Coming Back Stronger Part 2

I knelt down on the field, unable to believe what had just happened. I had thrown two interceptions in the last two minutes, erasing the good play of the whole game. I headed into the locker room, still stunned, and sat at my locker. I looked around at the seniors and watched as tears ran from their eyes. We had worked so hard, and now here I was, the soph.o.m.ore quarterback in his fourth start who had just lost the game for everybody. The first win on Notre Dame territory in twenty-five years had been in our grasp, and I had let everyone down. I felt awful.

I started wondering whether I was fit to play at Purdue. Do I belong here? Can I compete at this level? Fortunately I had friends who knew what I needed. That night I went out to eat with my two roommates, Ben Smith and Jason Loerzel. Jason was from Park Ridge, Illinois, and played linebacker. Ben was a quarterback from Nebraska who switched to free safety when he came to Purdue. We all came in during the same year and formed a bond, a brotherhood. We were from very different backgrounds and different parts of the country, but we were like glue.

Jason and Ben insisted we go to C Ray's, a local restaurant with the best chicken wings in town. "You're pretty miserable to be around right now," they said. "Let's order up some C Ray's wings, and we'll relax and let you vent."

That's what we did. Even though I was down, the wings were good. Still, I had trouble letting go of those last two minutes. I knew I was the reason we had lost. It's one thing to start well, but you have to finish-you have to follow through. You have to be able to win the big one and deliver when the game is on the line. But as we talked through the feelings, I realized that for fifty-eight minutes in the biggest game of my life, I'd played some of my best football. There was so much pressure to perform in that game. I hadn't finished well, but for fifty-eight minutes I'd showed I belonged on that field. That gave me confidence. The gla.s.s was half full. Find the positive out of every negative. That is what I always tried to do.

Jason and Ben helped get me out of my funk and focus on the next game, which was Minnesota at home. It was a misty day-foggy to the point where you almost couldn't see the field from the press box. For home games the team stayed at the hotel in the Union. We'd get up in the morning and walk about a half mile to the stadium as a team. To everybody else that day may have seemed dreary, but for me it felt like there was energy in the air. It felt like a fresh start, and the mist was bringing in a brand-new opportunity. I was going to show people what I had inside. I wasn't going to let the last two minutes of the Notre Dame game wreck my future.

That dinner at C Ray's was a proverbial fork in the road for me. I realized I could focus on my mistakes and feel sorry for myself, or I could learn from those mistakes and use them as motivation to come back stronger. Under pressure, would I fold and disappear, or would I show everyone that when bad things happen, you fight? I wanted to prove to my team that they could count on me and that I was the guy who could lead them.

In the game against Minnesota, I went thirty-one for thirty-six, with 522 yards and six touchdowns, until Coach Tiller pulled me after the third quarter. We were winning the game 5614 at the time, and he wanted to get the young guys some action. All those stats were school records, and we could have gone for the NCAA record books if we'd wanted to, but running up the score is not how you play the game. In reality, the outcome of the Notre Dame game wasn't those two interceptions and the loss. It was the way it motivated me to play the next week-and helped me to turn a corner in my college career.

We went 94 that season and beat fourth-ranked Kansas State 3734 in the Alamo Bowl. But we still hadn't made it to the Rose Bowl. That had been my ultimate goal as an incoming freshman. I knew the road to get there would not be easy, but anything worth fighting for never is.

Fixing What You Break.

Two years later, I was a senior, and we were playing Ohio State. We'd had a frustrating year in 1999, going 75 and making it to the Outback Bowl but losing to a talented Georgia team in overtime. Now it was a new season, a new millennium, and there were great hopes that this was going to be our year.

We started out with a disappointing 32 record. We had two heartbreaking road losses to Penn State and Notre Dame-both by just two points. The next game was in West Lafayette against Michigan, who was ranked sixth. Then we had to go on the road against Wisconsin and Northwestern, both ranked in the top twenty. After that we'd play at home against Ohio State, another top ten team. And we hadn't beaten Michigan and Ohio State in forever, it seemed. Looking at this schedule could have been overwhelming, but that's why the philosophy always needs to be one game at a time. Never look too far ahead, or you will end up tripping over something right in front of you. We could do this. We had to do this. We had no other choice if we wanted to be called champions.

