Is There Life After Football? (14 page)

Koonce started all 16 games for Seattle in 2000. He was second on the team in tackles. On December 3, in a 30–10 throttling of the Atlanta Falcons, he returned an interception 27 yards for a touchdown. Apparently, Seattle's minimal investment paid off. After the final game—a 42–23 loss at home to Buffalo—Koonce went through the year-end exit interviews and packed to return to North Carolina where he would work out in the off season. He knew he'd played on a one-year contract, and that there were no guarantees for next season. Like everyone else in the league, Koonce knew that “N-F-L means not for long.”
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But as he left town, no one suggested that his days in Seattle were numbered. He figured he'd be back for at least one more year.

There was nothing mentioned about me not coming back. It was more like, “It was a very disappointing year for everyone. You know the record [6–10]. George, you played well.” I didn't really know what was going to happen, so I was in constant contact with my agent trying to get clarity. In retrospect, nobody was honest with me, letting me know my career was done
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Koonce had been living in an executive condo in Seattle—a temporary, short-term rental—so he had little more than a couple of suitcases as he departed from the Seattle airport. Back in North Carolina, he waited on word from his agent. January passed. Nothing. Trepidation crept in: “
For the life of me I couldn't believe that I could go from starting 16 games and being second on the team in tackles to completely out of the National Football League. I thought that it might be, ‘George, you'll have to take a backup role.' But in my case that didn't happen
.” Months passed. His agent said he'd put out feelers across the NFL, but nobody called. Finally, Koonce reached out once again to his friend Johnny Holland:

“Johnny, what's going on in Seattle?” He said, “George, I think we're going to go with a guy named Levon Kirkland [who had recently been released by the
Pittsburgh Steelers].” I said, “Really?” I had trouble believing what I was hearing. Johnny said, “George, I can't really figure it out. I thought you had a really good year for us.” . . . Officially, I didn't hear any of this from Seattle. If I didn't know Johnny, I wouldn't have had any explanation
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Seattle was out of the picture—suddenly, but, in retrospect, not surprisingly. There were incentives built into Koonce's 2000 Seattle contract stating that if he played 75 percent of the defensive snaps from scrimmage he would be paid an additional $300,000—increasing his salary for the year by about 50 percent. As the 6–10 season wore on, however, and the organization realized they were out of the playoff chase, his playing time declined. He found himself more and more on the sidelines, even though there was no drop-off in his on-field productivity. In the end, he didn't hit his incentive goals. Maybe this was a message Koonce had ignored. Looking back on the 2000 season, he now admits that subtle signs of depression were creeping into his life. He began to wonder if each trip to an away game would be his last time to play in that particular stadium.

By May 2001, at age 32, Koonce was still out of a job, but not out of hope. He religiously continued his training, working out four or five days a week under the supervision of the ECU training staff:
“I'd schedule my day around when I could work with the strength and conditioning coach at East Carolina. When he wasn't training student athletes, he was taking me through a regimen to get me ready for the upcoming season.”
A season that never came.

The NFL draft passed. Spring and summer mini-camps came and went. Training camps were about to open in July. No job offers. Nothing.

I'm asking my agent, “What's going on?” I talk to the [Cleveland] Browns, I talk to the [Kansas City] Chiefs. They're like, “If someone goes down, we'll bring you right in.” That goes on for the whole season, that type of conversation. I'm still training, working out. On Sundays I watch the Packers' games. All this time, all my agent says to me is, “George, you need to stay ready.” Nobody called. I kept
saying, “I can play. I can go back to the stats, and with the right opportunity I can do that again.”

And there was no paycheck coming in. Koonce was on his own, living on savings, working out, staying ready. 2001. 2002. Nobody called. Not even his agent. In January 2002, Koonce met his wife-to-be, Tunisia. In their early conversations, they talked about his career, his plans.
“I told her I was getting ready for next season.”
But by now, there were more than just traces of depression:

I didn't realize everything that was going on at the time, all the drinking, trying to hide and mask the pain. I wasn't doing cocaine or anything like that but I was drinking. . . . I was very depressed. The only time I wasn't depressed was when I was doing something football-related
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Koonce was in a real-life limbo. For him, his career wasn't over; he hadn't retired. But Tunisia forced Koonce to confront some harsh realities.
“She said, ‘George, that's great that you want to stay in shape and you want to play, you want to hook on with a team. But how about you add some other things during your day, like going to school? Maybe get a job.'”

Initially, Koonce resisted. He had a job: getting ready for next season. But Tunisia planted the notion, and Koonce trusted her judgment.

One day, jokingly, I said, “I need a job, these bills keep coming in.” She said, “Well, George, you have a job.” I said, “What's that?” She said, “You own over 100 apartments. [Over the years, Koonce had invested in rental properties.] Why are you having a management company run those? You can do it yourself.” I said, “I got to work out. I need to be ready. I can't do that and do all my workouts and all that stuff.” She said, “George, you need to think about that.” Then, when the season came around in 2002, I said, “Tunisia can you help me? I want to run those apartments.” She said, “I have a letter all ready. It's a letter to send to the management company. I read your contract with them. You can terminate
it with 30 days' notice. There is an apartment open at the complex. You need to turn that into an office.” I said, “OK.” And that's how it all got started. Later, she kind of took me by the hand and said, “George you need to sign up for these [college] classes.”

But there was no fairytale ending to Koonce's career crisis. Managing his apartments and going back to school for his master's degree, Koonce continued to work out, continued to stay ready. Midway through the 2002 NFL season, Tunisia finally confronted him. “George, you're done. It's all over.” That's when Koonce didn't speak to Tunisia for a couple of weeks. Then came the car crash a few months later. Slowly, George Koonce began to redefine himself. His old identity didn't surrender easily. His NFL dreams didn't die overnight. It was the end of 2003 before Koonce began to think of himself as something other than an NFL player.

