The student, player, soldier and person
When Arizona State’s 1997 PAC-10 Defensive Player of the Year, linebacker Pat Tillman, was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in the 7th round of the 1998 NFL Draft, I jumped to my feet out of supreme elation.
During my draft preparation that year, once I started reviewing Pat’s stellar play on tape and began digging deeper into his background, Pat Tillman the extraordinary person started to shine through.
You’ll see exactly what I mean if you re-watch this video, a video that to this day gives me goosebumps:
There was a question as to whether Pat Tillman, as a smaller than average linebacker, could make it in the NFL. But that question never ever crossed my mind. Not when you look at the player because Pat Tillman had NFL feet, he brought NFL tackling prowess and he possessed a 14-carat NFL-caliber heart of gold.
As a high school football coach, I always recruited my players to take my AP English class when they were juniors or seniors The first reason applied to how much I wanted to have their leadership in my everyday classroom. This upset a number of my colleagues because students who signed up for AP classes had to be recommended by their teacher.
But there was one way to get around the teacher-recommendation pre-requisite —- a student’s parents could go to the guidance office and fill out a consent form that would enable their son (or daughter) to enroll in the class, regardless of what their previous grades or recommendations were.
The second reason why I wanted my players in class was to challenge their intellects and help to broaden their horizons. So often, I have found, high school students succumb to thinking they are simply average students. That, and they just want to take what they consider to be the easiest path to a diploma. It always annoyed me that “jocks” were considered dumb as rocks.
The more I looked into Pat Tillman’s background, the more it occurred to me that he would be the ultimate student to have in an AP class, or any class, for that matter. Pat Tillman’s intellectual curiosity was through the roof —- literally and figuratively. While at ASU, he used to ride his bike over the nearest water tower. With his backpack strapped to his shoulders, Pat would climb up the long thin ladder to go sit at the top of the structure where he could be alone with whatever book he was reading (by flashlight) or be alone with the stars as he so often contemplated the meaning of life, philosophy and religion.
The point is —- not only did Pat Tillman have the feet, the tackling ability and the heart to make a splash in the NFL, perhaps most of all —- he had the intellect. As today’s NFL fans well know, there is a processing of information element that is requisite to each player’s job description in the NFL. Well, Pat Tillman was the kind of player who would know every aspect of the defensive playbook with its myriads of nuances in a matter of days.
Pat Tillman graduated summa cum laude from ASU, with a 3.85 GPA.
Players can only go “150 miles per hours all the time” when they know and understand the playbook by heart. Pat Tillman understood this.
My favorite Pat Tillman moment during his four highly productive years with the Cardinals was when Dave McGinnis created a 6-1-4 “Jumbo” package with Pat Tillman as the “1” at middle linebacker. Having 5 linemen in front of him, Pat Tillman could play clean and super-fast to the football. It was absolutely awesome to watch.
Pat Tillman’s Career Stats
With the Arizona St. Sun Devils:
- Games: 33
- Tackles: 230
- Tackles for Loss: 24
- Sacks: 4
- Interceptions: 4
With the Arizona Cardinals:
- Games: 60 (39 starts)
- Tackles: 374 (276 solo)
- Tackles for Loss: 5
- Sacks: 2.5
- Interceptions: 3
All of this and I have yet to mention what Pat Tillman’s greatest virtues were.
- Loyalty —- Pat was always the ultimate family member, teammate and, even more so, the ultimate Amercian patriot.
- Humility —- Pat was uncomfortable responding to reporters who were gushing about the level of his play. He would often say that he played so-so but his teammates played great.
If you recall, after Pat and his brother made the decision to enlist in the armed forces, Pat did not want one iota of fanfare for his decision. As he said, he wanted to be treated like every other enlistee. He abhorred the notion of being treated as some kind of an American hero.
Pat would not have wanted the American hero treatment posthumously, either. He would have hated all of that. Even when the truth came out that he was tragically killed by “friendly fire” from his own men, Pat would not have wanted to be hailed as hero.
In my classes, I made it a yearly tradition at either Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day to tell my students the story of Pat Tillman. The reaction from my students was profound. While in the school’s photo lab, some made posters of Pat in his Cardinals’ uniform kneeling in front of the Twin Towers. One of those posters adorned the wall right next to my white board. Some bought Pat Tillman jerseys. Can you imagine what it was like for me to be walking around Patriots Place in Foxborough and see a present or former student proudly wearing a Pat Tillman jersey?
Some former students go out of their way on Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day to send me a tribute to Pat Tillman via Facebook. That’s the thing with young people —- when their minds and hearts are touched, they never forget.
On this day, I think of my dear dad who was a radio control operator on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific during World War II. I get choked up thinking about it. Dad didn’t talk very much about his time in the U.S. Navy.
But the one story he told me and my sisters that we will never forget is how one night while the aircraft carrier was meandering through the heavily mined waters of the Yellow Sea, all of the crewman elected to sleep on the deck that night in case of a mine hit taking out a chuck of the ship and thereby having to potentially evacuate the vessel as soon as possible with whatever life boats that were available. Swimming to safety was not an option because the warm waters were thick with sharks.
Dad said he decided to go sleep in his bunk anyway. When we asked him why, he said he figured a good night’s sleep would best prepare him for whatever would happen. We thought Dad was out of his mind. But come to think of it, that might be something Pat Tillman would have done.
Like some of you, I was one of the fortunate ones whose dads came home from war. I would have never existed, otherwise. Which makes me feel all the more heartbroken for Pat Tillman, his wife Marie and his loving family.
Pat Tillman’s death remains an unfathomable loss for all those who loved and respected him. His death on the battlefield was an Amercian patriot’s ultimate sacrifice.
A sacrifice from a former NFL star who after 9/11 told the world how his great-grandfather had fought at Pearl Harbor to protect the Amercian freedoms that he and everyone have today and that by comparison, “I haven’t done anything.”
Said by the soldier who wound up giving everything.