SURROUND YOURSELF WITH GOOD PEOPLE
There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
PROVERBS 18:24
After our awful 1997 season, Al Davis fired Joe Bugel and replaced him with the Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive coordinator. At thirty-four, Jon Gruden became the youngest head coach in the NFL. He was only three years older than me.
Initially, I wasn’t excited about the hire. I’d spoken up about wanting to see Art Shell take over again. He’d coached the Raiders from 1989 to 1994 and had the respect and support of the players. Al Davis had already expressed his regret over letting Art go. Since I had the choice to opt out of my contract that year, I thought seriously about leaving the Raiders when the announcement of our new coach was made. I didn’t know anything about Jon Gruden.
I can’t say I was overly impressed the first time I met him in a hallway at the Raiders offices. He wore a polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes. I acknowledged him and moved on. I had no idea who he was. He looked like an eighteen-year-old intern.
“So you’re going to walk by your new head coach?” he said.
“Oh, man,” I said, turning back to him. “Dude, you look younger than my son.”
In our first sit-down meeting, Gruden asked me to stay in Oakland. “Just give me a shot,” he said. “Give me one year to show you what it can be.” He wanted to install a version of the West Coast offense that had been so successful for the 49ers and others.
I was still skeptical, partly because of what I’d seen before. Al Davis was famous for his hands-on approach to the Raiders. In recent years, that hadn’t worked out too well. “Al’s not going to let you do what you want to do with this offense,” I said. “There’s no reason for me to stick around and watch everybody fail.”
“Look,” Gruden said, “he’s going to fire me in two years anyway. So I might as well do things my way.”
He won me over. He was an intense football guy. He worked long hours every night and usually slept on a couch in the office. It was common to see him wearing the same clothes two days in a row. His enthusiasm was infectious, and watching him install plays on Wednesdays was like watching Mozart craft a masterpiece.
I also saw that either because he’d made an arrangement with Al or because he just ignored him, Gruden had more power than previous Raiders coaches. When looking for players, Al emphasized speed and tended to disregard everything else, but Gruden began bringing in guys who fit the style of football he wanted to play. Those people changed us for the better.
No one succeeds in life on his own. To achieve great things, you have to be around the right people. That’s true in football and in life. In Jon Gruden, the Raiders found one of those people. They found another when they signed Eric Allen, a six-time Pro Bowler from New Orleans. Eric wasn’t fast, but he was a smart, shut-down cornerback. Then we took cornerback Charles Woodson, the first primarily defensive player to win the Heisman, with the fourth pick of the 1998 NFL draft. Woodson made the Pro Bowl for us as a rookie.
In 1998, we doubled our win total from the season before, finishing with an 8-8 mark. Our record was the same the following year, but we added more important pieces. Rich Gannon was a thirty-three-year-old quarterback who’d been a backup, starter, and part-time starter for the Vikings, Redskins, and Chiefs. We signed him as a free agent. No one expected Gannon to dominate, but he was the perfect fit for our new offense. He passed for 3,840 yards in 1999 and made the Pro Bowl.
For that same season, we also signed a running back who hadn’t found a home. Tyrone Wheatley had been traded from the Giants to the Dolphins, but Miami cut him during training camp. When our new fullback, Zack Crockett, broke his foot, we acquired Wheatley. It turned out to be another great move. Tyrone teamed with Napoleon Kaufman in the backfield and rushed for 936 yards, scoring eight touchdowns. In terms of overall yardage, we suddenly had the fifth-best offense in the NFL.
I stayed productive myself, making eighty-one catches for 1,012 yards in 1998 and ninety catches for 1,344 yards in 1999. I also made my eighth Pro Bowl in 1999.
What was exciting, though, was seeing the improvements in our team. The Raiders hadn’t made the playoffs since 1993, when we were in Los Angeles. Oakland fans hadn’t been treated to a Raiders playoff game since 1980, almost twenty years.
At last, thanks to the new people we were bringing in, we were poised to change that.
I’ve been fortunate throughout my life to so often be surrounded by good people. It started with my parents, brother, sisters, and extended family. You can’t choose your relatives, so it’s a blessing that I ended up with mine. As a professional athlete, you also don’t usually have a choice in the people you work with. Coaches are hired by owners and management. Players are drafted, signed, traded, and released by a team’s personnel officials—or as was often the case with the Raiders, by the owner. You can try to influence those decisions and hope you are heard, but for the most part you have to take the bad with the good.
