The Rise, Hysteria, and Gametime

What a week. Wow.

When I say that I'm going to try to post more often, I really do mean it. But this was one of those weeks that seemed like the bullets just never stopped flying. wow.

I guess we should start on Monday.

Generally, that's a day off for the players. But since we've had no games yet, the players came in on Monday for a special kind of practice; it was a fan day, where all kinds of fans, kids, adults, whoever, could take part in practice and run drills with the players.

Honestly, it was awesome to watch. The guys on the team really got into it. They tried to get the kids into as many drills as possible, and cheered and yelled like crazy. The fans LOVED it. They got to run into offensive linemen holding bags. I saw a little kid "knock over" a running back. It was just a really fun event that worked really well.

After that, we got into a regular practice schedule, as we start our season on Saturday against the Rhein Fire. But...wow, what a ridiculous week.

I've been up till about 3 AM for the past two days, getting up at 8 (which I know isn't that early, but, hey, I'm a big sleeper). This week, I've written three stories, finished and sent out a press release, and conducted my first production meeting over a conference call.

There was a theme to this week: me, coming crashing back down to Earth. Now, it's time for a bit of Andy's head.

If there was one part of my experience with the 49ers that I'd say I really needed to work on, it was lightening up. I really love what I do, and I hate getting things wrong. Those two things put together make me take everything about this job really really seriously. Looking back, I would say, probably too seriously.

I would be so afraid of messing things up, that I wouldn't really let myself have any kind of personality. I'd just try to be a machine, do nothing but produce work as perfect as I possibly could. It's not that I feared the consequences of my mistakes--I just hate making them. I feel like if my work is not perfect, then that means there is something wrong with it. And I cannot accept that.

Mom says I'm too hard on myself, that everyone makes mistakes now and then. But now, we enter two new revelations that I've had.

Before I went down to Tampa--actually, I can remember thinking about this on the plane--I remember thinking to myself, "Okay. Let's focus on being a little more confident during this experience. You got chosen for a reason, it's okay to have a little self assurance." Especially in the first few weeks, I really made an effort to be a little assertive, for a change.

That, combined with what I let myself think next, has really crushed me.

Like I said, mom says I'm too hard on myself. Everyone makes mistakes, she said. I forget who it was, or when, but at some point in Tampa, I remember seeing someone really important make a small mistake. Nothing catastrophic or life-changing, but, like, something was forgotten or omitted. I said, "Hey, even the people in charge make mistakes. See, it's okay if I screw up once in a while."

The only problem is, I'm now letting myself feel more confident and letting myself make mistakes. Those two things do not go together. In fact, I'm making mistakes, trying to stay confident, and no longer having the fear of death of making another mistake.

That's not what got me here. I'm letting myself not try to be perfect. I'm letting myself be mediocre.

I realized this last night, after a week of consistently screwing up.

It's just little things, too, you know? Like, I'll send off an old copy of the roster, or, like, I tried e-mailing NFL Network some information for the broadcast, and the e-mail didn't go through correctly, or I'll tell someone something that's wrong.

Like, Tuesday. We did our team photos. I had heard all along that it was going to be at Olympic Stadium, but every player that I told, they said, are you sure it isn't someplace else? As far as I knew, it was at the stadium, but of course, it really was where everyone thought it would be.

Three or four people almost missed the picture, and it would have been my fault. And, it isn't like I wasn't being careful or anything. I had been told the pictures were at the stadium. I was just wrong.

Or, earlier that day, Cem had made the photo lineup, and included a player that we had already cut. Why? Because I forgot to delete him off the roster.

It's been going like this since training camp. Generally, I've been able to chalk that up to getting settled into a new role and gaining experience. But this week, I had my crash.

In San Francisco, I'd get really, really rattled after I screwed something up. I'd get all wide-eyed and clueless, and I'd start over-thinking about everything I did. You know how football players say they play their best when they don't think, and just react? When I would screw things up, I would think about everything. I'd let everything get to me. People would see me, and be like, "Is everything okay?" I would look absolutely shell-shocked and crushed from something like, not catching a punctuation error in an article.

Those are the kind of things I wanted to begin to eliminate during this experience. It isn't so much overall confidence I need, or even to let myself make mistakes. I'm searching for that balance between trying to be perfect, but not destroying myself when I'm not. In San Francisco, I was at one end of the spectrum. Right now, I'm at the other.

That is, until this week. I felt that same shell-shocked feeling this entire week, like I was just stumbling through everything I did, and taking every mistake and misspelling like an over the hill boxer. Constant shots to the gut, and not being able to recover.

And when I'm like that, I just seem so wound up and stressed out. It's not even that I'm stressed out. (I am always wound up, however.) I just have that clueless, hopeless, endless worry look on my face.

