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

by Terry Crews

  I wanted to write and direct my own movies, and Spike Lee was my hero. I found out that his aunt, Gloria Lee, worked at our college, and I tracked her down.

  “Can I just paint a picture of Spike, and see if you like it, and if you do, maybe you could send it to him?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen your work,” she said. “If you make it, I will be sure he gets it.”

  I painted Spike’s portrait, with all these headlines around him in the background. I used it as the final project for my independent study in painting, and then I had it framed. Gloria sent it off, and I was in suspense while I waited to see if he liked it. Well, a few weeks later, he sent back a book about the making of his new movie, Mo’ Better Blues, with a personal note to Gloria from Spike: “Tell your student, Terry, thank you for the beautiful painting, and that I wish him luck.”

  That was like a lifeline for me. We were living in this basement apartment, really struggling, and yet I felt like I had touched Hollywood in some small way, and my life was never the same again. After that, I always knew I belonged in Hollywood, and I wouldn’t be happy until I made it out there someday.

  I certainly didn’t want to be in Kalamazoo anymore. That was the beginning of a militant period for me, where I saw everything in racial terms, even though my wife was half white. I was big, I was black, and I was very aware of being treated like a threat. I felt like I could never get ahead as long as my coaches and bosses were discriminating against me. Of course, when I went back to Flint, and I saw the gangs and drugs and guys with six different kids by six different women, I was like, I can’t end up over here with my own people when they’re living like this, either.

  I was young, and I was angry. Now I can see that my anger hurt me more than anyone else. There were times when it became a form of self-sabotage, because when I was mad, I was often blinded to the possibilities of my life. When I eventually realized this, I understood that I had to see what was actually open to me and do my best to achieve it. But at that time, I was experiencing my first political awakening, crude as it was. And I’m glad I went through that phase, because I think every young man needs to rebel to find his way—every young woman does, too—and this means cutting Mom’s apron strings, and questioning Dad’s lessons, questioning everything.

  Rebecca was older than me, and way more mature, but she was always patient with me, and my growing pains, even when she became pregnant again not long after her first miscarriage, and she really needed me to grow up. She had graduated beauty school with all of the awards, and she’d gotten a job at Regis, a hair place at the mall. It was a great job, and they were paying her well. Finally, it seemed like an end to our worries might be in sight. And then, just as she’d started to attract a lot of clients, and she was about to get a raise, one of her friends opened a shop and asked Rebecca to go work for her. I was already feeling guilty enough about the fact that I was playing football, which meant I couldn’t make any money. And then she jumped ship from this really great job to her friend’s salon and ended up making very little. “Becky, uh, you do know we have nothing, right?” I said.

  “I’ve got to help my friend,” she said. “I’ve got to do this.”

  So then we were even broker than we had been, which I hadn’t even thought was possible. With another baby on the way, I had to make it to the pros.

  I couldn’t wait for my football dream to come true and take me all the way to the NFL. But as hard as I’d worked, and as ready as I felt, it wasn’t going to be easy. Our daughter Azriel was born on November 13, 1990, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And so now we were down in our basement apartment with Naomi climbing all over, and with little bitty Azi sitting in her chair, and Rebecca and I just trying to make it.

  I threw everything I had into my final season of college football. The school held what were called pro days, when NFL scouts came and talked to the most celebrated players. A few scouts had sat me down for meetings that fall, but no one ever called me back to follow up. I was sure I was going to fight my way into the NFL, but this lack of serious attention was making me nervous, especially because I’d gotten some light from the pros after our championship, and now it felt like the momentum had slowed, just when I needed it to pick up. My big thing was that I had to make it to the NFL Combine in February. During two and a half days in Indianapolis, representatives from all of the NFL teams would get a look at the best up-and-coming college players. And it was unclear if I was going to be there or not.

  My deteriorating relationship with my coaches wasn’t helping. We were doing a drill on the field during practice when another player began doing some dirty stuff, and I fought back. The coach jumped up on me and started screaming.

  “Terry, what are you doing?”

  “I was protecting myself,” I said.

  “Get off the field. Go in the locker room. Take a shower. You’re done.”

  Like I said, I’d believed there was a difference between the way the coaches treated the white players and the way they treated the black players, and in my mind, this was just one more example. Once you see your world in those terms, everything in your line of vision becomes a discriminatory situation. At the time, I saw them as being out to get me. Now, I believe my bad attitude had poisoned our relationship. I was ready to storm off the field, but then it hit me: I may lose my scholarship if I leave this practice.

  “No, if I leave this field, you’re going to try to take my scholarship,” I said. “I’m going to stay right here. You’re going to coach, and I’m going to play, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  With my mind-set the way it was then, I felt like I’d had no choice but to react the way I did. Of course, as I would discover years later, we always have a choice. But, at the time, it was too late. They were done with me, and I was done with them. They played me because I was still one of the best guys on the field, but I treated every word they said to me with disdain.

