free agent we signed with the Rams. I’d never met Jenkins but we’d signed him when I was Doc’s fifty-fifty partner, so I got the payment even after Doc was gone. And, in all my time with Doc, we never had a written contract between us, just a handshake. You could say he taught me how to do things wrong, like paying players, or you could say he taught me how to do things right, like being fair. Nobody else I worked with treated me like Doc did. I learned that the hard way.
Pro Tect Management: Gary Wichard’s Way of Doing Business
At this point, I was working with Gary at his company, Pro Tect Management. No more greasing palms to buy players’ loyalty. I was learning to do business the way I imagined big-time NFL agents did it, more respectably, maybe not exactly right, but at least less wrong … if there is such a thing. Right away, I coupled Gary’s reputation and approach with my local skills to get us meetings with Pac 10 players, West Coast players, any kid who called California home. They were all untapped by Gary, and they were all gravy. I’d get a player on the phone and say, “Gary Wichard wants to say hello” and put them together on the speakerphone and it was working. My job was bird dog. His was pitchman and closer. I set them up; he went for the kill.
One of my first meetings for Gary was with Freddie Mitchell, a wide receiver from UCLA who was a first-round draft pick by the Eagles. I got him on the phone and he sounded very bright, sharp, charismatic. I went to his neighborhood to pick him up. That’s a violation—giving a kid transportation to meet with an agent before his eligibility—one of those things that’s wrong but not so wrong. I had no idea what he looked like and when I got to the right place, I saw this kid on the street who looked scrawny and disheveled, almost like a homeless person. That can’t be Freddie, I thought, but it was. I drove him to our office and we went into our routine. It was a beautiful performance.
First thing, Gary came in, introduced himself, and made some small talk, and in a couple of minutes the phone rang. Gary hit the speaker button, said hello, and there’s Mel “the Viper” Kiper, the ESPN football analyst who can single-handedly put a guy on the NFL radar, just by repeating his name on the air. Gary said something like, “Hey Vipe, I’m sitting here with the best wide receiver in college football.” And Kiper said, “You must be with Freddie Mitchell.” That got Freddie’s attention. Wow, he must’ve been thinking, Mel Kiper thinks I’m the best. And he’s tight with these agents. Of course, it was all set up in advance. Gary would call Mel and ask him to call in at a certain time. Then he’d tell his assistant, Beth, to put Mel’s call through to the conference room. Mel would talk to the player—Freddie in this case—about the season he’d had, the upcoming All-Star games, inside-football talk. He’d never say, “Hey, you ought to sign with these guys”; that would have been blatantly inappropriate. It was just an endorsement by association. I know about you. And I know Gary. Good luck. In fact, Gary would tell the players that he represented Mel. In what way, I’m not sure; as far as I knew, he didn’t do Mel’s contracts. But just saying it carried a lot of weight.
Then Gary would follow up with another call—Steve Hale, Executive Director of the Senior Bowl. Gary would say, “Steve told me he saw your last game and he wants to talk to you.” And then, if the timing was right, and the player was about to be invited to the Senior Bowl, Steve would tell him, “You’re going to be getting your formal invitation as soon as you get back to school.” It was like a great sneak preview. Hale never said a player should sign with us. We would let them connect the dots on their own. These guys know Mel Kiper; they know Steve Hale; they’ll take care of me.
Did Mel personally talk to other players or other agents? I don’t know. In 2010, Kiper went on a variety of sports radio stations across the country, responding to allegations that he was being used by Gary Wichard. As quoted from a station in Kansas City, he said, “… Well, I guess I’m being used by a lot of agents. I guess in life you’re used by a lot of different people without your knowledge. If that’s the case so be it. I’m also not ‘using’ them, but I’m using them as a vehicle to get to a player and ask questions and get to know that player … I’m not going to cut off that avenue to get to know a kid because somebody says I’m being used.” That sure doesn’t sound like a denial to me.
Kiper, who is well known for his ability to rank players according to talent level, also defended his position on ESPN’s Mike and Mike Show, saying Wichard’s players were frequently drafted higher or lower than where he’d ranked them. “So, in terms of my relationship with Gary, it has allowed me to make some of the best calls, good and bad, that I’ve ever made in this business.” Kiper has said he would advise players as to where they stood in the draft, what all-star games to attend, if they should work out at the combines—all of which is a lot like what an agent does. Still, he insists his access didn’t influence his ratings and he didn’t knowingly use his influence for agents. Maybe. But his ratings and analysis are broadcast nationally, over and over, and like anything that gets a lot of air time, it can eventually sink in, especially if it comes from an “expert.” Fans hear it, agents hear it, and most importantly, NFL team decision-makers hear it. Let’s say, they hear him repeatedly say a given player is being neglected, has great talent, and should be ranked higher. Instead of that player sneaking under the radar and getting “stolen” by a smart team, as a result of the Kiper drumbeat, maybe he gets bumped up just a little in the rankings. Let’s say Mel’s influence only helps move the kid up one notch. How much difference can it make? Well, if that notch is from the first pick of the second round up to the last pick of the first round, a lot. In the 2010 draft, the first pick of the second round signed for an overall average income of $1,027,500 per year versus the last pick of the first round who got $1,617,000 per year. That’s a difference of almost $600,000 a year over five years, for about $3,000,000. Sprinkle that throughout the draft and Mel Kiper can be a powerful “influence” to contend with.