Today was really bad. Or, at least, I would say it's really bad, but as every person I've talked to has said, it wasn't bad, it went just fine, and I'm too hard on myself.

We had our conference call with NFL Network, in something that is called a production meeting. In production meetings, the crew that will be calling the game speaks with a group of players and coaches to get to know them, get an idea of how the team is doing--just to get some good information to talk about on the air.

Picture the setup: usually, these take place in person. With all of the people being in all different countries, however, we do ours on the phone. I decided we would do ours near the cafeteria, in the coaches office, because we scheduled our time around dinner time, at 6 PM. (That's noon in New York, where we had people in on the conference call as well.)

The lineup was daunting. They wanted our head coach (John Allen), offensive coordinator (Don Lawrence), defensive coordinator (Adrain White), both quarterbacks (starter Travis Lulay and Bruce Eugene), running back Chris Barclay, wide receiver Carlton Brewster, tackle Sam Gutekunst, defensive end Patrick Finke, and defensive tackle Lauvale Sape. That's a lot of people to coordinate with.

We figured that coaches would go for about 20 minutes, and players for about 10. I had a schedule all drawn up, and we would go from 6 PM to 8. All the players and coaches were fine with it.

From the getgo--not even before the conference call started!--we had problems. The call-in number that we received didn't work.

I sat there with Coach Allen and Coach Lawrence, staring at the call-in number, looking at the phone, dialing it, and feeling terribly embarrassed. I couldn't even dial a phone correctly. What the hell was I doing?

The first rule in working in PR in pro football, in my mind, is that you cannot interfere with the function of the team or its coaches, or surprise them with anything, or waste their time. Right now, I was wasting the time of two people that I really did not want to waste.

Eventually, we finagled it to work. It was 6:20, so everyone on the phone was already pissed. I told them that the information they gave me didn't work, so I felt justified for a few seconds. That didn't last long.

We ended up going through all three coaches by 6:40. No player was scheduled until 7 PM. I was standing there as our last coach finished, and I thought, Oh, crap, I have 20 minutes of dead time.

I was FRANTIC. In the old days, at this moment, I would have an absolute breakdown, a complete de-evolution right there. While I would like to say I calmed myself, I really didn't, because, to put it lightly, I was screwed unless I got someone on the phone 5 minutes ago.

A few players that were scheduled later on happened to be in the cafeteria. I calmly--barely--asked some of them to see if they wanted to go early. One guy said he wanted to eat first. Another had just sat down. Travis Lulay had already been great for me, doing a story last night and a press conference earlier in the day--it would really be unwise to push even more.

I got Bruce Eugene on. Listening in on the call and peeking out into the cafeteria, I began to talk players into re-arranging the schedule. 6:55. 7. 7:05. 7:10.

I got everyone covered. One after the other, we got them knocked out, except, Chris Barclay.

Now, Chris is great. He's a really nice guy. Anything we've needed so far, he's been up for it, and been an all-star. He was originally scheduled for 7 PM. By 7:15, I had given up hope that he was simply late, and resigned myself to the doom that he forgot.

Call to the room. No answer. Anyone seen Chris? No, not for a while. Call the room again. Left a message. Hey, have you seen Chris?

Yeah, he went out to dinner with the running backs coach. He'll be back in a few hours.

My heart fell through the floor.

Luckily, I had the coach's phone number--that's Wanja Mueller. He's a Berlin native, and a national coach. He's great--he's a great coach and an awesome guy.

Luckily, with Travis Lulay in the room, I've heard him answer the same questions a lot already, so I could step our for a second and call Coach Mueller. I asked if Chris was with him, which he was.

"Is everything okay, Andy? Do you need him?"

"Well, just a little. He missed his conference call with NFL Network."

"His con...NFL...oh. Oh, man. Here's Chris."

Chris did forget. Not intentionally. He was sorry. Totally understood. In an ultimate moment of clarity, I solved the challenge of getting him on the conference call anyway.

Once Coach Allen got on the conference call at 6:20, I messed around with the calling numbers on my cell phone and figured out--kind of--how to make it work, with an alternate number that was down on the sheet. I asked Coach Mueller, "In about 5 minutes, can you have Chris call this number?"

It worked. Right on cue, once Lauvale Sape was done, Chris chimed in and did it.

He did it. We even managed to get some extra players in. All in all, it went well, and all of our players did a great job.

The meatloaf and stringbean casserole I had for dinner might have been the best tasting meal in my life. I sat down with Jasper Harvey and Travis, who said to me when I sat down, "So, are you going to make it, buddy?"

I am now.

