Three and Out

by John U. Bacon

  “The worst part,” said the Florida native, who had never been in such cold water. “I’d rather work out with Barwis than hop in here.”

  Robinson started to get out after seven minutes, but Schmidt said, “You really should go fifteen.” He left it up to Robinson.

  “Awwww, no!” But he slowly forced himself down in the water, grimacing the whole way. “‘Y’all got it made,’” he said, mimicking the typical comment of his classmates, who would not wake up for a few hours, if they decided to go to class at all. “That’s what everyone thinks. They don’t see this!”

  By nine o’clock, the sun was finally showing through the frosted window by the swim tank, which was Robinson’s next stop. After he spent twenty minutes walking back and forth in the tank—which, at 90 degrees, was much nicer than the cold tub—Johnson measured the circumference of Denard’s thigh, knee, and calf, all of which were a quarter inch less than when Denard started that morning.

  The voodoo of the Michigan medicine men was working.

  After Robinson showered, he entered the last phase of the morning routine: taping. Every day, half of the 120 Michigan football players get their ankles taped, which requires one roll of Johnson & Johnson athletic tape for each ankle. The trainers tape 120 ankles a day, from early August to late November, plus fifteen practices in December when Michigan’s in a bowl game, plus fifteen more practices during spring ball. That’s about 18,000 rolls of tape, or 600 boxes—about $45,000 worth. Before they started wearing custom-fit knee braces in practice, it used to be much more.

  But that’s a pittance compared to the team’s budget for meals. During fall football practice, the training table meals served from Monday through Thursday cost more than $400,000. Tack on the weekend hotel meals, the bowl game meals, and the spring ball meals, and the total passes $1 million (to say nothing of twelve nights in hotels for seventy people and support staff)—or about $10,000 a player per year.

  If you divide the cost of salaries for football coaches and staffers by 120 players, it comes to $57,000 per player per year.

  But the biggest cost is still tuition. Few fans or reporters realize it—even many of the players don’t—but the university does not set aside eighty-five free passes each year for football players. The athletic department writes a check for every single scholarship athlete—some 500 at Michigan—paying the actual tuition for both in-state and out-of-state students each semester, down to the penny. In 2010, that exceeded $15 million, of which roughly $4.2 million went to football players—or about $59,000 per scholarship player who attends school year round.

  By the time a fifth-year scholarship senior from out of state graduates from the University of Michigan, his school has spent over $580,000 on him, whether he’s an All-American or a fourth-string, long-snap center—and that does not include the Academic Center, strength and conditioning, facilities, administration, athletic trainers, or tape.

  When people argue it’s time to start paying players, they usually miss two vital points. First, Michigan’s is one of only a handful of athletic departments that make a profit, and it had lost money in the years between Bo Schembechler and Bill Martin. If you pay one quarterback, you had better pay the women rowers the exact same, or you’ve violated Title IX. Once you start doing that, watch colleges start folding teams they can’t afford.

  For those who say the NCAA has yet to stamp out illegal payments, and therefore colleges should stop the charade and pay the players, would they make the same argument that because the IRS has failed to stamp out all tax cheating, the IRS should be abolished? Should state troopers stop giving out speeding tickets because they have failed to stamp out speeding?

  Second, such critics don’t realize the athletes are already being paid quite a bit, whether they’re any good or not. And if you don’t think $295,000 for five years of out-of-state tuition is compensation, tell that to the parent of an engineering student from Chicago. Likewise, ask professional boxers or Olympic triathletes what they pay for coaching and training.

  The average player gets a very good deal financially. Only a very few, like Denard Robinson, make more money for their school than their school spends on them. The only sensible solution, I’ve always believed, is for the NFL and NBA to set up viable minor leagues to give those rare stars a real choice—the same option high school hockey and baseball players have.

  What no college athlete has, however, is free time.

  While Denard got dressed, the TV overhead scrolled the runner: “Denard Robinson Big Ten Player of the Week for third time in five weeks.”

