ARCHIE MANNING
These were pre-historic years. You’ve heard of BC and AC? I call this era BE (Before ESPN became a household acronym).
In the spring of 1980, my dormitory mailbox at Memphis State University was overloaded. I actually had the mail attendant keep a special large box for me because the small slot afforded to students wasn’t large enough for all the mail I was getting from professional football teams and agents as the NFL draft approached. An endless cavalcade of questionnaires from the likes of the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals; offers to make me an overnight millionaire and first round draft choice from every player representative that owned a pair of tasseled loafers; and interview requests from local media outlets were almost too much to take, and for sure too numerous to answer.
I was eagerly buying into the hype, wondering what Mercedes Benz I was going to buy with the huge signing bonus I was sure to receive once my name was called by then Commissioner Pete Rozelle at the NFL draft podium in NYC. Even though I was considered a high risk “project” because of my playing only two years of organized football in college (and no high school football at all), many football publications and prognosticators had me rated as high as the 5th, 6th, or 7th tight end in the draft because of my size, speed, and moderate success in college. Several agents would tell me their “influence” with teams might even pump me up to a 2nd or 3rd round draft choice, so I would lie in bed salivating on my pillow as the April draft approached. The Memphis media caught on to the frenzy, and I promised several TV and radio stations interviews once my name was selected.
As I said, this was pre ESPN wall to wall coverage and pre cell phone. You would give the teams a phone number where you could be reached on draft day, and you damn sure better be by it when it rang. So I set up shop in my dorm room on that fateful day of April 29, 1980 to await my fortune and the call of a lifetime. The draft was starting about 9am, so I set my alarm clock at 7 just to make sure I was up and alert when the call came. And I waited…
The first came about 10am, and it only rang for about 3 tenths of a second before I picked it up. Expecting to hear the voice of a GM or player personnel director, it was my mother asking me who had selected me. “Ma, no one has picked me yet! It’s still the first round. I will call you when I know something!” and hurriedly hung up the phone so I didn’t tie up the line. The next call came about 11:30, this time from my sixteen year old brother Mike asking me the same question; only I could hear my mother’s voice prompting him in the background. “Nothing yet…now stop calling me!” I responded. A little insensitive yes, but the pressure was building here.
Lunchtime was here, and still no call. Not knowing if the draft took a lunch break, I decided to order a delivery pizza so I didn’t have to leave the phone. The pizza arrived at 1:30, but still no call. It’s amazing what nervous energy can do to a neurotic person's appetite. I ate the entire pie in about twenty minutes. The phone remained silent.
It was now dinner time. My friends and teammates who had enjoyed the beautiful southern spring weather by playing Frisbee and drinking beer in the park were stopping by to see me. I’m sure they were appalled by the sight of my dark circled eyes as I peered out the crack in the door and ushered them away while I waited. “I wonder how long the draft goes on the first day?” was my thought as I prepared to order another delivery pizza for dinner. “I know, I’ll switch from sausage to pepperoni”, I said to myself and prepared to drown my sorrows in carbohydrates and mozzarella cheese.
At about 10pm I gave up for the day, but didn’t dare go out and face the intense questioning that awaited me from fellow students and friends. I just figured I would be chosen early on the second day and have to settle for a BMW as a consolation prize. The local news had the draft results on the nightly sportscast, and only four tight ends had been chosen in the first three rounds. My spirits were replenished! “It’s only a matter of time now” I said as I laid my exasperated head down to try and get some sleep.
The alarm clock went off as scheduled at 7am the next morning, and knowing that the draft didn’t start until 9 I decided to leave my room for the first time in 24 hours and eat breakfast in the cafeteria. Luckily, early Sunday morning isn’t prime time activity wise for college students, so I ate my oatmeal in sublime anonymity as I prepared for my glorious moment. I was back in my room at 8:30, just in case Tom Landry or Chuck Knox needed to get hold of me.
It was lunchtime now, and still no call. I decided the best remedy for this dilemma was Chinese food, so I ordered some egg “on my face” foo young to be delivered and help me through this ridiculous ordeal. At 3pm the phone finally rang. It was a local radio station reaming me out for not giving them the draft interview I had promised them. When I explained I hadn’t been drafted yet, he meekly conveyed his mea culpa and gently hung up the phone.
