NFL Pipeline

A summer in a New Mexico oil field taught the Bears star to stick to football

By Brian Urlacher

Brian Urlacher Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

It happens to me everywhere that my life as a linebacker for the Chicago Bears takes me -- in restaurants, in airports, once even at an NFL rookie photo shoot. "Where are you from?" someone will ask. "New Mexico," I'll say, and then I watch their mouths drop open and their eyes widen. "Wow," they'll say. "Mexico. What's that like, man?" Or, "I didn't know they played football in Mexico." And don't forget, "Wow! You speak such good English. You don't even have an accent."

That's not the only misconception people have about my home state. They think it's just desert, and I have to explain that there are mountains too. Cold weather and warm weather. Skiing in the winter and golf pretty much year-round -- everything you could want within a four- to five-hour drive. New Mexico is the best-kept secret in the United States. And yes, it is a state.

I go back at least once every summer, when I host a kids' football camp in Albuquerque, at the University of New Mexico, where I played in college. The camp is always the best part of my off-season -- I get in there with the kids, throw the football around and put them through some of the drills that players have to run at the NFL combine. Sometimes I will let a kid beat me in a drill (even though I hate to) because all the other kids get so excited when that happens. I have to admit that I lost once when I was trying to win, though -- this 12-year-old beat me straight up. He was a little guy with quick feet; I had no chance. At the end of the drill, I acted as if I had slipped, but the kids went berserk and jumped on me. I never heard the end of it for the rest of the camp.

I'm always a sucker for the kids who have the least athletic ability but work the hardest. The kids who bust their butts. Those are the kids I really fall for, and I'll spend as much time with them as possible. Maybe I take to them because they remind me of myself. When I was that age, I was kind of chubby, not very tall and not the best player, but I always worked hard.

The other great thing about the camp is that I get a chance to hang out with some of my former high school coaches from Lovington. They help coach the kids and help me run the drills, and after camp is over for the day, we'll go to dinner, go to the water park or play golf. We're all kids that week.

Jaime Quinones, who was the defensive backs coach while I was at Lovington High, always comes to the camp. (I played safety in both high school and college.) He pretty much molded me into the player I am: He always made sure my brother Casey and I were in the weight room by 5:30 in the morning -- during the off-season. If we didn't show up, he'd call our house.

Those early-morning workouts were good training for football and for life outside the chalk lines. The summer before I went to college, I worked in the oil fields near Lovington. I had to get to work by 6 a.m. and work until 7 p.m. every night, wearing a long-sleeved shirt so I wouldn't get sunburned in the 110° heat. We put oil pipes in the ground, so there was always oil running all over and you never knew what would happen -- maybe even an explosion.

My father worked in the oil fields, and I know I could have easily ended up there too. Lovington is a town with four stoplights and a bunch of oil rigs, and when you grow up with that life, you don't know anything different. I thought that was what life was supposed to be -- hardworking folks out in brutal heat every day.

One summer of working in the oil fields was all it took to show me that I didn't want to do that anymore. The other important things I learned growing up in New Mexico stick with me today -- how to work hard, how to trust the guy next to you on the line (pipeline or yard line), how to cuss in Spanish and, yes, even a little English.

Former Lovington High and University of New Mexico standout Brian Urlacher is a four-time Pro Bowl linebacker.

Issue date: May 24, 2004