  Viewers reading that probably thought Robinson was having a hell of a time.

  * * *

  At 9:40 a.m., Denard hopped back in Gardner’s dad’s pickup truck and dashed up State Street to grab his roommate.

  The modest first-floor apartment was bright, clean, and neat. “That’s because we’re never here!” Gardner said.

  The duo dashed to the truck—with boxes of Hi-C and bags of Hostess Mini Muffins in hand—and headed back down State Street to their 10:00 class: Crime, Race and the Law. They passed Mike Kwiatkowski, the walk-on who made the team during the fall tryouts. He had just won Scout Team Offensive Player of the Week.

  “Hey, that’s Mike, the walk-on,” Denard said.

  “Yeah, tight end,” Gardner added.

  “He can play!” Robinson said. “Got the body, too.”

  “Now, you got to wonder,” Gardner said, “how does a guy like that get missed by everyone?!”

  The two dashed to the Dennison Building and snuck into the classroom three minutes late. They would be marked up for that, it would get back to Rodriguez, and there would be consequences. Robinson found an empty seat against the right wall of the packed classroom. Gardner sat in the middle among the “normies.”

  Professor Scott Ellsworth, a middle-aged white man, started discussing a documentary called Murder on a Sunday Morning, which explored a case of mistaken identity in Jacksonville, Florida. It resulted in fifteen-year-old Brenton Butler, who was walking by to apply for a job at Blockbuster that morning, being accused of murder, but ultimately being acquitted.

  “Was Brenton Butler guilty of anything?” Ellsworth asked.

  Most of the white kids said no, but most of the African Americans disagreed: wrong place, wrong time, they said.

  “Was he even in the wrong place?” one woman asked.

  “He wasn’t at home!” Gardner said, getting a laugh. But Gardner was anything but a class clown, raising his hand more than anyone else during the eighty-minute class. Robinson wasn’t afraid to speak up when the spirit moved him but was usually content to take notes in his spiral notebook. He used a mechanical pencil with a thin lead and wrote in careful penmanship, which leaned left—a sign of an introvert. By the end of the class, he had written a page and a half, a little more than the suburban student sitting next to him.

  “This shows, in part, the weakness of eyewitnesses as proof,” Ellsworth said. “Let me show you. Everyone look at me. Right now. Good. Now, without looking back, tell me what Denard is wearing.”

  Gardner didn’t miss a beat. “He’s wearing red-and-black shoes, blue jeans, a red polo shirt, and a letter jacket!” His classmates, most of whom knew they were roommates, got the joke.

  They broke into groups to answer one question each. When Robinson’s had hashed out theirs, he slipped off to the bathroom before the class came back together to go over their questions. It was one of the few concessions he had made to his newfound fame; if he tried to go during the break, he’d be stopped too often to get to his classes on time.

  “Okay, Group D,” Ellsworth said to Robinson’s circle. “Your question: If you were accused of a crime, would you prefer a black or white attorney?”

  In the group, Robinson decided he would want an attorney who was the same race as the jury, but he had since modified his answer. “If I was in a racist town, I’d hire a white attorney,” he said. “But if I was in a normal town like An
n Arbor, I’d just get the best lawyer I could get.”

  Ellsworth offered a “closing thought, paraphrasing Winston Churchill on democracy: The American justice system is the worst in the world, except for all the others. What do you think? We’ll pick that up on Thursday. In the meantime, read Franz Kafka’s classic, The Trial.”

  The class wasn’t quantum physics—which was being taught down the hall—but it wasn’t rocks for jocks, either.

  While Robinson packed his things to go, a coed slipped him a small handwritten note, which he tucked away.

  He walked out with Kelvin Grady and Devin Gardner across the Diag for lunch. He peeked at the note: “For your eyes only,” written in purple ink. “You seem like a really nice guy and I think it’d be cool to hang out with you. And no, I’m not a creepy stalker! Text me some time.”