The first victim was Michigan, and it was a wild game-we won with a last-second field goal, 3231. We then went to Northwestern and won. Next we traveled to Wisconsin and won in overtime. The team was rolling, and we were ready for the showdown: Ohio State at Purdue. We were ranked sixteen, they were twelve, and everybody was saying, "This game is for the Rose Bowl." Whoever won that game had to win only one more game to clinch the Big Ten t.i.tle.

It was a late October night-a great night for football. The Purdue fans were into the game, and everyone was pumped to beat Ohio State. But we didn't start well. Going into the fourth quarter, we were losing 2010, and I had thrown three interceptions. This was not what I'd envisioned for this game. We had moved the ball well offensively; we just kept turning it over at the worst times. But in spite of all that, in the fourth quarter we were down only two scores.

We started the fourth quarter with the ball and drove down the field. I threw a touchdown pa.s.s to wide receiver John Standeford: 2017, Ohio State. We got the ball back, and I threw another touchdown pa.s.s, this time to wide receiver Vinny Sutherland. Now we were winning 2420 with about six minutes left in the game. The fans were going wild. The defense stepped up, and we got the ball back with a chance to run out the clock.

We ran a few plays and watched the clock. It could not tick down fast enough. The number one priority in this situation was to take care of the football. Whatever we did, we couldn't give them a short field or any momentum with a turnover. The next play I dropped back to pa.s.s and was immediately flushed out of the pocket by a blitzing linebacker running free up the middle. I scrambled to my right and thought, Be smart. Throw the ball away. As I pulled the ball back to throw it away, my foot slipped and the ball fluttered in the air toward the sideline. It didn't go out-of-bounds like I'd intended-it sailed. I watched in horror as the strong safety, Mike Doss, intercepted it and ran it down the sideline. I couldn't believe this was happening. Practically on autopilot, I chased him down and knocked him out-of-bounds at the two yard line. In the process, I almost knocked myself out.

Dazed, I tried to get up onto one knee. What did I just do?

Ohio State celebrated around me, and our defense came out. I headed back to the sideline and watched as, a couple of plays later, the Buckeyes scored a touchdown to go up 2724 with a little over two minutes left in the game. Some players tapped me and said, "It's okay," or "Go win the game for us." But other than that people pretty much left me alone.

As I did between most drives in the game, I got on the phone with my quarterbacks coach, Greg Olson, who was positioned up in the press box. "Shake it off. Focus on the next series. You are going to win this game for us-you watch."

It was eerie how similar this felt to that Notre Dame game two years earlier, but I had learned from that experience. Finally defensive end Warren "Ike" Moore came up to me. He was a senior, too, and a guy who really didn't get a lot of playing time. But he was a well-respected, quiet leader on the team. He put his arm around me and said something I'll never forget.

"You broke it. Now go out and fix it."

For some reason that made sense. It had been my mistake, but I had time to make up for that mistake. Instead of kicking myself or replaying the interception, I focused on the task at hand. One thing you learn quickly is that great quarterbacks must have short-term memories when it comes to things like this. Good or bad, you have to be able to finish a play, push it aside, and move on to the next one. You can never let a play from the past affect the present. Your job is to play in the moment.

Ohio State kicked off, and I went out onto the field. I was feeling the pressure, but it was that pressure that gave me an edge. I was focused and determined and maintained the philosophy of one play at a time. Trust yourself. Trust your teammates. Trust the progression. I threw the first pa.s.s, but it was batted down by the defense. Okay, shake it off. Second and ten. Our offensive coordinator, Jim Chaney, then called a routine play-one of my favorites. In this play there are four receivers to throw the ball to. Ninety percent of the time the ball goes to the first or second receiver. The third receiver gets the ball about 10 percent of the time. And then there's the guy on the outside who runs a post route to clear out the defense. He never gets the ball, except maybe one play in a thousand.

