Chapter 4

Our host kindly made us an early breakfast on Sunday morning so we could get on the road. Our outfitter outside Algonquin Park was a nine-hour drive from Pottsville. We reached the familiar rustic buildings around 4:30 that afternoon. We had enough time to check over the gear and food they prepared for us before the office closed. We stayed in one of their cabins for the night.

Penny and I had cereal, orange juice and fruit for breakfast Monday morning. We loaded our two packs in the back of our car and headed west for the park. We reached Opeongo Store half an hour later. They outfitted us with a canoe, paddles, lifejackets. We loaded the canoes and gear into the shuttle boat at ten o'clock. He took us north up the North Arm of Opeongo Lake and dropped us off at the portage leading to Proulx Lake.

I helped Penny put on the big Duluth pack with our personal and cooking gear. I shouldered the second, lighter pack with our food barrel and tent. I hefted our canoe upside down onto my shoulders and followed my wife up the hill. We reached the tiny lake partway through the portage in a couple minutes. The park map showed we were supposed to canoe across the little lake. It might have been about the size of two football fields end to end.

Penny teased, "You want to canoe this piss pot or live dangerously and use the unmaintained trail around the lake?"

"I think we should live dangerously," I answered. The "unmaintained" trail seemed well worn by previous campers. Did anyone ever drop their canoe in the little, unnamed lake?

We reached the crest of the ridge between Opeongo and Proulx Lake a few minutes later. The downhill section of trail was easy – not too rocky and open above so my canoe didn't catch or brush against low branches. We found a Boy Scout troop unloading their gear from their canoes when we reached the end of the 1450-meter portage. Penny and I set our gear down and let them finish unloading. Penny and I talked with the leaders as they packed up for their portage. They were on the last day of an eight-day trek in the park.

I asked, casually, "Where are you guys from?" as a pair of scouts started up the hill towards Opeongo.

"Pennsylvania," they called back.

"Us too," I called. "Where in Pennsylvania?"

"Scranton," the second scout called back as they hiked on.

"We're from Lancaster County," Penny responded.

One of the older scouts was standing in the lake by the shore, handing out packs and other gear as the crew loaded up. He hefted the last pack and started up the trail past Penny and me. The boy, who looked to be about eighteen, was wearing a faded, very dirty Penn State t-shirt. He started up the hill but stopped short when he reached Penny and me. He gave me a brief stare of recognition.

"Hey, you're Kyle Martin, aren't you?" the young man asked.

"I am," I confirmed.

"I've been a big fan," he replied. "I've watched all your games and have planned to go to Penn State since I was little. I start in University Park in the fall." He laughed. "Actually, I start next month. I wish you were still there. I always wanted to see you play live. My dad let me get student tickets to all the home games."

"Good for you," I responded. "Cheer for my friends on the Lions next fall. I will be doing that ... from a distance."

"Are you going to sign with the Raiders?" he asked.

"No chance," I answered. "I am working as a graduate assistant coach at Temple now."

"Good luck with that..." the young man responded, " ... except when Temple plays us."

"Fair enough," I called out as the young man started up the hill for Opeongo Lake. "That is the one game I will NOT be cheering for the Lions."

I waded out about six feet and plopped our canoe down in the lake. "It is a small world, isn't it?" Penny remarked. "Here we are in the Canadian wilderness and you get fans recognizing you."

"It's going to get worse, not better if some NFL team picks me up," I added.

"I hope it does," Penny said. "I will love having you at home this fall but you really should be playing football. It sucks that the Raiders put you in purgatory this year."

"C'est la vie," I answered. "I'd love to play in the NFL, no doubt about it. The choice I have is to play for the Raiders or start my coaching career early. I am satisfied with the choice I have made."

"I'm glad," Penny said. "This is probably a blessing in disguise since we have our little one coming this winter."

"It is," I agreed. "Imagine the challenges of going through a pregnancy while I was half way across the country playing somewhere in the NFL."

"God may have a plan for us," Penny replied.

We set our packs in the canoe and climbed aboard. We paddled halfway across the lake before pulling into a campsite for lunch. It was the campsite on the peninsula where my crew had stayed six years ago, the last time we had been to Algonquin. The site looked much as I remembered it. We ate salami on pocket pita with mustard, some trail mix and oranges for lunch. We headed north up the narrow arm of Proulx Lake leading to the Big Crow River.

