Chapter 3

I was up in time to have breakfast with Noah and Connor before they left for school. I headed over to Millersville for my meeting with Steve Sanderson, owner of Pro Train Sports gym. Steve was going to supervise an off-season workout routine for me. I knew Steve from last year when he helped get me ready for the NFL Combine and the University of Delaware’s Pro Day.

Steve spent half an hour measuring and assessing my fitness. We talked about my season and my personal goals for the off-season. I gave Steve contact information for the team trainers out in St. Louis. They told me before I came home, they would be happy to discuss team goals for me with my personal trainer. Steve and I made an appointment for the following Wednesday morning to go over the workout plan Steve would create for me for the next three or four months.

Steve had me do my normal in-season workout. That would do for a few days until he had my new workout plan ready. I did my work on my own. I didn’t really need one of his trainers to help. I noticed three guys at the other end of the gym working on cone drills while I worked out.

They were dressed in gray Penn State Football shirts. All three guys were about six foot tall. Two were slimmer, like defensive backs or wide receivers. The third was stocky and built to hit someone. He had to a linebacker. I went over to say hello after I finished my workout.

“You guys getting ready for the combine?” I asked. I was greeted with a trio of yeses.

The stocky one took a look at me and said, “You have got to be Coach’s brother.” My brother Kyle’s nickname had been ‘Coach’ since he blew out his ACL in high school and spent most a season on the sidelines coaching the other players. The nickname had carried over to college and probably out to Denver too, though I didn’t know that for sure.

“I’m Andrew Martin,” I said as I offered my hand to the linebacker.

“Mark Markovich,” he answered as we shook hands. He introduced me to the other two, Ryan Gilbert and Troy Davis. Both guys had played cornerback for the Nittany Lions. Mark was a stand-out linebacker.

“You played a hell of a game two weeks ago,” I commented. “I caught some of the highlights with my boys in the evening.” I laughed. “I was a little bit busy during the day preparing for my own game to catch you guys live.”

“No problem,” Mark said. “We did catch your game Sunday. You kicked Seattle’s asses. Sorry, I didn’t root for your team. The Seahawks have a couple Penn Staters on their roster.”

“No offense taken,” I replied. “I count Brian Henson as a friend too.”

“You did the Combine last year, Andrew,” Ryan said. “What’s it really like?”

I talked about my experiences in Indianapolis for a few minutes and answered their questions. “Are any of you doing the Senior Bowl? That was a blast.”

“I fly down to Mobile tomorrow morning,” Mark said.

“Good luck down there,” I said. “It’s quite an experience. The game was a lot of fun. I loved hanging with all the top players in the country. I was glad to see if I measured up to the players from the big schools. You have to wonder about that when you come out of a small school like Delaware.”

“How come you didn’t follow Coach to Penn State?” Troy asked.

“I didn’t want to go to a school where I would be Kyle’s little brother,” I said. “Plus, I wanted to stay closer to home so I could see my sons more often.”

“I remember,” Marks said. “The little kids who visited with Coach when your parents came out for the National Championship game in Phoenix.”

“That’s my boys,” I said. “Are you ready for the less fun aspects of the game? Interviews were interesting at first but got old after about the fourth one. The worst was the parade.”

“Parade?” Mark asked.

“Monday you have to parade across a stage in front of a couple hundred scouts, coaches, owners and front office people wearing nothing but compression shorts,” I explained. “It’s embarrassing as hell.”

“Josh Bruno warned me about that,” Mark said. Josh Bruno was a Penn State linebacker who graduated with my brother and mentored Mark when he started at Penn State. We talked a couple minutes about my experiences at the Senior Bowl.

Ryan and Troy weren’t high on teams’ draft boards. Ryan was invited to the combine. Troy hoped to put on a good performance at Penn State’s pro day and get an invite to someone’s training camp. Mark’s agent thought he would go in the late first round or sometime in the second round of the draft.

I had one burning question I wanted to ask these guys. Pennsylvania and the Penn State fan base were rocked fifteen months ago when the state attorney general indicted retired Penn State defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, for molesting fifteen youth over the past decade or more. Suspicions of and the investigation of Sandusky for these charges were rumored for several years before he was indicted, so the charges against him weren’t a complete surprise.