------------------------------------------------------

I make it sound like this week has been a massive failure. While I would have you believe that, some great stuff has gone on this week, too.

My first two stories have been posted on NFLEurope.com and berlin-thunder.de. My first one, a feature on Jasper Harvey himself, can be found here (NFLEurope.com) and here (berlin-thunder.de); and the first installment of Travis Lulay's diary can be found here (NFLEurope.com) and here (berlin-thunder.de).

Jasper is a really great guy. The night we talked about the feature, I'd say we just talked about stuff for about two hours. He told me stories of his friends in the NFL, his journey from going undrafted, to Washington, to Philly, then to NFL Europe, the stories of him getting signed, the story of him getting cut--I pretty much got the Jasper Harvey story.

It gave me some really amazing insight into the life of an undrafted free agent. Those guys really have to fight to make it. It is NOT easy.

I sent out our first regular season release today, which I'd love to post a link to if it were online someplace. I'll get on that.

About today's press conference: I had the duty of informing Travis and Lauvale Sape (they are both two of the five team captains) that they would be attending, and speaking, and telling them what to wear (and kind of what to expect).

They were both incredibly understanding. I told Travis about it, then did our first diary installment. He is a stellar guy. Not only is he the starting QB and a team captain, but he's getting married in July, about two weeks before he has to report to Seahawks camp.

I went down to Sape's room to tell him about it. He was on the way out. I asked him if he had a second. He said, "For sure, man! Come get some food with us."

That's the kind of guy he is. Sape is just a really, really inviting guy. He's the kind of guy where you'd go talk to him for a quick second, and he'd try to invite you in for dinner, to chat, and just be friendly. That's so cool, and so refreshing.

So, I went to the "doner place," which is the Turkish restaurant down the street. It's pronounced "dooner." It's like a pita sandwich, with...some kind of wonderful tasting meat, and lettuce, and vegetables. It was incredible.

But anyway, I walked over there--about a 15 minute walk around Teltow--with Sape, defensive end Seante Williams, and linebacker Dominique Sims. That was awesome. We just talked about anything, and we all got to know each other. We got doners and watched the big soccer game on TV; it was the quarterfinals of the Champions League, which Munich was playing in. We talked a little bit about the conference call, which he was fine with, then walked back and talked some more.

All the ideas you have about football players--or, that I still have sometimes--are wrong, so often. So many of these guys are just regular guys, and they'll act that way, as long as you be yourself.

That's one area where I feel I have succeeded so far: not being so star struck around these guys. In San Francisco, it took pretty much all season for me to feel comfortable around some of the players. Even through the end of the season, I still wasn't very good at talking to players. That was an area I HAD to improve on while I was here, and I feel like I've done that okay.

----------------------------------

Well, here I am, at 1:15 in the morning, now Friday, April 13. (Oh, no, it's Friday the 13th.) We leave for Dusseldorf in about 8 hours. I haven't packed yet. I'm listening to Rascal Flatts, who I swear has got me through this week.

Don't get the wrong idea from all of this: I'm having a great time. This experience is incredible. Berlin is awesome. I can't wait to travel and be in a real football game.

This is a learning experience, and, right now, I'm getting some hardcore learning. All things considered--new job, lots of responsibilities, new country with a whole new language, etc.--I'm holding up pretty well. I'm not depressed, homesick, lonely, sad, etc., so I can't complain.

Yeah, I miss a few things. Playstation 2 still, even though the players put one in the lounge. That helps me get my fix. The things I always miss are the people, and being able to stay in touch with anyone. I'm becoming friends with lots of the players here, which certainly helps that part of it.

If there's one lesson I've learned over everything so far, it's this: life is short. There is no time for waiting on things or people. If I want something, I've got to go get it.

That's something that I've believed before, but now I feel it. I know it. I'm 23 years old; yeah, I'm not old, but my future now isn't traveling around and figuring my life out. It's getting a job and being relatively stationary. It's establishing myself...getting married...thinking about a family. Focusing on the things that make me successful.

I don't have much more time to say, "I need to work tonight, I can have fun tomorrow." All we have in life are moments. Those moments are becoming more and more precious, especially during a time like this, which I'll never be able to experience again.

Even if this experience ended right now, that's something I could say I've taken to heart. Now, I'm trying to pack so much life into such little time, here in Europe. (That may have something to with my struggles!)

I can't look back on my life in 70 years and have all of these things that I wish I did. That would be really unfortunate. I'm not going to let that happen.

At least, I can absolutely say that going to Germany will not be in that list.

---------------------------------------------------------

Quite a long entry we've had here. I've got some more work to do, then time to pack for my first professional road trip ever. Be back on Sunday.