The narrow Big Crow River channel meandered through a quarter-mile-wide swamp. I followed the sinuous channel north into Little Crow Lake. Penny spotted a moose at the northern end of the lake as we paddled out of the river. The animal was too skittish to allow us to come near enough to get photos. He bolted into the woods when we were halfway across the lake.

We paddled through the narrow channel between Little Crow and Big Crow Lakes and headed towards two campsites on the northern shore of the Big Crow Lake. The first campsite we came to was nice but didn't have a great few of the lake. We paddled around a small peninsula to the second campsite. It was vacant, level and had a spectacular view of almost the entire lake. Penny and I unloaded our gear and set up camp for the next three days.

The black flies were biting at camp. Penny and I hurried our dinner preparations, ate, hung our food barrel and went to bed. Not to sleep, but to enjoy more of our honeymoon. We cuddled and listened to the loons play and call each other in the lake outside our tent. We made love three times. We even heard a wolf call to his pack and them return his howls. Later the stars came out and added to the grandeur of the evening.

After breakfast on Tuesday, Penny and I did a day trip up to Hogan Lake. We explored the lake the whole way up to Parks Bay. We got to observe a mama moose and her little one close up. Penny took lots of pictures to show our friends and family. We did a little fishing at the southern end of Hogan Lake. We caught to a couple nice-sized fish that came back to camp for our dinner. It was an all-around nice day.

Wednesday morning we paddled over to the south side of the lake and hiked up to the old fire tower. We had a spectacular view of Big Crow Lake from the top. After lunch we headed down the Crow River. We visited the immense virgin pines. We got close enough to observe the beavers working on their dam just downriver of Big Crow Lake.

We got up early, ate a cold breakfast and headed back through Little Crow and Proulx Lakes. We caught the shuttle boat back to civilization at noon on the North Arm of Opeongo Lake. We turned our gear in at Opeongo Store, showered and headed east. Penny and I grabbed lunch at the pizza shop in Whitney before heading south for the Thousand Island area and the United States.

Penny and I spent Thursday night in a hotel outside Watertown, NY. We didn't need to hurry Friday. Our four-hour drive yesterday had left us with five hours that day to get to Stephanie Kolmar's church in time for the wedding rehearsal. We had a leisurely breakfast at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant before heading for Bucks County. We grabbed a light lunch near Scranton after we got off I-81 and before we got on the Northeast Extension of the Pa. Turnpike. We checked into our hotel in Willow Grove midafternoon, leaving us plenty of time to relax before heading over to the church.

Penny and I ran into Josh Bruno, Shawn Byrd and Damian Thompson in the parking lot when we came out to head for the rehearsal. We gave them a hearty greeting before following them over to the church in Warminster. Trevor's parents, Trevor, Stephanie and two guys our age I didn't know were there ahead of us.

Trevor introduced Caleb McGuire and Stephanie's brother Ryan. Caleb was Trevor's best friend since they met in kindergarten. Caleb recently graduated from Millersville with a degree in education. He specialized in technology and engineering. He just was hired to teach CADD and electronics at Drumore High school in southern Lancaster County. Ryan was starting his junior year at Rowan University next month. He was majoring in Geographical Information Science.

Stephanie's parents arrived a couple of minutes later. Stephanie introduced all of us to her minister, Rev. David Smith. He conducted the rehearsal much as Rev. Hollinger had done last weekend. Caleb was Trevor's best man. I stood beside Caleb, joined by Shawn then Ryan. Stephanie's friend from school, Lauren Patton, was the maid of honor. Penny and Shawn's fiancée Jada stood beside Lauren. Josh and Damian were serving as ushers.

Mr. Kolmar arranged to have the rehearsal dinner down the street at a restaurant called Augustino's. It was a fancy Italian place a block from the church. I enjoyed their appetizer, a mini-Angus burger and a mini-crab cake on brioche buns. Penny had a sausage and spinach flat bread pizze. The restaurant served a caprese salad of heirloom tomatoes and mozzarella cheese drizzled with a balsamic reduction. Delicious!