The surprise came along with the Sandusky announcement. University President, Graham Spanier, retired VP for Administration, Gary Schultz, and former Athletic Director, Tim Curley, were indicted at the same time for perjury and obstruction of justice. A media firestorm descended into State College, burning everything in its path.

The indictments revealed that Sandusky had abused young boys in the Lasch Building, Penn State’s football center. A grad assistant had caught Sandusky red-handed in 2001 and reported the molestation to Coach Joe Paterno. Paterno reported the incident up the chain of command to Curley, Schultz and President Spanier. Nothing was done. The police weren’t notified. The Department of Public Welfare wasn’t notified. Nothing was done to stop this guy from molesting more youth, which he did.

As the father of two boys, I was outraged at the callous disregard showed by the university officials. How could supposedly knowledgeable, well-respected university officials blunder so badly? They deserved whatever punishment the courts would give them and the ostracism of the general public.

Sandusky was tried and convicted on 53 of 56 counts of the indictment last June. He was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison, effectively a life sentence. Good riddance. Spanier, Schultz and Curley were still awaiting their trial as the prosecutors and defense attorneys maneuvered. Schultz and Curley had already left the university, so they didn’t suffer further at Penn State’s hands. President Spanier was fired days after the indictments came out. He had kept the Board of Trustees in the dark about the whole investigation.

Commentators attributed the outrageous cover-up and condemned the “football first” atmosphere at Penn State. I don’t believe it was a fair criticism. I can name thirty to fifty other FBS universities with equally as or more fervent supporters of their respective football programs. I knew first hand from my visits and my brother’s incessant talk about how much the Nittany Lions valued academic accomplishments by their athletes. Coach Paterno and later Coach Burton preached that players could be successful academically and still field a competitive football team.

Coach Paterno’s legacy suffered from his misjudgment back in 2001. He always preached do things the right way to his players. He was the leader of the football team when this heinous crime was found in his own locker room. He correctly reported the crime up his chain of command. He failed, in my judgment, when he failed in one of leadership’s tasks – follow-up.

Coach Paterno properly reported the incident. Why didn’t he ask about the disposition of the incident later? It happened on his watch in his football building. If his superiors decided to cover-up the incident, why didn’t Coach Paterno raise holy hell? His title may be that of a simple football coach but his status at Penn State is too high for anyone to ignore him if he wished to raise an issue. He chose to be quiet and ignore his own preaching to “do the right thing.” His legacy was tarnished and rightly so.

The NCAA, no doubt attracted by all the publicity and media storm, loudly announced they were investigating the Penn State situation. The NCAA was tasked with helping athletes balance their academic, social and athletics pursuits, maintaining the highest integrity and sportsmanship and promoting academic and athletic excellence in their member institutions. The reality is far from the ideal in their mission statement.

I could get in trouble with the NCAA if I went to lunch with a buddy and he paid for my sandwich while I was in college. A dad pimped his son to colleges for the highest bribe. The NCAA decided the son was innocent and required the dad to miss his son’s last college game. They punish players caught selling memorabilia for free tattoos by making them miss five games next season, not miss the bowl game coming up two weeks later. The NCAA totally botched an investigation into a school where a wealthy booster wines, dines and supplies prostitutes to players. They look at a fake college course taken by football players and decide the course is OK since it allowed non-football players to get credit for a no-work course too. The NCAA’s credibility is shot.

I and most of the country expected them to throw the book at Penn State. The university was pleading guilty to the negligence of their leaders. They were settling with Sandusky’s victims without need for trials. The university was embarrassed and unwilling to contest any charges against it after things came out. This opportunity was tailor made for the NCAA to step in and look like it was doing something effective by punishing Penn State. Instead, last November a lowly PR guy comes out to announce that the NCAA had no jurisdiction over the case and they would allow the legal system to punish the guilty.

“How did you guys get the NCAA to back off punishing your school?” I asked the three Penn Staters.

“We certainly dodged one there,” Ryan said.

“I shudder to think what the NCAA would have done to Penn State if Coach Keller and Burton hadn’t turned that SOB in,” Mark added. “They’d have loved to gut the Nittany Lions in payback for Paterno’s sanctimony about running a clean, academics oriented program. Instead our coaches made us the heroes in the story of stopping the sick bastard.”