At 4:30 PM the phone rang again. It was the New Orleans Saints…finally I was drafted! But wait, it was the GM telling me that they had me highly rated but the draft was almost over. If I didn’t get drafted, would I consider flying down to New Orleans and signing with them as a free agent? I was crushed but tried to maintain some semblance of civility. “Sure”, I said. “Give me a call.” That same call was repeated with two other teams. The Eagles and Rams expressed the same interest. So when the final draft bell rang and my 48 hours of brutal torture was over, I hurriedly agreed to get out of town as fast as I could and visit the teams. Escape would be my salvation. First stop would be New Orleans, Louisiana.
I arrived at the airport to a reception of one. A local ball boy had been given the task to pick me up and take me to team headquarters. While the Saints first round draft choice Stan Brock from the University of Colorado was being shown the French Quarter and eating oysters, I was being shuttled to the team facility in an old van with under inflated tires. All the reporters were gone when I entered the office of the Saints general manager and sat down. He asked me if I had a good flight, but never bothered to take his eyes off the papers on his desk. He then summoned my ball boy/limo drive/personal escort to give me a tour of the facility. We walked into the weight room and there was one lonely figure working out; it was QB Archie Manning.
He waived me over and extended a sweaty hand to shake. I grasped it and asked him why he was the only one there working out. “Good question”, he answered, “maybe because I want to win worse than anybody else here.” We chatted for a bit as he pitched the company line and tried to recruit me to sign there. We said our goodbyes, and he went back to the vigorous exercise. His son Peyton Manning was 4 years old at the time, and Eli Manning hadn’t yet been born.
As it turned out, I signed with the Philadelphia Eagles as a rookie free agent, and made the 1980 NFC Championship team. My signing bonus was a whopping $4,000. Not quite enough for the Benz or the BMW, so I settled for a used MGB that I was way too big for and had to sell about a month later. I often thought about Archie Manning that season with some remorse about my being in the right place at the right time, having the opportunity of signing with a winner, and participating on a Super Bowl team so early in my career.
Archie never got his championship, but eventually his sons got it for him. A lot like my draft weekend the prize was a long time coming, but in the end… it was worth the wait.
These were pre-historic years. You’ve heard of BC and AC? I call this era BE (Before ESPN became a household acronym).
In the spring of 1980, my dormitory mailbox at Memphis State University was overloaded. I actually had the mail attendant keep a special large box for me because the small slot afforded to students wasn’t large enough for all the mail I was getting from professional football teams and agents as the NFL draft approached. An endless cavalcade of questionnaires from the likes of the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals; offers to make me an overnight millionaire and first round draft choice from every player representative that owned a pair of tasseled loafers; and interview requests from local media outlets were almost too much to take, and for sure too numerous to answer.
I was eagerly buying into the hype, wondering what Mercedes Benz I was going to buy with the huge signing bonus I was sure to receive once my name was called by then Commissioner Pete Rozelle at the NFL draft podium in NYC. Even though I was considered a high risk “project” because of my playing only two years of organized football in college (and no high school football at all), many football publications and prognosticators had me rated as high as the 5th, 6th, or 7th tight end in the draft because of my size, speed, and moderate success in college. Several agents would tell me their “influence” with teams might even pump me up to a 2nd or 3rd round draft choice, so I would lie in bed salivating on my pillow as the April draft approached. The Memphis media caught on to the frenzy, and I promised several TV and radio stations interviews once my name was selected.
As I said, this was pre ESPN wall to wall coverage and pre cell phone. You would give the teams a phone number where you could be reached on draft day, and you damn sure better be by it when it rang. So I set up shop in my dorm room on that fateful day of April 29, 1980 to await my fortune and the call of a lifetime. The draft was starting about 9am, so I set my alarm clock at 7 just to make sure I was up and alert when the call came. And I waited…
The first came about 10am, and it only rang for about 3 tenths of a second before I picked it up. Expecting to hear the voice of a GM or player personnel director, it was my mother asking me who had selected me. “Ma, no one has picked me yet! It’s still the first round. I will call you when I know something!” and hurriedly hung up the phone so I didn’t tie up the line. The next call came about 11:30, this time from my sixteen year old brother Mike asking me the same question; only I could hear my mother’s voice prompting him in the background. “Nothing yet…now stop calling me!” I responded. A little insensitive yes, but the pressure was building here.