I dropped back and went through my progression. This drill was ingrained in me. You practice it; you visualize it; you go through each receiver methodically and decide yes or no. If any receiver in the progression is open, you pull the trigger. I read the first receiver on a hitch to my left, and he was covered. The second receiver, running a seam route down the left numbers, was covered too. Next I looked at the seam route running right down the middle of the field, and the defense was all over him. All three were a no go.

Then I scanned for the fourth option-the one I never threw to. He was open-and I mean wide open! In a split second, my mind said, Turn it loose. The ball came out of my hand, and Seth Morales caught it for a sixty-four-yard touchdown. We won the game 3127.

Overcome with emotion, I went down on one knee. "Thank you, Lord." My offensive linemen came over and picked me up.

The left tackle, Matt Light, who now has a great career with the New England Patriots, including three Super Bowl rings, was one of the first ones there. He grabbed me under my shoulder pads and lifted me off the ground while screaming in my face, "That is what makes you great! That is what makes you great!" What a moment. I loved my offensive line. Most of them were seniors, and we had set out on this journey together. That's what made the experience so special-being able to share it with people like them.

After four years of hard work, we finally had a chance to win the Big Ten championship and go to the Rose Bowl. We could have given up when Ohio State scored the touchdown. I could have beaten myself up over the mistake. But I was given the opportunity to make it right, to fix it.

We fixed it together.

Not long ago I talked with Coach Jim Tressel, who has coached Ohio State since 2001. He said, "I'll never forget what you did to Ohio State in that game in 2000. In fact, I might not have this job if it weren't for that play." John Cooper was the head coach at Ohio State that year, and he was let go after that season.

"I guess everything happens for a reason, doesn't it, Coach?" I said.

Chapter Three.

Girl Meets Idiot Quarterback.

In high school and in college, I was the kind of guy who was friends with everybody. I dated a lot of girls, but I never found anyone I wanted to be serious with. My longest relationship up to that point had probably lasted no more than a couple of months. School and athletics consumed me. When I got to Purdue, I was even more lasered in on football and academics. I was an industrial management major with a manufacturing minor. Everyone knows Purdue is one of the top ten engineering schools in the country, but most people don't realize that the Krannert School of Management at Purdue is in the top ten among business schools at public universities. My course work upheld Purdue's reputation as the Ivy League of the Midwest.

I started off the first semester of my freshman year with a 3.5 GPA, but that fell off significantly in the spring with a 2.6 GPA, due in large part to my pledgeship responsibilities with Sigma Chi fraternity. But no excuses. I needed to suck it up. I continued on a pretty good pace with my cla.s.ses until the spring of my soph.o.m.ore year, when I made a D in one of the most important management courses. This put my GPA right around a 3.2, which wasn't all bad, except that in order to be considered for Academic All-American, you have to have at least a 3.25 GPA. That was one of my goals, and I was not about to let Management 201 get the best of me.

I very easily could have moved on to the next prerequisite courses for my major, but the D did not sit well with me. That was the first and only D I'd ever made in my life. When summer school rolled around, I enrolled in the course again. It was time to seek my redemption. I needed a B to hit the 3.25 mark for Academic All-American, and when it came time for the final, I was right on the bubble. I had to get a B on the test-there was no other option. I studied and prepared as much as I could, and after the two-hour exam, I had to wait a full day for the results. I was chomping at the bit, but when the score came back, I had aced the final with a 100 percent. My final grade for the course was an A. I was able to keep up the Academic All-American t.i.tle throughout my time at Purdue.

With all that was on my mind with academics and football, I didn't let myself dream of getting married and settling down yet. I was too focused on everything else. But I'll tell you the truth: the minute I saw Brittany, I told myself, I'm going to marry that woman. Of course, she didn't feel that way about me, because I made a fool of myself the first time I met her.

It was January 15, 1999, my twentieth birthday. I was with a bunch of players who lived at an apartment complex near school, and we were feeling pretty invincible that night, having partaken of a few adult beverages to celebrate my birthday. I'm not proud of it, but that's what we sometimes did on a night out with the fellas. I remember seeing Brittany from twenty feet away, walking across the parking lot toward the apartment. She was with a friend of hers who knew one of the guys on our team. I just stared at her and wondered, Who is that? She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. And look at the way she carries herself. It's hard to describe the feeling that came over me at that moment. My legs became weak, my mind halted, and my heart just melted. I knew right then that I wanted to marry her.

