A Misfit Who Lives To Win

"Don't 'Yes, sir' me!" I said. "Get mad! Get out there on that field and do something."

"Yes, sir," he said. "But to who?"

"To anybody that gets in your way," I said. "To Bud Grant, if he's in your way. Right now you'd better think about the strong safety, Karl Kassulke. He's always on you, and you don't hit him. Now tomorrow I want you to hate Kassulke. I want you to kill Kassulke, Tear him to pieces!"

By this time the tight end is halfway through his 10 tequilas and he's standing up and making fists and saying, "Yah, yah," just like Alex Karras. "I'll get that Kassulke!"

His roommate and I managed to haul him back to the dormitory by curfew time, and then I went to my room to talk to some of the guys. At training camp the coaches have the first floor, veterans the second and rookies the third, and after curfew the rookies are sternly forbidden to leave their floor. Around 11:30 we were jawing away and Kassulke came into my room and I told him what had happened. "Thanks a lot!" he said. "Thanks for turning that big animal on me." Suddenly we heard a roar from the hall.

"Yah, yah, yahhh," this big voice was saying. "Yah, yah, YAHHH!" It was like Fat Albert in the Bill Cosby routine. I looked out my door and saw the tight end in his undershorts. He was strutting up and down the hall and opening doors. In between "Yah, yahs," he was hollering, "Where's that Kassulke? Lemme at that sumbitch! I'm gonna kill that mother!"

I slammed the door and Karl jumped into my closet. A few of the guys went out and at great personal risk tried to calm the tight end down. They finally got him back to his bed, where he drifted off into a tequila coma for the night.

"O.K., Karl," I said. "You can come out now, and I think we've got ourselves a tight end."

"Yeah," Kassulke said, "and lost yourself a strong safety!"

The next morning we all waited eagerly for the rookie to arrive, but he didn't attend the morning session. It takes a while to sleep off 10 tequilas. In the afternoon he showed up, more dead than alive, and when he banged into Kassulke on a down-and-out pass he stopped dead and said, "Oh, excuse me, Mr. Kassulke." He was cut soon after. Maybe he'll be able to pull all his great talents together and play for another team. But he may never be mean enough.