Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile Read Online Free PDF Page A

the oblong ball with laces. I was a 49ers child. But my parents wouldn’t let me play competitive football until I was in high school. That I ended up in a 49ers uniform after not playing until high school, not getting recruited out of high school, and getting cut from Division IAA Cal Poly probably surprised them. So when I move back home after getting cut from my hometown team, they are extra-supportive. My dream came true, for a second. And now I’m licking my wounds in my childhood bedroom.
    I have shoulder surgery paid for by my own insurance and I rehab at a clinic three times a week. My physical therapist is used to fraudulent worker’s compensation cases and old people who have fallen down. She marvels at my recovery time and my dedication. I explain that I’m headed back to the NFL. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s true but I have no idea. I’m holding on to Donahue’s words. But maybe he was just being nice. Maybe my football days are over. My shoulder heals very fast but my mind is a mess. I sit around in my bedroom and have panic attacks. I try dating but can’t relax. I scribble in my journal, trying to exorcise the demons, summon the angels, build future mental stairways. I watch the 49ers on TV all year with a new appreciation of the machine. For the first time I’m seeing the big picture through the small screen. I listen to the announcers and read the papers. The media narratives are sensational and simplistic, and when compared to what I know about the team, sound like drivel.
    From the couch, my dad and I watch the football season unfold. The 49ers go 10-6 and slide in the back door of the playoffs, beating the Giants in the wild-card round at Candlestick Park in a thrilling comeback. But they lose badly the next week to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A few days later Mooch is fired. I never understand firing a winning coach, but apparently there were some philosophical differences between Mooch and Donahue. There’s so much more to it than anyone ever knows. After the dust settles on Mooch’s firing, Ryan reaches out to Donahue and reminds him that I am still around. They need camp bodies. They always need camp bodies, especially at wide receiver. Receivers drop like flies during training camp. Donahue keeps good on his word and I drive back to the facility in my Civic. They put another contract in front of me. No signing bonus this time. Here’s the pen. Look, Ma, I’m a 49er again.
    The next week is the Super Bowl in San Diego between the Oakland Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ryan and his cousin Bruce have just joined forces with super-agent Leigh Steinberg. Leigh throws a Super Bowl party every year. Ryan invites me. It’s at the San Diego Zoo. I’ll be on the list plus one, he says. I have friends who live in San Diego so I make the trip.
    I bring my friend Justin to the party. He’s in town working for Pepsi, driving around in a souped-up two-door Lexus with a custom Pepsi Blue paint job. He sets up his Pepsi table in the Gaslamp Quarter and passes out free “Pepsi Blue” samples from a carbonated backpack hose.
    —Free Pepsi Blue! Like to try a sample?
    —Sure.
    —It tastes like fizzy Nyquil.
    —Sorry.
    Justin breaks free from his Pepsi duties and comes with me to the zoo. We check in at the will-call desk and I get my lanyard. It says I play for the San Francisco 49ers. I’m funneled into a line where I walk the red carpet like a plank, photographers looking at me confused but still snapping away. A face lifted man from Entertainment Tonight interviews me. We both wonder why. Inside the party I’m formally introduced to pro sports high society. It has a strange, seductive sheen. The women are beautiful. The men are powerful. Everyone is horny.
    The next night we go to the Playboy party near Balboa Park with girls we had met at Leigh’s zoo party. They told us to come along: that we’ll find a way in. But we have no tickets and are not on the list. It’s a