At one point during the evening I got up enough nerve to talk with her. I was acting stupid because of the alcohol, throwing out every cheesy pickup line in the book. It's humiliating to even recall it. I remember Brittany looking at me and just shaking her head before she simply walked away.

I found out later that when I left, she was thinking, Who is this young idiot who's so full of himself? Somebody told her I was the quarterback of the football team, to which she responded, "Then who is this young idiot football player who's so full of himself?" Turns out my cheesy pickup lines had sent her running, and the fact that I played football pretty much solidified I would never get a shot again. Football players don't have the greatest reputation for being good boyfriends, and she wanted nothing to do with me.

When I woke up the next day, my head was pounding and I was kicking myself. I'm such a jerk. I blew it. I figured I'd probably never see her again. Actually I hoped I wouldn't run into her because of how embarra.s.sed I felt. I was sure I'd ruined any opportunity to get to know her.

However, for the next six months I saw Brittany everywhere. On the way to cla.s.s, out to eat somewhere, at a party, in the library-wherever I went, she was there. On a campus with thirty-five thousand students, this was no small feat. I wasn't sure why this was happening, but to me it seemed like more than chance. To hear Brittany's version of things, she figured I was a full-blown stalker at that point. She thought I was creepy; I was sure it was destiny.

Every time I saw her, I watched from across the room (okay, so maybe a little creepy), thinking, I really want to talk to her, but she thinks I'm an idiot. I might have been confident on the football field, but I was really shy in these kinds of situations. I started scheming ways to make up for my embarra.s.sing first impression. The truth was, even though I'd been drinking the night I first met her, I didn't go out a lot. I wasn't a big partyer. I was grateful to be at a good school, and I was focused on my education and my commitment to the football team. Now I just had to get Brittany to see that.

Six months later I was going to summer school and heading into summer training. Brittany was there for the summer too since she had a job there. On June 25, I was invited to a friend's apartment, and one of the guys from the team went with me. It was our first night back from break, just before we started our practice schedule in the Midwest heat. I was talking to some guys and having a great time but was about to call it a night because of some early commitments I had the next day. Just then Brittany walked in the door with two of her friends. This was it-my chance at redemption.

For all this time I'd been scared to talk to her. But maybe, just maybe, enough time had pa.s.sed to make her forget my stupid behavior in January. As the crowd mingled, Brittany's two friends left her side long enough for me to make my move. I kind of snuck up to her and confidently said h.e.l.lo, pretending we were meeting for the first time.

Sure enough, she hadn't forgotten. I couldn't quite place the look on her face. Was she surprised? startled? maybe even a little scared? Regardless, I had her cornered, and she was forced to talk to me. I introduced myself and started over.

With the loud music and conversation, I knew this wasn't the best place to get to know her. I wanted to find out more about her, and I really wanted her to know I wasn't a jerk. My strategy was to get to a place where we could be alone and talk.

"Where are you guys going?" I asked Brittany and her friends. I knew they lived in an apartment complex a few miles away. Maybe I could finagle my way into driving her home and having a little more time with her.

"Oh, we're just going back to our apartment. I need to get some sleep." Little did she know that I had several friends who lived near her in the same apartment complex. I also knew that everyone was headed back there to go swimming. She was trying to get rid of me, but it wasn't working.

I looked at my watch. "Yeah, it is getting late. Well, I was going to head over anyway to go swimming with my friends. Can I catch a ride with you?"

"I don't think so," she said. "I probably shouldn't be driving."

"Well, at least I could drive you home so you don't have to come back for your car tomorrow."

She winced. "No thanks."

"Really, it's no problem. I'll drive your car back."

"It's a stick. I'm sure you don't know how to drive it," she said, feeling pretty confident that this would end the conversation and she would be rid of me.

"Oh, sure," I lied. I'd never driven a standard in my life.

