When the Clock Runs Out : 20 NFL Greats Share Their Stories of Hardship and Triumph - Hardcover

Lyon, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1572433396 ISBN 13: 9781572433397

Publisher: Triumph Books, 1999

Synopsis

Football is more than just a sport, it is a way of life.From the grittiness of practice and strategy sessions to the thrill of game days and the power of cheering crowds, football is the glue that holds a professional player's life together. But what happens when you have to face life after football? What happens when the cheering stops? The adjustement to life without football can be traumatic. Some players are prepared and make a seamless transition. Others struggle to make sense of a life that no longer seems to have meaning.

In When the Clock Runs Out, twenty talented NFL players share their private, inspiring stories of football, retirement, and adjustment. Pat Summerall candidly discusses his battle with alcoholism and his triumphant victory over addiction. Dan Reeves takes us on a harrowing journey through heart surgery and an improbable Super Bowl appearance. Thomas "Hollywood' Henderson describes his descent into drug addiction and his soul-cleansing climb to sobriety. These men and other NFL greats are proof of the hold that football can have over a player. They have given themselves heart and soul to the sport, and their lives have been changes because of it. As these stories make clear, football continues to influence them, long after they have removed their helmets and left the playing field for the last time.

About this title

About the Author

Bill Lyon...Syndicated sports columnist Bill Lyon has been a writer for forty-four years and a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist for twenty-seven. Author of three books, member of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, eleven-time Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year and five time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, Bill has won more than eighty national and state awards. He and his wife of 35 years (Ethel) have two sons (Jim and John) two grandsons (Evan and Joshua) and one daughter-n-law (Sandy).

Cynthia Zordich...A freelance sideline photographer, she purposely takes her camera away from the football field and into those places overlooked by other photographers. Her specialty is the candid portrait and so it is the people who play the game rather than the game itself that intrigues her. A graduate of Penn State University, Cynthia knows exactly how the players feel- she is married to twelve-year veteran safety Michael Zordich. They have two sons (Michael Vincent and Alex) and a daughter (Aidan).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"...Michael has played in the league for eleven seasons now. We have never taken one of those seasons for granted, nor have we ever seriously discussed the notion of one of them being the last. We always figure that we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. This off-season the question being asked of Michael is, 'Zordich, you comin' back next year?' His answer has been a consistent, 'I plan on it.' And yes we are-- planning on it, hoping for it. Right now, I'd say we are blowing more and more air into the bubble and getting ready to shut our eyes when it pops. Lots of people have asked me what Michael's going to do when he retires, But lately, I take this question as a personal attack, as if they're suggesting that he is done. When they ask me his age, I imagine them calculating how many years he has left. My guard is constantly up and I know why. I'm running scared. The fact is, Michael would like to play forever. The fact is, nobody does."
-- From Blowing Air Into the Bubble by Cynthia Zordich, wife of veteran Safety Micahel Zordich

"Let go? The ex pitcher Jim Bouton, in his seminal baseball memoir, Ball Four, wrote the epitaph for every professional athlete when he arrived at this poignant, bittersweet conclusion: 'I spent my whole life gripping a baseball, and in the end I found out that all along it was the other way around.' Let Go? Hardly. Retire? Yes. Grudgingly though. With wrenching reluctance. Kicking and Screaming all the way out the door.

More than one of them has vowed: 'They'll have to tear the uniform off me.' Unfortunately that can be arranged. The athlete is the only member of our society who has to die twice. The professional football player makes a faustian bargain with society. He is given a glorious half-life and then just as he is coming into his prime he finds himself ripped from the protective, insular cocoon of a team and dropped, unceremoniously, into the real world. Hero to zero. Just Like that.

The great hockey player Gordie Howe once said, mournfully: 'They teach you how to play the game, but they don't teach you how to leave it.' That's one of the purposes of this book."
--From Letting Go by Author Bill Lyon

"I sat in my car in the parking lot at 4:30 in the morning and that's when it hit me. It's over...I just remember sitting there in the car by myself and crying."
--Rocky Bleier

"What do you do with the rest of your life--when you can no longer do what you were born to do?"
--Ron Wolfley

"I couldn't exist without football."
--Mike Ditka

"This isn't like any other goodbye you'll ever say. People who never played the game can't understand it. This isn't something you can just turn off. It's not like closing a door."
--Tommy McDonald

"Football leaves, and when it does it leaves a hole in you. If you let it happen, you'll start feeling sorry for yourself. You have to find a purpose for living."
--Ronnie Lott

"I don't know if I could have just walked away from the game...I'm not sure what I would have done if I hadn't been able to stay in football."
--Ray Rhodes

"'My high school coach once said,'Stick your foot in a bucket of water, then take it out. The hole that's left is how much you'll be missed.'"
--Todd Christensen

Edition details

• Publisher: Triumph Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1572433396
• ISBN 13: 9781572433397
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304