“What did your coaches do?” I asked. “Did I miss something in the news?”

“This didn’t come out in the news,” Troy said. “I don’t know if you know I’m a legacy. My dad played for the Nittany Lions in the 80s. He was Coach Burton’s roommate. I’ve known Coach since I was a little kid. I learned this from my dad.”

“We have plenty of legacies at Penn State,” Mark added. “I’m one too. My granddad was a team captain in the early 60s.”

“Coach Burton never cared much for Jerry Sandusky,” Troy explained. “Even when Sandusky was at the height of his fame after dismantling Jimmy Johnson’s Miami offense to win the 1986 National Championship, Coach didn’t like or trust Sandusky. The antipathy increased when he worked as a grad assistant at Penn State.

“Coach Burton was shocked when he came back ten years ago and found this retired coach still using the Lasch Building. Coach bided his time for a few months until the old perv screwed up.”

“I’ll take it from here,” Mark said. “My position coach, Coach Keller, caught the SOB in the coaches locker room one day that summer. He was naked, drying off in front of an eleven-year-old boy. The boy was damp with wet hair, dressed only in a pair of briefs. Coach Keller blew his top. He cornered the bastard in the shower room and probably would have beat him senseless if a couple other coaches hadn’t pulled him off the pervert. They called Coach Burton to the locker room, where he gleefully called campus police to take the sick bastard away.”

“I didn’t hear about any of this,” I said. “I guess the Missouri press didn’t do a very good job reporting the story.”

“This didn’t come out here either,” Troy said. “Best anyone can figure, the old perv was just starting the seduction of this boy. The police and DA thoroughly investigated the incident but couldn’t press charges. Nothing illegal happened that day. Coach Burton wasted no time getting Sandusky’s key to the Lasch Building and getting him banned from campus.”

“What was the NCAA going to do when they found out these facts?” Mark said. “How could they punish the athletes who were in pre-school or elementary school when the crime was committed? Punish the coaches? None of our current coaches worked here back in 2001. The AD involved is gone. The VP in charge of campus police is retired. The university fired the president for his poor handling of the incident. What could the NCAA do without looking like hypocritical idiots if this part of the story got published?”

“I’m glad things are working out for your school,” I said. “I have a few friends that are on the team.”

“Who?” Troy asked.

“Matt Sauder, Josh Hunsecker and Jake Meyers,” I replied.

“They’re good players,” Mark said, “ ... the future for our team. How do you know them?”

“I met Jake on a recruiting visit to Penn State,” I explained. “I was a senior and he was a junior on an unofficial visit. Josh, I know through Boy Scouts from here in Lancaster County. Matt was my quarterback my last year in high school.” I laughed. “The ‘Mad Bomber’ had a hell of a first season.”

All three laughed at my reference to Matt. “Mad Bomber? Why?” Mark chuckled. “The nickname fits Matt.”

“Matt took over early in the season after the junior he was backing up proved to be too timid to throw the ball downfield,” I explained. “You guys know Coach Caffrey, who was our high school coach then. That didn’t suit Coach at all. Coach yanked the other kid and put Matt in. I don’t know if Matt was fearless or clueless, but he’d chuck the ball deep and I’d run under it, catch it and score. It wasn’t pretty but it worked. I caught a lot of passes and earned my scholarship to college with Matt’s help.”

“I guess he’s come a long way since then,” Troy commented. “I’ve worked against him some on the second team. He knows his stuff.”

“Coach Caffrey, Ed Fritz, my brother and I spent a lot of time teaching Matt what he needed to know to be a good quarterback.”

“I expect our team to carry on where we left off this year,” Mark said. “Matt should be up to the task of replacing Jon Stafford.”

We swapped some Matt Sauder stories before we finished our break and went back to working out again. I wished Mark good luck in Mobile before I headed south for my business leadership class. I grabbed a sandwich to eat on the drive south. Dr. Shoemaker’s lecture was excellent, as I expected from my previous classes with him. He loaded me up with homework and reading assignments to help me get caught up on the lectures I missed while I was in St. Louis. That would keep me busy most of the weekend.