She finally relented. "Okay. I guess you can drive my car and just drop us at home."

"Okay, cool."

We got to her car, which was a 1990 Toyota Celica twin turbo in two shades of red. It had been in an accident at some point, and the front left fender had been repainted a slightly different shade from the rest of the car since Brittany had to pay for the repairs herself.

We got to the car, and I put the key in. I felt as nervous at that moment as in any game against a Big Ten opponent. I knew enough to push in the clutch, but I wasn't sure what to do next. I got the car started and tried to figure out how to put it in reverse.

"Are you sure you've driven a stick before?" she said.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm just not used to how loose this clutch is. It's different."

I started sweating. Don't ruin this. This is your one chance to make up for being such an idiot. I got us out of the parking lot, and we began jerking down the street. I pulled to a stop sign, and we stalled. Brittany just stared at me.

"Don't worry; we're fine," I said.

It took me half an hour to drive to her apartment-a drive that should have taken only about five minutes. At one point during our whiplashed road trip, I heard Brittany's head hit the window as I gunned the car forward. I looked over hesitantly, but to my relief Brittany was laughing so hard, there were tears coming down her face. Maybe she was coming around and starting to appreciate my effort, or I had just given her a concussion and she wouldn't remember this ride home in the morning. Either scenario could work to my advantage.

Somehow, someway, I got us to her place in one piece. I handed her the keys and told her I was going to meet my friends at the pool and I'd love for her to join us. I really didn't know if she would show up or not. But a few minutes later, there she was, along with her roommate. I felt like I was slowly making progress. After we swam for a while, I asked Brittany if I could use her apartment to change into my dry clothes. She agreed, and I walked her and her roommate back to their apartment. We ended up sitting in her place and talking for hours. We watched the sun come up. And we found we had so many things in common-our love for traveling, our families, the faith and beliefs we shared, how many children we wanted, and on and on. Brittany had been raised in the Episcopal church, and with my faith having really blossomed at St. Andrew's Episcopal School, we had very similar beliefs. I hoped she was starting to see that I really wasn't this cheeseball who had hit on her six months earlier. I was a decent guy, not the "typical football player" that people have preconceived notions about.

I didn't tell her that night because I didn't want to freak her out, but I was sure of it now: I was going to marry this girl. Brittany drove me home-I guess she'd had enough of my driving-and I called my mom the next day to tell her I had met the woman of my dreams.

Neither one of us had seen this coming. Just six months earlier, Brittany had had a two-year dating relationship end badly. She had been pretty hurt and was still working through some trust issues. She was going into her senior year and had no intention of meeting anyone new, let alone starting a relationship. I was only twenty, and I had a full life with football, school, and hanging out with my friends. It was a shock for both of us to be knocked off our feet over each other. But the more time we spent together, the more we talked and shared, the more we were convinced that we were meant to be together. I remember at one point telling her about my injury in high school and how it had been a turning point in my life. She said, "That which does not kill you makes you stronger." That quote really struck a chord with me. She was right. Little did we both know it was going to be a theme in our lives.

There are so many similarities between us, but I was also intrigued by our differences. I believe G.o.d made us different so we'd be more fully one. He brought us together with our similarities, but the differences helped bond us as well. That might seem counterintuitive, but it's true.

Brittany has certain weaknesses where I have strengths, and I have weaknesses where she is strong. We complete and complement each other. For example, Brittany would admit she will eat anything with chocolate on it (while I am a pretty healthy eater), has horrible penmanship, has the mouth of a truck driver, hates to do math (even though she worked at a bank and can do it), and can't spell to save her life. She'll be texting, and in the middle of the message she'll ask me how to spell a street name or a difficult word. For me it's no problem. I was born spelling and computing.

My weak points are putting too much on my calendar (I say yes to everything and then don't have time for anything), cooking (I believe that surprising Brittany with a meal means bringing home takeout), and communication. I hate hurting people I care about, so I don't say the things that bother me until they build up and become a much bigger issue than they would have been had I just addressed it at the time. I'm also the kind of person who will spring things on Brittany and a.s.sume she knows what's going on when I haven't really talked about it until that point. Like "Hey, babe, Sports Ill.u.s.trated is doing a photo shoot at our house today-can you clean up the house and be ready in forty-five minutes?" She loves when I do that to her. Those are the times flowers are soon to follow.