We had a choice of beef bourguignon, rack of lamb or ciopinno. The last dish was a seafood pasta dish with a roasted tomato chardonnay sauce. I couldn't resist the beef. Penny went with the seafood pasta. She shared a bit of her pasta. It was heavenly. I let her have some of my exquisite beef bourguignon. I knew Mr. Conwell was spending a small fortune on this dinner. The well-dressed patrons and elegant décor established his restaurant an expensive, fine dining destination.

The ladies left from the church for Stephanie's bachelorette night. The guys all headed back to the hotel in Willow Grove to drop off our cars. Trevor was springing for taxis for the group so we could enjoy the evening at the lounge we were going to without worrying about designated drivers. My buddy could afford it. He received a $1.3 million signing bonus check a couple of weeks ago. Two taxis hauled Trevor, Caleb, Damian, Josh, Ryan and me to the Spotlight, a gentlemen's club over in Bristol.

Damian teased Trevor and Josh that this club was exactly the kind of place the NFLPA recommended the rookies stay out of at their symposium last month – the one I blew off. Max had smoothed things out with the NFLPA. I would not be fined $50,000 for missing the symposium.

Spotlight had some cute girls dancing for our viewing pleasure. Our party was tamer than the one for Zack Hayes two years ago. No lap dances. No one got dead drunk. I limited myself to two beers. I had to go home to sleep with my sweetie. No need to get her up in arms about me drinking too much. A couple of taxis picked us up around midnight and took us back to our hotel, dropping Ryan off at the Kolmars on the way.

Penny wasn't back at our room when I returned. It was late so I went to bed. My honey announced her arrival much later with too much light and clatter. Penny undressed and joined me in bed. I gave her a cuddle and a kiss on the neck before falling asleep again. We slept in Saturday morning. We didn't need to be to the church until 2:00 PM.

Most of the wedding party, less Stephanie, her brother Ryan and her parents, went out for a late morning brunch. Trevor took us to a small restaurant a couple miles down the road that Stephanie took him to frequently when he visited. Penny and I splurged. We had the crab eggs benedict. It was worth the price. Everyone headed back to the hotel to shower and dress for the ceremony.

I didn't have any special duties as a member of the wedding party, other than keeping Trevor from crawling out of his brain while he waited for the ceremony. I was uniquely qualified among our group since I was the only married person in the retinue. I hadn't done too bad last Saturday, other than spacing out for about ten minutes while I "inspected" the electrical panel in the church. Caleb, Shawn, Ryan and I talked and joked, keeping Trevor from freaking out from nerves. Mercifully the wait wasn't long before we marched to the front of the church for the ceremony.

Rev. Smith's service was very similar to Rev. Hollinger's last Saturday. Everyone played their roles properly. Half an hour later the Reverend pronounced Trevor and Stephanie man and wife. Penny and I stood with the bridal party for pictures and then it was time to head over to the Warrington Country Club for the reception. Time to PARTY!

The country club's facilities were excellent. The company was great. Half the crowd at the reception looked real familiar – the Penn State half. Antwaan Booker and Sherree Harris stayed east for the week to make it to the wedding. Aaron and Tania Morano hung out with their parents between weddings, as did Zack and Leigh Ann Hayes. Jake Washington made it in from San Diego. Trevor's wedding featured more linemen and linebackers and fewer wide receivers than my ceremony last week. No surprise. Coach Burton, Coach Csarwinski, Coach Keller, Coach Atkins and Yasin Clark represented the Nittany Lions coaching staff.

Darrelle Revis, Bart Scott, Muhammed Wilkerson, Mark Sanchez, Nate Thornton and Kevin Pettis represented the New York Jets players. I knew Nate and Kevin already since they had played at the Senior Bowl with Trevor and me. Coach Rex Ryan, Coach Thurman and Coach Dunbar came.

Mr. Kolmar (and Trevor's signing bonus) treated the guests to the best meals. Penny chose the Chicken Oscar, a breaded chicken breast smothered in lump crab and béarnaise sauce. I had the more traditional surf and turf. Caleb did a nice toast to the couple. Trevor and Stephanie took the dance floor first. Soon the whole wedding party was out on the floor. I enjoyed dancing with my sweetie.