Perhaps he finally became an “ex-player” in November, when Tunisia persuaded him to apply for a job in the ECU athletic department.

I did the interview. I thought I'd done well and they offered me the job. For $36,000, but I was disappointed. Tunisia was waiting for me as I walked across campus and she asked me about the interview. I said it went OK, and she asked if I got the job. I said, “Yeah, they offered me the job but for only $36,000. I told them I would have to think about it.” Tunisia said to me, “How much they going to pay you?” I said, “$36,000.” She said, “How much you going to make if you don't take the job?” I said, “Nothing.” She said, “Do you know how much people make in the real world?” I said, “No.” She said, “Turn your ass around and go right back there and sign that contract.” I did, and that's probably when I really truly knew I was never going to play again
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Koonce's story may not typify all NFL players, but it's a more common scenario than the one Michael Strahan describes. The end seldom comes suddenly, cleanly, in unambiguous terms. It's more like removing a Band-Aid slowly than suddenly ripping it off—an agonizingly drawn-out pain.

Official NFL retirements garner a lot of attention, perhaps because they're so rare. Occasionally, a player decides enough is enough and formally announces his retirement. Everyone remembers that Hall of Famer Barry Sanders walked way from the game suddenly, apparently of his own volition, even though he was within striking distance of several cherished NFL rushing records. John Elway and Ray Lewis famously announced their retirements, then took flight on the wings of Super Bowl victories. Others go out with less fanfare, but with finality nonetheless. Hakeem Chapman, a veteran from the 1960s and 1970s, talks about calling it quits:

I was playing with the [Team 1], and they traded me to [Team 2] just to get rid of me, because I was making more money than the quarterback. So, I went to [Team 2] . . . and I was making more than their starting quarterback. . . . I was released, but everybody wanted me to play, and I said I don't want to play anymore. I might get hurt. So, that's how I left it. . . . They offered me a bigger contract in [Team 3] to come up there and play. No way, José! I was finished!
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Clean breaks like this are exceptions to the rule.
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Injury makes the decision for many players. Some injuries are life altering, as was the case for former Lion Mike Utley, who was hurt on a routine tackle in 1991 that left him paralyzed from the chest down. Injuries dramatically ended the careers of Joe Theismann, Sterling Sharpe, Michael Irvin, and dozens more. For many others, however, injury starts the player down a painful, tortuous slope, effectively terminating a career, even as the player tries to prolong it. Hundreds of players try to “bounce back” but find their physical skills so compromised that they slide to the bottom of rosters, and eventually into football oblivion. Former running back Gary Ellerson, who found himself out of a job in the 1980s, was one of them:

When I was released by the Detroit Lions, I tried to hook on with the Indianapolis Colts, only to flunk my physical. . . . The flight home was truly a low point in my life. I remember sitting around for almost a year, rehabbing my knee, and hoping that some NFL team would still give me a chance. It never happened.
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Even barring injury, many players don't realize that their playing days are over until well after the fact. In recent years only about a quarter of retirees indicate that they called it quits without trying to sign on with another team after being released.
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Countless players cling to any prospect of playing again, trying to catch on with team after team. Some call this “running laps”—the perennial rite of players signing with teams to fill out rosters for training camps, being cut during preseason, then resigning when spots open up due to injury or players' failure to perform.
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Some players are signed and cut a half dozen times or more before they finally throw in the towel. In a 35-month span from 2001 to 2004, for example, long snapper Mike Solwold was signed and released seven times before his career was over.
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Under the circumstances, it's no wonder the end is blurred. Teams and coaches willingly nurture whatever optimism persists. Keeping players' hopes alive keeps them in the pool of potential roster replacements when spots inevitably open up. Rarely will a coach tell a player: “That's it. You don't have what it takes. You're washed up. You're through.” Listen as former Ravens coach Brian Billick informs players they've been released.

[To Javin Hunter:] You showed me you can do this [play cornerback in the NFL]. We have injuries, we might very well call you back. [To Ron Johnson:] You have the ability to play in this league, Ron. You need to think about why you're sitting here right now. You've never embraced the idea of special teams. Look at someone like Harold Morrow. You have more ability than he does, but he's in the league because he's embraced the idea
of being a special teams player. You need to do that with your mind, your body, and your soul. You do that, you can still play in this league.
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Jacksonville Jaguars general manager David Caldwell underscores that it's just a matter of circumstances: “You're a great player. We just can't see you fitting the system. You'll get a shot on another team.” “Fitting” often means fitting under the salary cap. Veteran players with higher minimum salaries know that they cost a team more than equally talented but less experienced players. Someone, they maintain, will be willing to pay the price for talent
and
experience.
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With coaches being less than candid and agents and well-wishers offering encouragement, players grimly grasp at faint prospects. Most careers don't end with a celebratory bang, they fizzle away. The NFL is seldom “Here today, gone tomorrow.” Instead, leaving the game is often an excruciating, unceremonious erosion of possibility and hope, a process fraught with ambiguity that compounds the anguish at the end.
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Most NFL players simply don't leave their profession in the same way other professionals “retire” from their jobs. Indeed, the term “retirement” suggests that players move through a voluntary, anticipatable transition out of one role and into another. It's an image of stepping back in order to take it easy, to “kick back.” It's typically seen as a well deserved, coveted respite from the previous grind, something everyone looks forward to with more or less positive, if not eager, anticipation.
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But not for most NFL players. “It's involuntary retirement,” says former defensive tackle Mike Golic.
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