  “You’d better be appreciative,” my coach said.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Why aren’t you appreciative? You should be thanking me.”

  He was so mad he looked ready to have a heart attack. But I didn’t care how much they hated me. My anger had taken over.

  Finally, I got a call from Ronny Jones, the linebacker coach for the Los Angeles Rams. He came to town and took me out to dinner.

  “Terry, what is the deal with your coaches on your team?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I called everybody, and they said they didn’t know where you were,” he said. “They said they have no contact with you.”

  I froze right there, seated across from him at the table.

  “They know exactly where I am,” I said. “I live off campus, but they have my address right there in their files.”

  “They tried to say they had no idea where you were,” he said. “They were literally saying, ‘We don’t know, and we don’t care.’ It took me forever to find you.”

  It turned out I’d had several scouts from NFL teams try to come see me in the previous weeks, but the coach’s office hadn’t given them my address. I’d finished playing for the university at this point, but I still had to get through about four months of school, and my relationship with the coaches was at an all-time low.

  After the season was over, we had this big banquet where they honored the players of the year. I knew I’d had a good year. The pro scouts I’d met with had all been talking about what was going to happen, how good I was going to be. And yet I was completely ignored at the banquet. Even though I’d had so much tension with my coaches, I’d played my heart out for my chance to play in the League. I wanted them to recognize my ability, but I’m sure they saw things I couldn’t see in myself at the time. I had become a brat.

  When they ignored me at that banquet, very few moments in my life have ever been as painful. The room was decorated with photographs of all the graduating seniors, and as I stalked out at the end of the evening, I grabbed mine and took it with me. A
friend of mine gave me a ride home, and as I sat in his car with this big cardboard photo on my lap, my anger raged inside of me until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I opened his car window and threw my picture out into the night. I’d lost respect for my coaches and the way the college football franchise was run long ago, but I’d had to play nice as long as my livelihood and my future depended on my place on the team. Now that school was over, I was done.

  Looking back at that time in my life, now that everything isn’t so emotionally charged, and I have the advantage of distance, I know that I should have had a better attitude, and if I’d been able to be more positive, my coaches probably would have treated me with more respect. When I was writing this book, I first portrayed myself as a victim in my descriptions of my time at school, without even realizing it. I glossed over my own faults while putting all of the blame on my coaches. After my flawed perspective was pointed out to me, I realized I was still angry. What I’ve discovered as I’ve worked to finally grow up and become a better person, while making peace with my past, is that anger can trick us. If we don’t let our anger go naturally, it can become an offense we hold on to that blinds us, clouding our ability to see our own behavior clearly and causing us to become helpless. It’s like removing our hands from the wheel of our own life, and letting whoever offended us drive, while we sit meekly in the passenger seat, holding the offense in our lap. I’d been able to see this in all of the other areas of my life, except for my time at Western Michigan, until only recently. Even now, as I’m wrapping up this book, I have to let go of whatever offends me and get control of the wheel—and, finally, drive my own life. But, at the time, I was just holding on as best as I could.

  When I got home from the banquet at the end of my senior year, I climbed into bed with Rebecca. We had this old, used bed, and all of the springs had gone out of the middle, so it was sloped like a canoe. I fell into the middle of our sagging, lumpy mattress, and I looked around. The house was a mess. We were broke.

  “I’m done,” I said. “I’m done. I guess maybe I can go to art school.”

  “No, don’t you give up,” she said. “Don’t give up on this football dream of yours. This was your dream.”

  “I know, but I can’t take it anymore. All of this rejection. All of these guys. I can’t take it. I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m through.”

  “Honey, just give it a day,” she said.

  Literally the next day, I received my invitation to the Combine. When the papers came in the mail, I held them up triumphantly.

  “Look at this, Becky,” I said, reading the cover letter. “ ‘You have been invited to the National Football League Combine in Indianapolis, Indiana.’ ”

  I looked up at her. “I’m going to the Combine! I’m going! I’m going!”

  She just stood there beaming at me. She’d known it was going to happen all along, and she hadn’t let me give up, even when I was at my lowest.

  I got on a plane for Indianapolis, and I was so excited. This was the event where all of the college players I’d heard about were brought together in preparation for the draft. On day one, it was all of the linebackers, and then, on the next day, it was the running backs, and so on.

  As happy as I was to be there, the process was definitely uncomfortable. We were given a T-shirt with a number on it, and then we were paraded around in front of the scouts, like meat, so they could see our structure.

  “Take your shirts off,” a man shouted.

  I did as I was told, feeling like I was at a slave auction, although it was the same treatment for all of us—white, black, and everyone in between.

  “Turn to the front,” he said. “Turn to the back.”

  They had a dentist examine our teeth. They gave us all of these tests, and they had us do drills and scrimmages against one another. The whole time, I was so nervous, and all I could think was: I’ve got to do a good job. I’ve got to do a good job.