One of the things I admire about Brittany is the way she's in touch with her feelings and other people's too. She has an innate ability to read people and connect with them, and I try to learn from her. She has a knack for meeting someone and really understanding who they are and, a lot of times, what their intentions are.

At Purdue my coaches taught me how important progression is. I had to read the defense, find my receivers, and become the best team player I could be. I did everything I could to win, but I also needed to fight through the losses and learn from them. It was the same with Brittany.

For my final two years at Purdue, my family stayed with Brittany for every home game. She was forced to witness firsthand how divorced parents deal with having to see each other every weekend during the football season. She was thrown into the "custody battle" pretty fast and had to rotate who she sat with at the games. Then on Sundays we would get up and have breakfast with one parent and lunch with the other. It was not an option to all be at the same table together without snide comments or eye rolling. It was pretty stressful for her because it seemed that both parties were trying to get her to pick a side. I remember many nights when we would come home from a dinner with one parent or the other and she would be crying, not knowing how to handle the situation. I was used to this way of life, but it was all foreign to Brittany, who is extremely close to her immediate family as well as her extended family. I would simply ignore the fighting and let the two sides battle it out like they had always done. I was just told where to be and when once the dust settled.

The older I got, the more difficult it became for me to witness the bitterness between my parents. I felt like I needed to start making my own decisions and believed that by doing that, there would be less fighting. This coming-of-age did not go over smoothly. Although I'm sure this process of a.s.serting independence is an issue in every parent-child relationship, unfortunately it was what began the deterioration of my relationship with my mother.

During my senior year I begged Brittany to stay in West Lafayette while I finished school. Although she had already graduated, her plans of going out into the working world were put on hold while I tried to accomplish my final goals as a student athlete. I couldn't imagine not having her there for every game and every special moment. She worked full-time as a travel agent, paying all the bills. My scholarship check was enough to get us dinner at Bruno's, a local pizza joint, once a month, and that was pretty much it.

Brittany and I leaned on each other during that time and grew up together over the next few years. But we had no idea what we were getting into. Early on we committed ourselves to each other, and we decided that no matter what happened, we were going to work through any hard times we faced. We would fight together. Quitting or giving up on each other was never an option. Without her I wouldn't be where I am today.

I didn't know how important that lesson would be until I made it to the NFL.

Chapter Four.

Charging Ahead.

Those were good years at Purdue. Just as I'd dreamed, we made it to the Rose Bowl my senior year. We fought hard and won the Big Ten, and then we finally found ourselves at the big game. We played the Washington Huskies, and it was tight almost the whole game. The Huskies scored twenty points in the second half, and we ended up losing 3424. It was a big disappointment to the team, but we were thrilled to have left our mark on the "granddaddy" of all bowl games. Along the way I was nominated twice for the Heisman Trophy, finishing fourth in 1999 and third in 2000.

In what seemed like no time at all, I was getting ready for the NFL draft. In February 2001, I partic.i.p.ated in the Scouting Combine, where players are poked and prodded and sized up in virtually any way you can imagine. If your knees and shoulders and ankles don't hurt when you get there, they do by the time you leave, after all the team doctors yank on your joints. They make you feel like a piece of meat.

To test physical speed and agility, players run a forty-yard dash, the 5-10-5 shuttle, and the L drill. The scouts even clock your throws with a radar gun-similar to what police officers use when they give you a speeding ticket on the highway. I wasn't breaking any speeding laws in terms of arm strength. I think my fastest throw was around 60 mph. Then you go through multiple interviews with coaches who pry into just about every subject, trying to find out how much you understand about the game as well as what your personality is like and what kind of guy you are.

