Warren Murphy: Acid Rock

"If the television stations and other news media, such as my own newspaper, would do the same, we would see an end to this free agent hoax. The only thing the Eagles are really trying out is our gullibility. So far, they seem to be successful."

Remo looked around the almost empty bus station. It reeked of disinfectant as all bus stations in the wee hours reek of disinfectant. He stuffed the paper into a trash can. It would be foolish for him to go to the Eagles' training camp at Pell College, just outside the city limits. For one thing, he was supposed to go to great lengths to avoid publicity and second, what would he prove? He was in an entirely different business from professional athletes. And for three, Smith would be phoning him that morning for a meeting in Atlanta. That had been the point of the telegram about Aunt Mildred. And for four, Chiun frowned upon unnecessary displays. Those were four excellent reasons not to take a look at the Eagle training camp. Besides, he had gotten rid of his football lusts in high school. Middle guards simply didn't weigh less than two hundred pounds, not even in college. Remo went to the water cooler and filled his mouth again. They were four excellent reasons not to go.

The fare to Pell College was $7.35 and Remo gave the cab driver a ten and told him to keep the change. It was just 6:30 a.m. and already a line had begun to form outside the field house. At just shy of six feet, Remo was one of the shortest men in line. He was also one of the lightest.

Remo stood in line behind a garage mechanic who played semipro and said he knew he didn't have a chance but he just wanted to butt heads once or twice with real pros. He had played against the Eagles' third string linebacker once in high school and had gotten by him once. Of course, he had been hit so hard he had fumbled four other times during the game.

On Remo's other side was a college dropout of six-feet-seven, 280 pounds, who had never played football but thought he might show enough talent, considering his size. The men gathered and the line grew. All of the men but one cherished fantasies most men had surrendered in childhood. That one's mouth tasted of salt and he was experiencing a body and mind change hundreds upon hundreds of years old, a transformation never experienced before by anyone outside the little Korean village of Sinanju.

The assistant coaches avoided the eyes of the free agents as they broke them down into groups. The only thing the coaches seemed concerned with were the release forms. Seven for each man, freeing the Eagles from responsibility for any possible injuries.

The hopefuls were herded to the sidelines of the Pell playing field and told to wait. The Eagles went through their morning workout. They did not exchange any words with the amateurs. When a television crew arrived, five applicants were called from the sidelines. Remo was not one of them. He was too small, according to an assistant coach.

"They're putting them in with the regulars," said a man sitting next to Remo. "I was here last year."

"Why don't they give them a chance and put them in with the rookies," asked Remo.

"Rookies would kill 'em. A rookie will hit anything that moves, just to show they can hit. Rookies are dangerous. The regulars will take it easy on us."

For each television crew and reporter, another group of free agents was trotted out. Remo waited through the morning workout, but was not called. At lunch they all ate with Eagles but at separate tables. Every now and then, one of the applicants was called to sit near an Eagle. One photographer had an Eagle feed an applicant, holding the fork near his mouth and smiling at the camera. When the photographer said, "Got it," the offensive tackle dropped the forkful of coleslaw in the other man's lap. The man tried to laugh it off.

One of the reporters tried to get Lerone Marion Bettee, aka "The Animal," to pose with an applicant's head in his hands. Bettee refused, saying he did not use his hands like that without toilet paper.

Remo made a mental note that a man like Bettee didn't really know what to do with his hands and therefore had no use for them.

The middle linebacker of the Eagles, who was known as one of the toughest in the business and had been quoted as saying "anyone who doesn't like to hit and be hit shouldn't play pro ball," came over to the applicants' table and asked them how they liked their lunch. He volunteered that pro football was really hard work and sometimes he wished he could make his living at something else. This broke the ice and other players came over to chat but the head coach broke it up, saying the players were there for work, not socializing.

Lerone Marion Bettee, six-foot-six, 267 pounds, and built like a clothes hamper, complained loudly that the players should never have spoken to the applicants because the applicants belonged in the stands, not on the playing field or in the players' dining room.

By mid-afternoon when all the newsmen had gone, Remo and another man had still not played. An assistant coach told them to come back next year and that they would now be given an Eagle pennant as a souvenir.

"I came to play and I'm going to play," said Remo.

"Tryout day is over."

"Not for me," said Remo. "I'm not going until I get a chance."

"It's over."

"Not for me."

The assistant coach trotted to the head coach, who shrugged, mumbled a few words, and sent the assistant coach back to Remo.

"Okay. Get out there at cornerback. We'll run an off-tackle play and you can stand on the field. Don't get in the way of the runner if he should get by Bettee, because you'll get hurt."

"I play middle guard," said Remo. "I played it in high school."

"You can't go into the pit. You won't get out in one piece."

"I want to play middle guard," said Remo.

"Look. So far, no one has gotten hurt real bad. Don't spoil our record."

"I'm playing middle guard," said Remo and trotted out to the scrimmage line. For the first time in football history a real killer was on a football field. If the coach had known what was really entering the scrimmage, he would have locked his team up in Fort Knox to protect them. But all he saw was a little nuisance, so he waved to his offensive center and right guard to gently box in the intruder on the next play so everyone could get back to work.

Remo got down in the four-point stance he had learned in high school, but it now felt unnatural for his body. It was a bad placement of the centrality of his being, so he stood up. His shoulders barely topped the crouching center and guard, who were just an arm's height from the playing surface.

The cleats felt unnatural on the hard-packed summer grass so Remo kicked them off. He could smell the sharp sweat of bodies before him and even the meat on their breath. The quarterback who looked so small on television was a good four inches taller than Remo. The center snapped the ball, the quarterback rammed it into the stomach of Bobby Joe Hooker, whose bulk churned to right tackle. Center Raymond Wolsczak and guard Herman Doffman rose to gently box in the little man in stocking feet, lest he get between the runner Hooker and the defensive tackle, Bettee, and wind up in the hospital. Or the morgue.

But as they moved, the little man was not there. Doffman felt something brush by him and so did the quarterback. Hooker felt the ball hit his stomach as the quarterback handed off, and then felt what he later described as a sledgehammer in the stomach and somehow the intruder was casually trotting toward the goal line with the football tucked under his arm, straight-arming imaginary opponents. Remo Williams, Weequahic High School middle guard, who had never even made all-Newark,

"He slugged me," gasped Hooker, pointing at the quarterback from his kneeling position. "He slugged me."