I had an interesting conversation with Coach Rex Ryan as Penny and I table hopped and visited with our friends.

"Kyle Martin! It's damned good to see you," Rex declared as we shook hands. "You ready to play for my team in New York if my GM gets you away from those damned Raiders?"

"I'd love to play for you guys," I replied.

"Hey, Mark," Rex called to the next table, where most of the Jets players were. "We're working on getting you that wide receiver you want."

"Do that, Coach," Mark answered. "Steal him away from those guys in Oakland."

Penny and I talked with the coaches for a while before moving on to visit the Jets players. I enjoyed talking with the players, particularly Darrelle.

"I hope our GM pulls off the trade," Darrelle reported. He gave me a smile and pointed across the room towards Aaron Morano. "My buddy tells me you were hell to cover when you were together in college. I'd rather face you in practice every day than face you across the line during games that count. Competition on a team can help the receiver and cornerback both."

"Don't I know it," I agreed. "I played against Aaron in high school and practiced against him in college my freshmen year. Shawn Byrd and I fed off each other for the next three years."

"I expect Byrd to be a good one," Darrelle replied. "There's a reason a Biletnikoff and a Thorpe went to players from the same school last season."

It felt great being accepted by NFL players. They treated me like I was part of the league even though I hadn't set foot in a NFL team locker room yet. Penny and I mingled with the Penn Staters at the wedding. I enjoyed talking with Coach Burton about my experiences at Temple. Coach wished me the best, except next September when our teams faced each other.

We enjoyed the wedding cake and ice cream. Penny and I danced. I enjoyed the champagne and a few beers. We danced and danced and enjoyed conversation with our friends. I gave Penny the keys to our VW when it was time to go back to the hotel. I wasn't totally wasted, but I wasn't feeling any pain either.

Penny and I went back to Paradise Sunday morning after the wedding. We spent the afternoon showing off our honeymoon pictures with our families. My family and Penny's family shared dinner at my house before I headed back to Philly. Penny stayed in Paradise to return my tux and take care of odds and ends at home. She was working the afternoon at New Bolton Center and would return to our apartment Monday evening. I needed to get an early start at work at Temple. Football camp for our team started in three weeks and the freshmen reported a few days sooner. Matt, Tyler and I had a ton of work to do for the coaches so they were ready.

I worked Monday and Tuesday at Temple. Penny met me at Edberg-Olson late Tuesday afternoon and drove me to the airport. Nike flew me out to L.A. first class that evening for a two-day commercial shoot. Nike's ad agency came up with a clever take on my situation that would be featured in four commercials this fall. All featured shots of me running away from a horde of black and silver clad barbarians. Little imagination was required to figure out who the barbarians were – the Oakland Raiders and their fans. The shoot was done in the hills outside L.A. It was grueling and boring. We were out for fourteen hours on Wednesday and another dozen hours Thursday. I caught a flight back to Philly Thursday evening.

The next three weeks flew by. I put in ten to sixteen hours a day, six days a week as our team prepared for football camp. I still had to make time for my two history courses too. I saw little of Penny except in bed the first week. My loving wife decided to bring supper over to Edberg-Olson two or three nights a week the other weeks so we had a little together time.

I spent four years in a top-notch college football program but had no idea how involved the preparations needed to be to put on a football camp and get a team ready for the season. I was receiving a true graduate education on how to run a football program from Coach Rhule and Coach Golden.

Most of the NFL teams went to camp the last week of July. This led to a flurry of teams trying to extract my rights from the Raiders, without success. They still wanted too much in trade for me. Mark Davis contacted me through Max to see what it would take to get me into a Raider's uniform for camp. Al Davis dropping dead wasn't sufficient incentive, so I passed. Nothing would get me into silver and black. The Raiders wasted their first-round draft pick on me, just as I warned them they would if they chose me. Per NFL rules, all interest ended in trading for my rights, thirty days before the first game in the season. My rights were no longer tradable.

The freshmen showed up Friday, August 1st for their orientation. Matt, Tyler and I spent a lot of time with them the next two days giving tours, helping them get their equipment, learn their way around the weight room, start to learn their playbooks, and get accustomed to being FCS level college football players.