My boys dragged me out to Stoltzfus’ hill for more sledding. The weather had been warm the last couple days and the snow was quickly disappearing. Noah, Connor, Hunter and I spent an hour and a half on the hill before it was time for them to go to bed. Saturday was a welcome, goof-off day. In the afternoon we watched Tom Brady and the Patriots dismantle Matt Schaub’s Texans. Matt, who grew up in the next county east of me, looked like this was his twelfth season in the league. Thirty-nine-year-old Tom Brady seemed ageless.

The prime-time game was the one everyone was talking about. Washington and the Chicago were both ranked amongst the top three defenses in the NFL. This pitted the stingiest defense in the NFC against the most prolific offense in the conference. William Johnson, a 315 pound defensive tackle from Michigan dominated opponents. It was a toss-up whether William or my brother’s teammate, Antwaan Booker, would take defensive MVP this season. Either man was worthy of the honors.

Jay Cutler retired after last season and patient Phil DiStefano finally got a chance to run the team. Phil, a Pittsburgher by way of Penn State, had Coach Marc Trestman’s offense humming. They had speed with Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery. Marshall passed thirty but hadn’t lost any steps yet. Jeffery, at twenty-six, was in his prime. They could beat you with speed if they chose to. My brother Kyle’s college roommate, Damian Thompson, would pound the ball into the line if finesse wasn’t needed. The Bears defense had a good, solid defensive line and one of the league’s best middle linebackers in my friend and former neighbor, Jeremy North. The media billed this as the unstoppable offense [Bears] meets the immoveable defense [Washington]. I knew the Bears had a good team. We played them in the beginning of November and beat them with a last second field goal.

The Bears played hard, but defense won. I was shocked to see Damian Thompson, weighing around 250 pounds, thrown back into the backfield like a ragdoll on a third down and two yards to go play. William Johnson was a beast. The final score was 19-13 in favor of the ‘Skins.

I knew Jeremy, Damian, Phil and their teammates were feeling bad as they trudged off the field while Washington celebrated. It was one of the costs of making the playoffs. Twelve teams go in and only one goes home a winner. The rest of us lose our last game.

I was glad the announcers never mentioned that Damian was gay during the broadcast. Damian came out last off-season. I didn’t want to explain to my boys yet exactly what a gay or homosexual person was. They could stay innocent for a while longer. The rest of the world didn’t mind that my brother’s friend had a husband instead of a wife. I’d met Bill Robinson, Damian’s partner. He was a good guy.

I got my revenge for last weekend on Sunday afternoon. The 49ers beat up the Giants. The final score was 31-17. The game wasn’t as close as it sounds. Ten of the Giants’ seventeen points came in the fourth quarter after the outcome was decided.

Our whole family assembled for the final division championship game – the Denver Broncos vs. the upstart Ravens. Lancaster County sprouted entirely too much purple Ravens gear, flags and banners in the past couple weeks. The Harrisburg CBS TV station was forced to carry their broadcasts. The Ravens were stealing fans from our area with the Steelers and the Eagles both having down years. My family proudly displayed their blue and orange Broncos flag on one end of our porch. My gold and blue Rams flag got equal time at the other end of our porch.

I got to know the Raven’s quarterback, Joe Flacco over the past two or three years. He was a UD grad like me. He came over to visit campus sometimes during his off-season. I considered him a friend and a mentor. Today, it did not matter. Blood was thicker than water and my brother plays for the Broncos. Go Broncos!

Brady Rasmussen, the Broncos QB, Kyle and the rest of the offensive had a great day. Antwaan Booker and the Broncos defense were stifling. The Broncos led 28-6 at halftime and my brother had scored two touchdowns. Simeon Thomas and Charlie Taylor, the Broncos tailbacks, led a pounding, time consuming thirteen play drive to open the third quarter, completely destroying the Ravens’ will. The Broncos cruised through the rest of the game. The Ravens managed ten points in garbage time in the fourth quarter to bring the final score to 38-16, Broncos’ favor. Kyle caught seven passes for 156 yards and three touchdowns.

Kyle would spend at least one more, hopefully three weeks, in Denver before coming home to his seven-month pregnant wife in their Landenberg, PA house. I hoped Kyle’s team won next Sunday and went to the Super Bowl and won. He’d been striving for that goal for three years. Still, I knew he was anxious to get home to Pennsylvania and spend quality time with his wife, Penny and their two-year-old son, Davey, too.

