Do You Love Football?! by Jon Gruden, Vic Carucci Read Free Book Online Page A

the little hotel that was right next to the practice field, to watch the rest of the workout. Krueger sent a security guy to chase me out of there, too.
    At the time, that was all I had outside of school-being a Bucs fan. I would wear my orange Bucs sweatshirt, my dad's Bucs coaching hat, and the Bucs turf shoes that I had gotten from kicker Bill Capece, because his were the only ones small enough to fit me. I thought of myself as a helper for the team.
    Those were my guys. I loved them. And Phil Krueger wouldn't let me stand there for an hour. My dad couldn't say anything, of course, because Phil was the boss. I'm still mad at Phil for that.
    One day in the summer before my sophomore year, I had walked in the house after working out for the fourth time that day. I was sweating. I was flexing. I was looking and feeling like a real stud, man. My brother Jay, who is three years younger, was getting ready to become a junior at Chamberlain High School, where he played quarterback. Jay is tall, six-two. He's about two hundred pounds. He has much more of the physical attributes that you want from a quarterback than I ever had. That's why I got so upset when I found him lying on the couch, watching MTV while munching on microwave popcorn and drinking soda.
    "Why don't you get off your ass?" I yelled. "Go outside and work out! You're a bum! You're a BUM!"
    If my scolding didn't get through to him, I figured Jay would take one look at me, see the benefits of all of my hard work and dedication and just be shamed right off that couch. He wasn't.
    So I kept harassing him. I kept challenging him to do what I was doing-to invest the time and effort into making himself a better quarterback and a better athlete.
    Finally Jay looked up at me and said, "You wanna race?"
    "Yeah, I'll race you," I said.
    I assumed it would be no contest. I was a college quarterback who was lifting, running and throwing three and four times a day. Jay was a high school kid who hadn't been off that couch all summer. We would go once around the block in our neighborhood, which was a mile. We were neck-and-neck while jogging practically the whole way. Then as we approached the final two-tenths of a mile, up Old Saybrook Avenue, Jay just left me.
    He just disappeared like a shot and must have beaten me by 150 yards. I couldn't believe it. When I finally caught up to him he was doing the Rocky Balboa thing in the driveway, running in circles with his arms in the air. I was crushed.
    Jay knew I couldn't throw a wet football very well because I have small hands. His hands are big, and he can throw beautiful spirals whether the ball is wet or dry. So at times when it rained he'd go outside with my bag of balls, take them out and start wiping them in the wet grass. "Hey, Muscle Boy!" Jay would yell to me in the house. "Hey, Slappo! You want to come out and throw some footballs? You can't, can you?" He wouldn't let up. He would just kill me and I didn't have much choice but to take it.
    Jay would go on to become first-team all-state at Chamberlain. He would go on to the University of Louisville, where he was the all-time leading passer for a while for Howard Schnellenberger. Those were heights I knew I would never reach.
    The athletic gap separating Jay and me just served as another reminder that if I wanted to be involved with football beyond college, I'd better take a good look at coaching-that is, after I made as much of a contribution as possible at Dayton. In three years I attempted a grand total of fifteen passes, completing six for thirty-six net yards with one interception. But I did rush for a touchdown in each of those three seasons. The commitment was driven purely by my love of the game.
    I wasn't on an athletic scholarship, because Division III schools don't have any to give. From my freshman year my dad made sure that when I came home for the summer I was going to work to help pay for my education. One of the greatest jobs I ever had was the two months I spent