The rest of the team arrived two days later. Temple's football camp differed little from what I was used to at Penn State. I suspected the few differences I found came from the University of Virginia, where Coach Golden worked for a number of years. Otherwise it was much like the Paterno/Burton camps I was used to. Practices, meetings, study sessions, work-outs and meals at the training table. We used the activities room/dining hall in Edberg-Olson for our training table for all meals until classes started. After that, I would have dinners with our football team for the next three and a half months.

I was curious to see the 40-yard dash times for the team when we tested them Monday morning. The top time by a player on the team was 4.37 seconds. Dave Mitchell was tied for third fastest with a 4.39 seconds. The other wide receivers did 4.4s, 4.5s, a couple 4.6s and one 4.7 second time. At Penn State we had ten to twelve players breaking 4.40 seconds each year.

The Temple coaching staff was smaller than what I was used to from Penn State. Coach Rhule, our passing game coordinator, and Coach Deal, our QB coach, were the only full-time coaches involved with quarterbacks, tight ends and wide receivers. Matt Dellavecchia and I got to do more hands-on coaching than I expected as a grad assistant. I didn't mind at all. I demonstrated techniques for the receivers as they started various drills. I gave them tips on body position and how to get a break from the d-back.

Coach Tom Berger, our special teams coach, used me to instruct the kick returners and punt returners. No surprise. I held NCAA records for most yards kick returning and punt returning as well as the best season average in yards per kick return.

The two and half weeks before fall classes started didn't seem to be nearly enough time to prepare for our first game on August 31st. Coach Golden allowed me a little extra time off as summer classes wound down. I completed a final term paper in lieu of taking a final in one of my courses. I took a blue-book-essay final exam in the other course the day before freshmen arrived on campus. I was confident I got good grades in both courses. They were grad level courses, but didn't seem that hard to me. I guess I had been doing grad level independent study in history for the past few years. No wonder Professor Brennan wanted me to switch over and become a history major when I was an undergrad.

Dave Mitchell stood out among our nine receivers. He was the fastest in the group. He ran clean routes and was able to get free of the d-backs most plays. The time he spent last spring and this summer doing drills with our quarterbacks was paying off. Coach Golden and Coach Rhule had him practicing with the first and second teams most of the time, rather than the third team with most of the other freshmen. My protégé held his own against our first team defense.

Dave and a couple other receivers asked me to study video with them. We managed to get in about ten hours of study before the first game against Notre Dame. Notre Dame had significant turn-over after last season, same as Penn State. They were starting a true sophomore at quarterback. They replaced three of their offensive linemen. Obviously they had a new middle linebacker taking Jeremy North's spot. Half the secondary was new to starting too. Could we match up against them? Time would tell.

Penny had a three day orientation August 20th to August 22nd. She had to go out and purchase a new laptop to use for classes. All notes and instructions for classes were on-line rather than printed. She had to bring the laptop to class too. My honey was taking Gross Anatomy, Pathology, Developmental Biology, Foundation of Disease, Intro to Clinical Veterinary Medicine and Intro to Comparative Medical Research. My wife was going to have a busy fall.

Coach Golden presented the game plan at the team meeting on Sunday evening, August 25th. Chris Considine, our starting quarterback, was a senior. We expected to have some luck passing. We had a senior starting tailback. His backup was a junior that had a significant number of carries last season. We expected we would be able to move the ball well on the ground. Coach Golden planned to keep Notre Dame off balance with play action passes. Nationally they had us 9 — point underdogs to the Fighting Irish but we thought our chances were better. We thought we had a chance at upsetting them, even though the game was being played in South Bend.

Coach Golden announced the starters at the Sunday evening meeting. I was pleased to see who was named the starting split end – Dave Mitchell. It was quite an accomplishment for a freshman to be given this much responsibility. I congratulated him after the meeting was over.

Penny started classes on the 26th. The team started practicing for the Notre Dame game. I thought the guys did well, to my new-to-coaching eye. They weren't as big or as fast as my teammates had been at Penn State, but they did play smart, disciplined football. I didn't expect Notre Dame to blow us out.

During the week I lobbied Coach Rhule and Coach Deal for us to play against type on offense when we got the ball on Saturday. Temple had rushed the ball well last year but had issues passing. I wanted us to hit the Irish with a play action pass on our first play. I sold them. They promised to work on Coach Golden. They convinced him by Thursday's practice. We ran the play a few times in practice ... and with success. I got a little teasing from the other coaches when practice was done.