I settled into a comfortable routine at home. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings were devoted to working out. I had my Business Leadership class in the afternoons. Tuesday and Thursdays were easier. I studied the material I missed when I still in St. Louis and then could prep for the GMAT. I was lucky. There was a test center in Lancaster. I scheduled the test for the last Thursday in February. That would give me plenty of time to get formal admission before I hit the three-course limit on the MBA early-admission program at UD.

I had evenings to spend with my boys. It was great. Cub Scouts were on Wednesday nights and swim club, with the twins and Hunter were Friday nights. Hunter was always in a pissy mood on Wednesday nights, since he was too young to belong to Cub Scouts. Mom had to deal with that.

Friday nights he was in his element – the water. All the Martins were water rats – Will, Kyle, me, Liz and now Hunter. Dad had worked as a lifeguard through high school and college. Mom hung out at the community pool all summer every year as she grew up. That is where Mom and Dad met. Both of my grandfathers served in the Navy, Grandpa Robinson as a SEAL. My twins were comfortable in the water and good swimmers. Hunter was fantastic. He could swim any stroke, usually beating the six and seven-year-olds on the club, even though he was five.

I headed over to the Paradise Elementary School Tuesday afternoon, the 19th of January. I had a distinct feeling of déjà vu as I pulled off Route 30 into the driveway beside the old, brick building. I had spent seven years at this school and hadn’t set foot in it again for almost a dozen years. The old brick building fronting Route 30 wasn’t used as a school anymore. The district used it for administrative offices. It had housed Kindergarten through second grades when I attended there. What I thought of as the “new building” was now the old wing of the school. They had added an addition out the back for K through 2 a few years ago.

I walked down the nearly empty hallways of the old wing. Little had changed since I attended third to sixth grade here. The new wing of the school had been built while I was in high school. It looked nice. I followed the hallway down to Room 123. I was a couple minutes early so I took a seat on one of the chairs in the hallway outside the door.

I recognized Miss Kendig’s voice coming out the door immediately even though it had been almost sixteen years since I was a first grader in her class. I liked her as a teacher and was glad Noah was in her class. I knew my boy would get a good start in his education with Miss Kendig.

I overheard the parent in Miss Kendig’s room say, “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Herr.” That reminded me of my mother’s admonition – Mrs. Herr, not Miss Kendig. A nicely dressed woman in her early thirties came out of the room. I stepped into the classroom.

“Good afternoon Miss...” I stuttered before catching myself. “Mrs. Herr.” My former teacher laughed as I stuttered my greeting.

“It is all right, Andrew,” Mrs. Herr said. “This situation is new to me too. Noah is my first ‘next-generation’ student.” She chuckled. “I’m just not old enough yet to have a ‘next-generation’ student.”

“Not your fault,” I replied. “That’s on me. I was a bit too young to have twins when I did. You look as young as you did when you were my teacher.”

“Now you’re being silly,” Mrs. Herr responded. “I’m middle-aged and that is that, though your flattery is still appreciated. How is your career going in St. Louis?”

We talked briefly about my playing career before shifting over to the topic at hand – Noah’s scholastic performance. Mrs. Herr reported Noah was doing well in Language Arts, History and Science. He got an A- in Science and Music, a B+ in Art and a B in Language Arts and History. His grade in Mathematics wasn’t as strong. He received a C-.

“Noah is a very bright young man,” Mrs. Herr explained. “He is capable of doing much better work in Mathematics than he is doing. He daydreams during Mathematics and does not put forth his best effort on the homework.”

“Is that hereditary?” I teased. I was notorious for daydreaming in elementary school too. Mrs. Herr smiled.

“No, it’s not hereditary,” Mrs. Herr answered. “Your mother helped you overcome this, didn’t she?”

“She did,” I agreed. “Mom and I will work with Noah and help him do better in Math.”

“Good, that is excellent,” Mrs. Herr said. “I am so pleased to see you again. I am glad your professional career is starting well.” She smiled and gave me a wink. “My husband is a huge football fan and I love reminding him that you were my student when we see you on TV. Are you keeping busy during your off-season?”

