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Chapter 15: Meat Market
 By Jim Caple |
State College’s Kenan Hill, one of the best linebackers in the nation, suffered a concussion on a helmet-to-helmet play early in the season and has had recurring memory problems. . . .
Kenan was in the middle of an anxiety dream – in the dream, he needed to tackle a quarterback on a bootleg but he simply could not get his legs to react; it was if he were running through wet cement – when the camp drill scout awoke him by banging a helmet around the inside of a garbage can.
Drop your @$%& and grab your playbooks,’’ the scout shouted at the dazed football players. “It’s D-Day.’’
The pro football leagues annual scouting combine was always a humiliating process but it was especially so this year. Looking to launch its new 24/7 cable channel and realizing that the draft was a vast crap shoot anyway – the number of first-round picks who really made a difference in a franchises performance was embarrassingly low -- the league decided to televise the week-long combine but with a reality show twist. In addition to the intense, pervasive testing and scouting, the potential draft picks were also thrown together into an enormous dorm somewhere in the midwest. Each night, the players were weeded out by how they fared in that day’s tests and drills, with a scout from each team voting a group of players out of the combine.
Those voted out were sequestered to a separate floor and assigned to a corresponding low round of the draft. The ones who scored highest remained in the running for the drafts first round. To heighten the drama, the league determined that contract salaries and signing bonuses for first-rounders would range from $2 million to $10 million. The dollar figures for second-rounders, however, ranged from $100,000 to just $300,000. The vast differences placed enormous pressure on the players to test as high as possible. The resulting competition and stress not only created a well publicized show with extraordinary ratings, it also introduced fans to the players, turning them into stars before the draft.
The league called the show “Meat Market.’’
Kenan survived the first day of “Meat Market,’’ Measuring Day, in which the league measured and weighed the players in every possible fashion. It calculated both their body fat and body lean. It checked their helmet size, waistline, shoe size, glove size and inseam. It measured their vertical leaps and their reach. It took their temperatures and screened them for tuberculosis, gonorrhea and tooth decay. It counted their tattoos and evaluated the designs, fonts and ink colors for personality traits and possible gang affiliations. It checked their vision, their hearing and even their breath (league studies showed that players with particularly noxious halitosis proved unpopular teammates and often had trouble with signals in the huddle).
He also survived Speed Day as well when he league timed the players running 15-, 40-, 60-, 75-, 82- and 94-yard dashes, plus the mile and the 10K, and also timed them running forward, backward, blindfolded, through sand dunes and over hot coals. And he excelled in Strength Day when the league counted how many times they could bench-press 200 pounds, how much total weight they could arm-curl, bench-press, dead-lift and leg-press, how far they could carry a refrigerator filled with the sponsors beer, how far they could tow an SUV loaded with an entire posse.
The day that gave him trouble, oddly, was the day he expected little problem – IQ Day. It was a day filled with mental testing, beginning a 120-question IQ quiz, followed by a 200-question personality test, Rorschach ink blot tests and a phrenology reading of bumps on the skull. Kenan expected to do well, not just because he was a pretty sharp, but because he had really dedicated himself to his studies in the past year or so, raising his GPA to a 3.4 and putting himself on track to graduate on time (putting him among the minority of players on “Meat Market.)
The trouble was a return of the memory loss that had been a recurring problem ever since he suffered the concussion earlier in the season. It hadn’t been a problem much recently, not since the season ended, but during a drill on Strength Day he had banged his helmet against one of the cement trucks the players were supposed to push uphill. Kenan was bothered by a bad headache most of the night and had a difficult time recalling bits of information that he should have been able to spit out instinctively. He struggled throughout the IQ test, constantly feeling that the answers were on the tip of his tongue, but he could get them no further.
That in turn, left him frustrated on the ensuing personality tests, further lowering his score. He barely made it out of the round and suddenly worried that he would not qualify as a first-round pick – and the v ast wealth that went with it.
“What day did he say today was?’’ asked Austin Rochester, the quarterback in the bunk next to Kenan.
“D Day,’’ Kenan said, rubbing his face as he rose from his cot. “This is it. The last day. The day we find out whether we’re set for life financially.’’
The day dragged. The players ran through a few light contact drills – they were tested on how they looked in various home and road uniforms – but most of the day was spent answering questions about how the week had gone, reflecting on their highlights, regrets and competition. Then they were served a big meal and called back to the set for the final scene.
The 60 players took the stage, standing in a long chorus line. The league commissioner walked into the auditorium, followed by the various scouts. They all sat behind a conference table and confidently looked over their notes.
“Hello, players,’’ the commissioner said to the potential draft picks. “Congratulations. Yo u’ve reached the final showdown. You all will get drafted by the league . . . but for some of you lies a path of untold riches while some of you will face a life of difficulty. Half of you will be first-round draft picks earning a minimum of $2 million. The other half will be second-round picks earning far less. If that sounds unfair, get used to it. That’s the way life is in our league.’’
The commissioner furrowed his brow and pretended to look very, very serious. He enjoyed this. For all his success and renown as commissioner, it was too seldom that he appeared on TV. He paused for effect and the players became even more nervous, shifting their weight awkwardly and sneaking smells of their perspiring armpits.
“All right, then, let us begin,’’ the commissioner said finally, looking down at a clipboard. “Kenan Hill, will you please step forward.’’
Next: I Know What You Did Last Semester
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