  Robinson grinned and shook his head. Grady demanded to see it, then started laughing immediately. “Ahhhhh! Same note I got!” he said, then pointed to Gardner. “Same note he got! Did she go like this?” he asked, tilting his head back as he slipped Robinson the note with a bent wrist. “This is for you.”

  Robinson’s grin answered his question.

  Robinson wanted to go to Wendy’s in the Michigan Union basement, as usual, but Grady argued for Noodles & Company, at the far end of the Diag. “Come on, man, I’m trying to expand your horizons!”

  “I like Wendy’s, man.”

  “But it’s rivalry week!”

  “Exactly why I don’t want to change my routine.”

  People walking past often looked twice but said nothing, until a frat boy finally asked, “Excuse me, are you Denard Robinson?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I just want to thank you for all you do for this university,” the young man said, shaking his hand. As soon as the student was out of earshot, Grady and Gardner started laughing.

  “Pardon me, are you Denard Robinson?” Gardner asked, wide-eyed. They weren’t making fun of the fan but of Robinson’s new status.

  “See?” Grady asked. “You’re a celebrity now.”

  “Oh, yeah, oh, yeah,” Gardner chimed in. “Big maaan on campus!”

  “Can’t be seen eating with the little people at Noodles & Company!”

  Robinson grinned but was clearly uncomfortable. “Man, you know that ain’t right,” he said quietly.

  “So long, Heisman hopeful Denard Robinson!”

  Robinson got his favorite, Wendy’s Spicy Chicken #6 Combo, then sat with his friends and teammates. The woman at the next table looked up from her anthropology textbook to ask, “How’s your knee?”

  “What? My knee’s fine. Where’d you get that?”

  “They said on TV—”

  “Damn, already?”

  After lunch, Robinson walked over the spot where John F. Kennedy had stood almost fifty years earlier to introduce the idea of the Peace Corps, and past a retail tent selling yellow T-shirts with SHOE at the top, LACE at the bottom, and an untied cleat in the middle.

  “Think they’d give me one?” he said, walking by unnoticed.

  “Only if you want an NCAA violation,” I replied, recalling a similar conversation Chris Webber had had with Mitch Albom.

  “That’s crazy,” he said, smiling. I didn’t have the heart to tell him a replica of the No. 16 jersey he wore on Saturdays was going for $70 down the street. Paying players might be impractical, but it’s even harder to justify why some guy selling Denard’s nickname on a T-shirt should make a profit—or EA Sports, for that matter.

  Walking back across the street to Gardner’s truck, a stranger in a pullover sweatshirt walking toward us struck the Heisman pose with no words spoken.

  Robinson smiled and shook his head. “That’s crazy, too!”

  He asked about Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson. Who struck the pose? When?

  Howard did it, I said, in the 1991 Ohio State game. Robinson thought about it, then said, “I wouldn’t do it.”

  Driving back down the hill in Devin’s truck, Denard asked, “You been to New York?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’d love it.”

  “I’d like to go. Is it expensive?”

  “Flights are cheap, but hotels aren’t,” I said. “But you know…”

  He started wagging his finger back and forth. “Naw, naw, nawwwwww. Don’t even go there,” but he knew the Heisman ceremony took place in New York.

  But if Robinson wasn’t going to discuss his newfound status, everyone else was. The previous night, on Monday Night Football, Michigan alums Tom Brady and Chad Henne battled it out, but Robinson was still the story. “Both Brady and Henne have lots of Michigan records,” Ron Jaworski said, “but neither would be starting for Michigan right now.”

  While we drove down State Street, ESPN radio’s Scott Van Pelt was interviewing Michigan State quarterback Kirk Cousins—about Denard Robinson. The actual Robinson turned the radio off.

  “Do you have to pay to go?” he asked, referring to the Heisman trophy ceremony.

  “No, they pay for your flight.”

  “Do you have to pay for your hotel?”

  “No, they pick that up, too. Couple nights, probably.”

  He considered that in silence, then got out to meet his professor for an office hour appointment.

  * * *

  By two o’clock, Robinson was back in the cold tub, up to his chest in frigid water, with his elbows on the deck. He borrowed a cell phone to handle a national press conference with ESPN and others on the line.