As for Steve Hale, sometimes we’d have players tell us they’d already heard from him, by way of another agent, that they’d been selected for the Senior Bowl. Then I’d play it down. “That agent didn’t help you get invited. You earned it. The agent just told you what you were going to find out anyway. In fact, your school’s athletic department should have told you already.” This last bit is true; athletic departments hold back the information because they say it distracts players from concentrating on the season. Which of course shows the players that their school is protecting the self-interest of the school and the team, not the interests of the individual kid hoping for a pro career, who could benefit from knowing where he’s been invited to play. Agents like me use it as a wedge to create doubt about who’s really looking out for them—evidently not their coach or college—and to demonstrate why they can trust us more. If we’re the first to get the invitation info to the player, we tell him we saved the day because if the bowl doesn’t know he’s accepted, they may give his spot to another player. And these are the games NFL decision-makers rely on, so we’ve shown we’re there for the player’s future.
Game Plans: We’re Holding Your Future in Our Hands
Whatever happened, my job was to spin it our way. That applied when we were meeting with a player who’d been pitched by other agents and in prepping what Gary called our “Game Plans.” They were bound books, custom-assembled for each prospective player, laying out our plan for his future, complete with stats on him, on other players, on pro teams, and where we would almost promise he’d come out in the draft. Gary had been putting them together for years.
The books were very impressive, but telling the truth was less important than selling the prospect. If the player ratings didn’t serve our situation, we “adjusted” them. He taught me how and then I surpassed my teacher. I’d graduated from First National Bank of Player Loans to Truth Embellisher. I stretched and massaged data with the creativity of an artist. Sexy embellishment is more persuasive than dull facts. Everyone wants to believe things are better than they are. Promise a college player success in the NFL draft and you have a shot at becoming his agent. Back it up with what looks like data and case studies and you have an even better shot. Before me, Gary did it with scissors and tape. I introduced him to the magic of the computer: Internet search, copy-cut-paste, data seamlessly lifted from here, dropped over there, altered, enhanced, embellished with digital perfection.
Before we ever met with any player, I’d talk to him on the phone and send out a Pro Tect brochure and cover letter from Gary and me. The brochure was very slick, very expensive, splashed with color shots of our clients—Brian “Boz” Bosworth, Seahawk and movie star; Jason Taylor, Dolphin Pro Bowl defensive end; Keith Brooking, Cowboy Pro Bowl linebacker; Mark Gastineau, Jets Pro Bowl pass-rusher; Rob Moore, Jets wide receiver; Darren Howard, Saints and Eagles defensive end; Keith Jackson, Pro Bowl tight end; Kevin Dyson, wide receiver drafted ahead of Randy Moss; Keith Bulluck, Titans Pro Bowl linebacker; Jim Druckenmiller, 49ers first-round quarterback—plus company bios and history. I’d go back through old cover letters and make changes suited to impress the players. If it was for a safety, I’d reference defensive backs. If it was a linebacker, I’d note that we represented Bulluck or Bosworth or Ken Norton Jr. Gary was compulsive about the language in the letters, changing “a” to “the” and back again. He was a control freak, but it had been working for him.
I got us an audience with Adam Archuleta, the safety from Arizona State. I tracked down a phone number, talked to his stepfather a couple of times, and, most importantly, persuaded his mother, Vange, that it was a good idea for us to meet. Then I got Adam on the phone and put Gary on and we arranged to go to Arizona. On the same day, we’d set up meetings with Nijrell Eason, a cornerback, and Todd Heap, who was a great tight end. Todd was a junior, which these days—post–Junior Rule—would make it an NFLPA violation for us to talk to him. (The Junior Rule now stipulates agents cannot contact players until they have completed three years of college eligibility and have declared their intention to turn pro.) But in 2000, when the meeting happened, it was still legit. I had called Todd and told him we (really Gary, before I worked for him) had represented Stephen Alexander, a tight end from Oklahoma, who’d been a second-round draft pick and was having a good year with the Redskins, as well as Keith Jackson, one of the best tight ends in NFL history. Representing such talented players, at Todd’s own position, really got his attention.
We had three meetings scheduled back-to-back, at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel. Gary thought three was too many so he called Kiper on the speakerphone and said, “Mel, I have three guys—Heap, Eason, and Archuleta—and I only have time for two. Who should I skip?” Mel said, “Don’t meet with Archuleta.” Gary hung up the phone and told me to cancel the meeting with Adam, but I was adamant about it. We butted heads, but I kept at him until finally I got him to do it. In the end, Adam was drafted the highest of the three. I’d like to say I knew it then but I just thought he was good. And Adam ended up being very close with Gary over time.
We met with
all three guys, an exhausting day in a suite, each meeting two or two and a half hours. We’d have a tray of cookies and sodas—also technically illegal—but what two-hundred-plus-pound football player could talk for two hours without something to eat or drink? And all three showed up, Todd Heap, Adam with his stepfather, and Nijrell Eason, a great turnout. Sometimes you’d schedule a meeting and just get a no-show—no reason, no call, just a player who was suddenly impossible to track down. We had a video player to run films or training tapes and we had our Game Plans.
I’d seen agents go through their pitch with players, talking about who they represented and what kinds of contracts they’d signed. But the Game Plans elevated the process to a whole other level. They made it formal, official. Here is a bound book devoted to you. Here’s your Game Plan. We focus on your position, what we can do to raise your draft stock to the maximum, how we’ve done it and will do it for you. Here are the stats to back up what we say. It wasn’t our word, it was written in a book … even though we had written the book. It was genius.
I remember the first time I saw Gary change the information to make a book look better. He took an article with a sentence he didn’t like and he put white-out tape over it, cutting and pasting, and then photocopied it again. He’d hold up the final result and say, “Magically, no longer there.” This was before I introduced him to the real magic of a digital OCR program—to convert a scanned image into a document you could edit. Gary wasn’t good with computers, but I was good enough.