“I work out and study our team’s offense,” I replied. “This semester I am starting an MBA at Delaware too.”

“An MBA?” Mrs. Herr said. “That is wonderful. I am always pleased when one of my students does well. It is so good to see you again.”

“You’ll see plenty of me for the next few months,” I said as I stood. “I plan to make the PTO meetings and school events until off-season training begins.”

“I look forward to it, Andrew,” Mrs. Herr said as she shook my hand.

I headed out to the hallway, glancing at my watch as I went. It was 2:35 PM. I had a twenty-five minute wait until my next appointment. I sighed. I would have a long wait until my appointment with Connor’s teacher. Connor’s teacher, Miss Beiler, was in Room 124, directly across the hall from Mrs. Herr’s room.

There were three chairs outside the door. An attractive woman, roughly thirty years old, was seated closest to the door. I took the third seat, furthest from the door, to give us a little “social distance.” I didn’t want her to feel like this big man was crowding her.

I looked at the art work on the wall across the hallway. The first graders had been busy. I scanned the wall to see if I could pick out anything done by Noah or Connor. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the lady sitting near me kept staring at me and then away again before looking back at me. I returned her gaze the third time she did it.

“Um...” she babbled, momentarily startled that I noticed her. “You’re ... you’re Will Henry’s brother, aren’t you?” That threw me. I was expecting to hear, ‘You’re Kyle Martin’s brother?’ instead.

“I am,” I acknowledged as I offered her my hand. “Andrew Martin.”

“Claire Gerlach,” she answered. “Do you have a 2:40 appointment? Did I mix something up?”

“You are fine,” I reassured. “I have the three o’clock appointment. My other son is in Mrs. Herr’s class. I just finished meeting with her. I’m just killing time now.”

“That’s a relief,” Claire said.

“You surprised me the ‘Are you Will’s brother?’ question,” I said. “I’m used to that question being, ‘Are you Kyle’s brother?’”

“Kyle?” Claire said blankly. “Kyle ... Kyle Martin. Of course, the football player.” She stared at me for a moment. “Andrew ... you play football too, don’t you? I’ve seen your names in the paper.” Claire blushed a little at recognizing my brother’s name before mine.

“I do,” I agreed. “I play for the St. Louis Rams. Don’t be embarrassed about recognizing Kyle before me. His three pro-bowls and nearly winning a Super Bowl earned him his recognition.”

“I apologize for not recognizing your name,” Claire continued. “I’m not much of a football fan.”

“Do you mind me asking how you know Will?”

“We graduated from high school together,” Claire explained. “He used to date my best friend when we were in ninth grade.”

“Which girlfriend?” I asked. “I vaguely remember Will having a lot of girlfriends before he settled on Abby.”

“Katie Holmes,” Claire answered.

“I remember Katie,” I said. “I think she was Will’s first girlfriend. At least she was the first one I remember.” A father and mother stepped out of the classroom as I said this. “I guess that’s your cue, Claire. It’s been nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Andrew,” Claire said. Claire headed into Room 124 for her conference with Miss Beiler. I hung out in the hall until it was my turn. I did find drawings by Noah and Connor on the wall outside the first grade classrooms. I thought Noah was slightly better as an artist than his brother. Both boys’ work stood up against the art work of the other first graders.

Claire Gerlach came out twenty minutes later. I wished her a good day as she left. I popped my head inside the classroom.

“Ready for the next parent?” I asked politely. Miss Beiler was standing up from her desk. Most likely she was coming to get me. Mom told me Connor’s teacher was young, but no one mentioned that she was hot. The tall teacher, who had to be at least 5’-10”, gave me a big smile.

“You must be Mr. Martin, Connor’s father,” Miss Beiler said.

“Andrew ... Andrew will be fine,” I replied as I studied this attractive lady. She was a brunette. Her hair was stylishly done and had a few highlights. The lady was well built, almost attractive enough to be a model, but not quite. She didn’t look anorexic, so she couldn’t be a model. She looked like a normal, very attractive lady. My first impulse in any other circumstance would be to try and get her phone number or to ask her to dinner. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what I was here for.

“Let’s keep things professional, Mr. Martin,” Miss Beiler said. “I find that works best.”