  “It was a great win for Michigan,” he said. “We’re all in.

  “Scott Shafer offered me as a defensive back, but Rod Smith offered me as a quarterback. That was my goal, to play quarterback.

  “I was just in the right place at the right time. The right coaches, the right teammates.

  “I wouldn’t say I’m famous yet. A lot of people seem to know me around town, but that’s about the only difference.”

  When he hung up, Phil Johnson told him, “You better go—you’re going to be late.”

  It was 2:27, and the quarterback meeting started at 2:30 sharp, as always. Robinson put on his sweats and ran up the stairs to the meeting room, stopping to pick up my dropped pen on the way. The treatments seemed to be working.

  When he got to the door, Magee was waiting outside.

  “I was in the training room,” Robinson said with a half smile, knowing it wouldn’t matter much.

  “I don’t care why you’re late,” the normally cheerful Magee said. “Late is late.”

  After going over dozens of plays and pointers, Rod Smith explained to his quarterbacks that the coaches had had a breakthrough during another late-night film session.

  “Last year we thought they had our signals. We got word from people that they did. But they don’t. They ain’t got our signals. They got our tendencies.

  “Watch this. What they’re watching is not our signals but our running back. Look, when Carlos [Brown] sets up inside the tackle, they raise their left hand. That means get ready for [a play called] belly—and the end squeezes hard.

  “But watch this: When he’s outside the tackle, they point left.

  “They covered both plays perfectly. They had us.

  “So they didn’t have our calls. What they got, they got from our alignment. So this year, we’re going to be in the same alignment every time.”

  Smith went back to the board.

  “The back is going to line up right behind the tackle—not inside or outside. Your toes will be at six yards, and so will the back’s.

  “Then once you yell ‘Ready!’ you step up one yard. Then the back will not shuffle, shuffle and go, like normal, he’ll just take off. But you’ll have more time to read it because you’re a yard up.

  “We’re gonna fuck these guys!”

  * * *

  Rodriguez laid out the challenge in front of his team: another nationally televised game and probably a new stadium attendance record. The Spartans were for real, with
fourteen starters returning, he said, then brought up a slide of the Paul Bunyan trophy.

  “The ugliness of the trophy is well documented. It’s undeniable. But Paul’s ugliness is only acceptable when we have it.

  “They’ve had Paul for two years now. Who knows what they’re making Paul do? Probably taking him around to every damn frat house on campus and doing God knows what to him.” They laughed. “Poor Paul! He needs to be rescued!”

  That meant complete focus. Unless you’ve got a test or paper, he said, that’s all you’re doing: class, practice, preparation. “Whatever you got to do to get ready, you do it this week. Tell your best friends, your girlfriend, your parents, ‘I’ll call you Sunday!’

  “They say all games count as one. Trust me, this one counts more. This game is different.”

  He didn’t tell them how much rode on the game, but he didn’t have to. They read the blogs, they talked to the “normies.”

  “If you watch that game last year, it’ll make you puke. It was the worst- executed game we played in seventeen games. It was awful. AWFUL. On both sides of the ball. We gave the damn thing away. Well, that’s not going to happen this time, because we’re going to take care of the ball.

  “On offense: ball security always. BSA!

  “On defense: Shed, hit, and wrap—and quiet all the crap.

  “I am tired of hearing about them, tired of talking about it. Tired of answering questions about it. I just want to kick their ass.”

  His emotional fatigue threaded through his comments and undoubtedly pushed some buttons in his players, too. They were more tired than they let on, every week preparing for a must-win game.

  “You turn down a chance to make a play in this game, you’ll be embarrassed about it the rest of your life. You leave nothing on the table. We play them one time a year, and we hear about it 365 days a year.”

  Rodriguez had to know that if they lost this one, he could be hearing about it for a lot longer than that. Instead, he said, “I know it’s not life-or- death. It’s not. But as far as football goes, trust me, this is war.”