Combine Tales: Part II

In the second installment of a four-part series, I will take you inside the NFL Combine from a first-person perspective. The sights, the sounds, the stress and the overall pressure that can weigh down a player hoping to hear his name called in April. Today: the medical exams, drug testing and a bench-press circus.

Day Two: Knees, Pee in a Cup and Meatheads

Let’s Check You Out, Son

OK, so you made it through the first day. You stood like a piece of meat in little daisy dukes shorts and let everyone see what you look like — almost completely naked. Hey, at least I didn’t have to stand there in a jock, not that the experience could be any more degrading than it already was. But I survived and moved on.

That night, I tried to sleep while my roommate – a tight end from Kentucky – told me how great he was, why his school didn’t beat Florida (but should have) and about all the teams that wanted to draft him. The guy lasted a few years in the league, but he almost didn’t make it through the night. After about an hour of conversation, in which I couldn’t get a single word in, I actually thought about suffocating him with a pillow. But I was sure there would be questions in the morning, so I passed.

Besides, the next day I had to meet with trainers from every team and let them poke and prod me.

I felt pretty confident walking into the room, which resembled something you’d see when the circus came to town. Noise, chatter, doctors, surgeons, people holding X-rays under the bright lights raining down on them, and players — tons of players — laid out on tables while people stood directly over them. I didn’t have any major injuries in college, and I also know that somehow, when I got to the Combine, all those minor injuries — sprained ankles, compressed AC joints, hip pointers, back issues and broken fingers — suddenly had disappeared from my medical charts. You gotta love it when your school takes care of you, right?

But as I lay down on table after table, watching people I had never met — people with no personality — check my knee 32 times (once for every team), I again began to feel like a number or statistic. Sure, there was small talk, and even some laughter — from me — when a team doctor asked me about a scar at the bottom of my right palm. I fell off my bike when I was in third grade, I told him (and I was telling the truth). He didn’t buy it. Gave me a strange look and wrote something down on a notepad. Man, I was getting tired of those notepads. What the hell were they writing?

But the tests continued, and I was waiting to hear the snap of a latex glove, followed by instructions to bend over the table in front of me. You think I’m joking? I’m not, because it was the only place left that wasn’t checked. I broke my left thumb in high school. Nothing big, but there’s a small bump protruding from the lower joint. It was discussed for 20 minutes.

This is when you realize the magnitude of the NFL Combine. The two biggest things talked about at the tables I went to were a scar from a bicycle wipeout I had trying to jump over a cardboard box in front of my house in Glen Ellyn, Ill., and a broken thumb from my sophomore year in high school. I was exhausted.  

Drop Your Pants

Drug testing is obviously a hot topic right now thanks to Alex Rodriguez, and it’s no different at the Combine. At 5 a.m. the second day of the Combine, I awoke to an alarm clock and a hotel wake-up call, followed by two alarms on my watch, because if you oversleep and miss the NFL drug test — you fail.

I stumbled down the hallway exhausted (why was I so tired?) and walked into a staging area with men in lab coats handing out plastic cups wrapped in plastic. I knew the drill from my college days at Iowa, and I knew how to stand in front of a urinal and pee — but this was different. I was escorted into a bathroom by a guy wearing one of those lab coats you see on “Grey’s Anatomy” and stood in front of a urinal, by myself. I could smell bleach and industrial disinfectant curling up my nose, my blood-shot eyes trying to focus, and a man I had never met before was telling me to drop my pants and pull up the front of my shirt.

What?

I suddenly thought my urine test was about to turn into an after-school special about not talking to strangers, but this is the NFL. You do what you’re told, just like all the other programmed robots in this league. So I dropped my pants and pulled my shirt up to my chin and did my business -- while a stranger stared at my junk and made sure the pee I was so willingly giving up to the league actually came from my body.

Needless to say, I passed with flying colors No ‘roids, no weed, no GNC story here. I proudly pulled up my pants and handed the cup over to the strange man, one of many he would collect that day. I just hope he washed his hands every once in a while throughout the process.

Meathead City

Ah, yes. The bench press. Probably the least functional exercise to judge football talent in the world. In an actual game, you are never seen lying on your back bench pressing other humans, but the NFL still believes this thing matters. Trust me, it doesn’t.

Again we were back in folding chairs, against the wall, feeling the cold metal beneath our tight shorts. I half-expected a run in from Stone Cold Steve Austin and a massive beating administered with one of the chairs, but all I did was move down the line, waiting for my chance to turn into one of those guys you see at the gym — sweating, making loud noises and resembling a tomato ready to explode halfway through his fourth rep. Fun times.

There are two benches lined up in front of a crowd — again. The same old men who watched you strip down to those little shorts and parade your ass along the stage are sitting with the same yellow legal pads. Great. I have never been one of those guys with massive power from the bench, so I knew it would be a stretch to get my reps into the teens. I warmed up next to some defensive back from Wyoming who was throwing this thing up like it was a case of light beer, and I began to sweat. My forehead was moist, my legs shook, and I waited for my name — no, my number — to be called.

On the bench, ready to go, with some strength coach from the San Diego Chargers pumping me up with fake enthusiasm like I was a fourth grader stepping to the plate in a Little League game. Give it a break, dude.

One rep, two reps and so on the drill went, until rep number 11, which was repeated by the large man now standing almost completely over me. Wait, what happened to number 12? Right in the middle of the drill, I was penalized for lifting my butt off the bench. Suddenly, I was frazzled. I lost concentration, and the weight above my chest felt like I was trying to hold up LenDale White after the postgame meal.

Fourteen, or something around there. That’s what I finished with. Not very good, but better than my buddy from Washington, Fred Smoot, who did one during his time at the Combine. Notes were taken by scouts, only adding to my lack of power in their daily reviews. Brutal, folks. I shook my head and went to the back of the line to sit in the cold, steel chair awaiting my arrival. I still had the interviews left and the workout — the real reason for being here in the first place.

Sure, the bench is a tool the league uses to gauge strength, but no one really cares if you run a 4.4 in the 40. That was my goal, and I planned on meeting it in two days.

Tomorrow: Part III of the Combine Series — team interviews.

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