A few of those interviews stick out in my mind. d.i.c.k Vermeil of the Chiefs asked me a lot of questions, none of which I remember because I was too busy staring at his Super Bowl ring. He'd won it with the Rams a few years earlier. I really wanted one of those. Meeting with offensive coordinator Norv Turner of the Chargers was another key interview. I could really feel his interest in me as a player and a person, and that sense was confirmed when Norv, Chargers head coach Mike Riley, general manager John Butler, and a few other scouts came to Purdue a few weeks later to give me a personal workout. I think I took him back when I asked what they were going to do with Ryan Leaf, whom the Chargers had drafted three years earlier with the second pick but who didn't seem like a good fit for San Diego. He told me that was none of my business, and then I watched as they released him a week later. That was when I knew they might be drafting a quarterback.

The last memorable interview came with a young quarterbacks coach from the Washington Redskins named Brian Schottenheimer. It was his first year as an NFL coach, and he was only a little older than I was. Little did I know that someday he would coach me for four years in San Diego and become one of my great friends and mentors. Funny how things work out.

It was an exhausting day, but overall I had a positive feeling about how everything had gone. I must admit, though, that I was tired of answering the same questions about my short stature and the fact that I had played in a spread offense almost exclusively in the shotgun my whole college career. Would I be able to adapt to an NFL offense where I would be under center the majority of the time? I kept rea.s.suring them that they had no need to worry-I was pretty sure I could take a snap from under center. In all seriousness, they could watch the film, talk to my coaches, talk to those I played with and against. I tried to give them everything they needed to see and hear. Now there was only one thing left to do: wait for draft day.

On April 21, the air seemed to be filled with electricity. Brittany and I were waiting for the results in my apartment along with Tim Layden, a writer for Sports Ill.u.s.trated, who was doing a draft profile on me. Brittany had saved up her money to surprise me by flying in my brother, Reid, to also share in the moment with us. I was frying up some fish in the deep fryer and watching the draft on ESPN.

Being a compet.i.tive person, I was really counting on going in the first round, at as high a number as possible. I knew very well that's how a player's worth is measured. If you're the number one pick, or in the top five or top ten, you're deemed one of the best prospects in the league. There's a big difference between the contract of the first pick and the seventh, between the tenth pick and the twentieth.

New England had talked with me about taking me as their sixth pick, and I knew San Diego, who held the fifth pick after a trade with Atlanta, was also interested in me, so I thought I would go pretty high. In the first round, San Diego chose LaDainian Tomlinson. I figured that was it for my chances to play for the Chargers. But I still felt fairly confident I would go as the sixth pick to New England-until they chose Richard Seymour instead.

There were about six other teams who said they might draft me if I was available in the first round. Seattle and Kansas City showed a lot of interest early but traded for Matt Ha.s.selbeck and Trent Green, respectively, prior to the draft. Carolina and Jacksonville had draft picks in the teens and had both seen me throw lights out at my pro day in March at Purdue. Neither one was meant to be. Players like Michael Vick, Santana Moss, and Deuce McAllister, whom I would team up with later in New Orleans, were all drafted ahead of me. I listened as the names were announced all the way through the teens and into the twenties. That left Miami with the twenty-sixth pick.

I had been told by numerous sources, but most significantly Coach Tiller, who had a friend in the Dolphins organization, that if I was still available at that point, they would definitely draft me. I stood by the phone, ready for the call that would say, "Congratulations-welcome to South Florida!" But the call never came. I checked the ringer to make sure the phone was working. Sure enough, that was not meant to be either.

I was frustrated and a little hurt-not so much by the fact that I wasn't a first-round pick, but more so because I thought I had been lied to. The fact of the matter is, you can't believe a thing most teams tell you on draft day. I didn't realize at the time how much goes on behind the scenes. It looks like a pretty exact science, but it's not. Emotions are high and last-minute information is getting thrown around right up until the draft decisions are made. As the first round neared an end, it became obvious that I would not be drafted by any of the remaining teams. They didn't need a quarterback. I then saw a familiar team pop up on the draft board.

San Diego had the first pick in the second round. Little did I know they had actually tried to trade up to get me late in the first round, but no one would trade with them. They were sure that I wouldn't be available to them in the second round. But there I was, still watching, still waiting.