  I performed very, very well—so well that I was ranked according to my athletic ability as fifth in the nation for inside linebacker, which I’d never played before because it was one of the positions my college coach had felt was a smart man’s spot, and so he’d had me play defensive end instead. Now the NFL coaches were saying this was the position I should be playing, and not only that, but I was ranked above all of these other players who’d held that position in college.

  “You should have never been playing this position,” the coaches said. “Why in the world did they have you down there?”

  I knew I was doing well, and then, as I used to do, I got a little cocky. That’s how I was back then: from one extreme to the other, from the depths of depression to being so giddy with delight it was unrealistic. Well, it was only February, and I had to wait until the draft in April to see if my confidence was justified or not.

  ———

  FINALLY, THE NFL DRAFT WAS COMING UP ON APRIL 22, 1991. This was a week before my senior year ended, but I loaded up a truck without finishing school or earning a degree, and we moved. Rebecca and I had a nice little apartment set up, and it would have made more sense to stay there until I went pro and found out where my new team was located.

  “Why are we leaving now?” Rebecca said. “Why don’t we see where you go?”

  “I can’t,” I said. “We’ve just got to get out of here.”

  It wasn’t a logical assessment of the situation, but I was so angry I couldn’t stand to be around that school anymore. I couldn’t stand to be in Kalamazoo, either. This will tell you just how much I wanted to go: In order to get out of Kalamazoo as soon as possible, and given the fact that we had no money and a mountain of debt, Rebecca and I actually returned to Flint and moved in with my mother and father. Not my ideal living situation, or theirs. And, on top of that, I had twelve credits left in order to complete my college education, and I never finished.

  With no college degree, no job prospects, no place to live, and no money, my entire future was once again riding on what I’d been able to accomplish on the football field. And now my prospects also included that of my family: Rebecca, Naomi, and our new baby, Azriel. This was a lot of pressure, but I was more confident than I’d ever been before, coming off of my scholarship experience, and the conversations I’d had with pro scouts, and my trip to the Combine.

  I was so sure there was a place in the NFL for me that I had a big barbecue on Draft Day and invited all of my family and old friends from Flint to come over. On Sunday morning, people started arriving, and I started barbecuing. We spent the early part of the day eating and hanging around, anticipating the good news. The draft started at noon. I didn’t necessarily expect to get picked in the first round, but I figured my new team would call me early in the draft to give me the good news. Everyone would be there, and it would be this great, big celebration.

  “You know, I might get drafted in the second round,” I said to whoever would listen. “Or maybe the fifth.”

  Or maybe not.

  We waited all day. People came and went, and still there was no phone call. By mid-afternoon, I knew that the first six or seven rounds were over, and clearly I had not been drafted yet. But that was okay. There were twelve rounds in total over two days, which left plenty of opportunities for me.

  Finally, the phone rang. Everyone made room for me, and I answered.

  “This is the Dallas Cowboys,” a man’s voice said.

  “Yeah!” I said. I was literally cheering, I was so happy. The Dallas Cowboys was my favorite team growing up. It was a dream come true to play for them.

  “Hey, man, I’m just kidding,” the man said.

  What?! It took me a minute to process what was happening, and then I realized that I recognized the voice on the other end of the line: Marcelle.

  “I could kill you right now,” I said.

  Without another word, I hung up on him. I couldn’t believe he’d done that to me. It was the meanest trick anyone had ever played on me, and it was literally several weeks before I was ab
le to talk to him again.

  By this point, it was late in the afternoon, and the day had definitely lost its luster. Everyone went home, and the party was finished. The first day of the draft passed without a call. I woke up early the next day and continued to wait by the phone. Hours passed. At this point, it was three or four in the afternoon, and it appeared my greatest fear had come true. The NFL didn’t want me. It was over.

  “I didn’t get drafted,” I said, collapsing in a heap on the stairs. I turned around and put my face down, and I just cried, I mean real tears and sobs.

  “I didn’t do it,” I said. “I didn’t do it. I failed.”

  “Terry,” Rebecca said. “What are you doing? Listen, if you were supposed to do this, you are going to do it. You did the whole walk-on thing in college, and you can do it again. I don’t care if you have to try out. Or if you have to go free agent, that’s what you’re going to do. If this is your dream, it’s yours. God did not take you this far to leave you here, so you get yourself together, and understand that this is not the end, ever.”

  I looked at her. She had shaken me up, but in a good way. She was right.

  “I know,” I said, wiping away my tears.

  “Now stop it, and understand there is something bigger for you. Get yourself together right now, and we’re gonna believe the best is yet to come, okay?”

  “I know,” I said, through the last of my tears. “I know.”

  I felt like I was done, but I knew she was right. And if she still believed in me, then I had to find a way to believe in myself.

  Rebecca and my mother left for the grocery store. The phone rang. I didn’t even notice. At this point, I was past caring. So my sister picked up the phone.