Lunchtime was here, and still no call. Not knowing if the draft took a lunch break, I decided to order a delivery pizza so I didn’t have to leave the phone. The pizza arrived at 1:30, but still no call. It’s amazing what nervous energy can do to a neurotic person's appetite. I ate the entire pie in about twenty minutes. The phone remained silent.
It was now dinner time. My friends and teammates who had enjoyed the beautiful southern spring weather by playing Frisbee and drinking beer in the park were stopping by to see me. I’m sure they were appalled by the sight of my dark circled eyes as I peered out the crack in the door and ushered them away while I waited. “I wonder how long the draft goes on the first day?” was my thought as I prepared to order another delivery pizza for dinner. “I know, I’ll switch from sausage to pepperoni”, I said to myself and prepared to drown my sorrows in carbohydrates and mozzarella cheese.
At about 10pm I gave up for the day, but didn’t dare go out and face the intense questioning that awaited me from fellow students and friends. I just figured I would be chosen early on the second day and have to settle for a BMW as a consolation prize. The local news had the draft results on the nightly sportscast, and only four tight ends had been chosen in the first three rounds. My spirits were replenished! “It’s only a matter of time now” I said as I laid my exasperated head down to try and get some sleep.
The alarm clock went off as scheduled at 7am the next morning, and knowing that the draft didn’t start until 9 I decided to leave my room for the first time in 24 hours and eat breakfast in the cafeteria. Luckily, early Sunday morning isn’t prime time activity wise for college students, so I ate my oatmeal in sublime anonymity as I prepared for my glorious moment. I was back in my room at 8:30, just in case Tom Landry or Chuck Knox needed to get hold of me.
It was lunchtime now, and still no call. I decided the best remedy for this dilemma was Chinese food, so I ordered some egg “on my face” foo young to be delivered and help me through this ridiculous ordeal. At 3pm the phone finally rang. It was a local radio station reaming me out for not giving them the draft interview I had promised them. When I explained I hadn’t been drafted yet, he meekly conveyed his mea culpa and gently hung up the phone.
At 4:30 PM the phone rang again. It was the New Orleans Saints…finally I was drafted! But wait, it was the GM telling me that they had me highly rated but the draft was almost over. If I didn’t get drafted, would I consider flying down to New Orleans and signing with them as a free agent? I was crushed but tried to maintain some semblance of civility. “Sure”, I said. “Give me a call.” That same call was repeated with two other teams. The Eagles and Rams expressed the same interest. So when the final draft bell rang and my 48 hours of brutal torture was over, I hurriedly agreed to get out of town as fast as I could and visit the teams. Escape would be my salvation. First stop would be New Orleans, Louisiana.
I arrived at the airport to a reception of one. A local ball boy had been given the task to pick me up and take me to team headquarters. While the Saints first round draft choice Stan Brock from the University of Colorado was being shown the French Quarter and eating oysters, I was being shuttled to the team facility in an old van with under inflated tires. All the reporters were gone when I entered the office of the Saints general manager and sat down. He asked me if I had a good flight, but never bothered to take his eyes off the papers on his desk. He then summoned my ball boy/limo drive/personal escort to give me a tour of the facility. We walked into the weight room and there was one lonely figure working out; it was QB Archie Manning.
He waived me over and extended a sweaty hand to shake. I grasped it and asked him why he was the only one there working out. “Good question”, he answered, “maybe because I want to win worse than anybody else here.” We chatted for a bit as he pitched the company line and tried to recruit me to sign there. We said our goodbyes, and he went back to the vigorous exercise. His son Peyton Manning was 4 years old at the time, and Eli Manning hadn’t yet been born.
As it turned out, I signed with the Philadelphia Eagles as a rookie free agent, and made the 1980 NFC Championship team. My signing bonus was a whopping $4,000. Not quite enough for the Benz or the BMW, so I settled for a used MGB that I was way too big for and had to sell about a month later. I often thought about Archie Manning that season with some remorse about my being in the right place at the right time, having the opportunity of signing with a winner, and participating on a Super Bowl team so early in my career.
Archie never got his championship, but eventually his sons got it for him. A lot like my draft weekend the prize was a long time coming, but in the end… it was worth the wait.
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