"What else should I expect from a Burton protégé?" Coach Golden teased. "Pass ... pass ... pass."

"No, Coach, you're wrong," I countered. "I'm not about pass ... pass ... pass ... I am about hitting where they don't expect it. Our team was a running team last year. I want the Irish to see us line up to run. I want them to key on run. I want them to see Chris [Considine, our starting QB, ] hand the ball off to Sam [Williams, our starting tailback, ] and let Sam blast into the line. When they buy the run, we kill them with a deep pass they aren't ready for."

"That's the philosophy that sold me on using the play to open the game," Coach Golden responded.

Penny woke with me early on Friday. I dressed in a sports coat and tie. Temple had similar dress rules for team members as Penn State. As a coach now, I had to set the example. I arrived at Edberg-Olson an hour before our departure, leaving me time to make sure I had all my notes and information ready to carry out to South Bend. Buses hauled the team down to the airport. Our charter took us out to South Bend. The aircraft wasn't quite as nice as the ones Penn State chartered, but that was to be expected. Temple ran a much lower-budget operation than Penn State. The athletic department put us up in the Hilton Garden Hotel about a mile from Notre Dame's stadium.

Tyler, Matt and I were busy from the time we landed getting our meeting rooms set up and things ready for Coach Golden, Coach D'Onorfrio, Coach Rhule and Coach Buck's meetings with the team. We had to sit through the meetings and then pack everything up to take to the stadium tomorrow morning. The three of us had a short break before we needed to do bed checks. My duties kept me up until 12:30 in the morning. So what? No one cares if the grad assistants are tired while we stood on the sidelines tomorrow.

Temple's game day routine was similar to what I had become used to at Penn State. The team had a mid-morning brunch before heading over to Notre Dame Stadium. NBC was broadcasting the game at 3:30 PM. Temple vs. Notre Dame wasn't considered a big matchup but there weren't very many games played on August 31st, so we got good TV exposure.

The team went over to the stadium to prepare after a late morning brunch. I freed a few minutes from my game preparations to check on our freshmen, particularly Dave Mitchell. None of the other freshmen were starting. Dave seemed OK. I advised my friend to focus exclusively on the football field. Everything off the field – the crowds, the bands, the TV – everything was secondary to what happened on the field. I helped Chris Considine warm up by catching some balls for him. I threw some to Dave and the other receivers while they prepared for our contest.

Coach Rhule and Coach Buck were stationed in the press box where they called the plays. Coach Deal, our QB coach, signaled the play in from the sideline. Matt and I were stationed on the sidelines too. Our job was to make sure the right eleven people took the field for each play. We also were welcome to review observations and recommendations to the skill players during the game. Coach Mulligan would handle the offensive line from the sidelines.

Our team won the coin toss and elected to receive the football. The ball was booted deep into the end zone, so we took a touchback and began at our 20-yard line. Our first play worked to perfection. Vaughn Turner, our fullback led the way into the center of the line. Chris stuffed the ball into Sam Williams' belly. He dived forward behind Vaughn. ND's linebackers and safeties rushed to the point of attack. Much too late they realized Chris had kept the ball. Dave Mitchell was a dozen yards downfield and had a yard separation from the cornerback covering him. Chris coolly lobbed the ball over the defensive line. Dave caught it in stride and took off down field. The free safety was able to run Dave down and shove him out of bounds, but only after we picked up 47 yards. We needed six more plays to drive into the end zone.

Notre Dame lost their quarterback, tailback, three offensive linemen and a wide receiver from last year's #6-ranked team. Their inexperience showed. Our defense hadn't been anything special last year but we returned most of our starters. Our guys shut them down in three plays.

Coach Rhule and Coach Buck kept Notre Dame confused between rushing and play action passing. Their secondary took most of the first half to figure out how to handle Dave Mitchell's speed. We took a 24-10 lead into the locker room at halftime. Our guys were sky-high emotionally to have a 14-point lead on the #15-ranked team in the country. The other coaches and I counseled patience. We had thirty more minutes of work before we could relax.