Friends, though, are another matter. You get to choose the people you’re close to. Those decisions are critical, because quality friends give you someone to confide in and get advice from, someone to share the good times with, and someone to rely on when you’re in trouble.
I’ve been as blessed by my friendships as I have by my family. One of my best friends is a guy I’ve known since I was twelve years old. Marcus Camper went to a different middle school and high school, but like me he attended Victory Temple church. He became part of our group that played basketball after services, went to the Shake, Rattle, and Roll, and stopped to eat at the Bonanza restaurant. We thought those dinners at the Bonanza were the best in the world—all you could eat for $4.99. Come to think of it, the appeal might have been quantity more than quality.
Marcus was like me in a lot of ways. He played football and basketball. I never saw him drink or smoke. And he liked the girls. Marcus got married right after college. About the same time, he also gave his life to God. Now he lives just a mile down the road from me. Because our backgrounds are so similar, we have this ping-pong relationship—anything I bounce at him, whether it’s a spiritual issue or a marriage issue, he understands and can bounce an answer right back. Most of the time, the answer is, “Brother, we are going to keep praying for that situation. We know God can work it out.”
I can go on forever about Marcus. He’s a man’s man. He can fix anything, and if he doesn’t get dirty doing it, he doesn’t think it’s worth doing. He’s a Dallas police officer, the kind of guy who wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet for someone else. More important than that, he has what I’d almost call a beautiful spirit. Whenever he travels with me, he’s like my sergeant at arms and bodyguard rolled into one. He’ll update people who are waiting on me or stand next to me and answer questions if needed.
On top of all that, Marcus has this internal filter. Whatever happens to him, he processes it and what comes out always seems to be good while also honoring God. In so many ways, he’s the man I aspire to be. It used to be that when he and I came out of church, kids would follow and ask for my autograph. I’d point to Marcus and say, “He’s the one you should ask for an autograph. He’s your example, not me.” Just hanging out with him makes me a better man.
I’ve had other good friends and teammates who have also definitely influenced me for the better. Alvin Miller at Notre Dame. Marcus Allen and James Lofton with the Raiders.
And then there’s Chester.
My first conversation with Chester McGlockton was before the 1992 season. Chester was a rookie defensive lineman. He was big. He was also cocky and gregarious. He’d tell everybody his plan for life, which was to play for six to eight years, retire, sit on his porch, and relax for the rest of his days.
I didn’t care about all that. I was the Raiders’ NFL Players Association representative at the time and it was my job to get information out to the team. I needed to make sure this rookie knew what was happening.
“Hey Big Rook,” I said. “I need to get you to this meeting.”
“I’m not coming to the meeting,” Chester said.
“No,” I said, “you’re not hearing what I’m saying. I need you to be at this meeting.”
Chester shook his head. “I’m not coming to the meeting.”
“Brother, look,” I said. “You can’t be ignorant about what’s going on with the Players Association and the league. I need you to—”
That was as far as I got. Chester jumped up and came at me, eyes on fire. Fortunately for me, Howie Long happened to be nearby, saw what was happening, and stepped in to slow Chester down. Chester had almost 150 pounds on me, so who knows if I’d still be alive to write this book if Howie hadn’t been there.
“Big man, whoa,” I said, my hands up.
“Don’t be calling me ignorant!” Chester said.
“I didn’t call you ignorant. I said you can’t be ignorant of the situation here.”
“Well, all I heard was me and ignorant.”
That was our introduction. I ribbed Chester about it for a long time. Then we ended up playing a round of golf together. The more I talked to Chester, the more I realized he was really just a big teddy bear. We started playing golf and hanging out on off days. Not in the evenings, though. Chester liked to go drinking and I wasn’t interested.
Then God started working on him. Chester met Zina, his future wife. Like me, he also went to Church of God in Christ, and we talked more and more about faith issues. Pretty soon, Chester was a changed man. When we both committed our lives to Christ in 1996, it created a stronger bond between us. In the offseason, we still talked two or three times a week. If he was anywhere near Dallas or if I was anywhere in California, we’d meet somewhere. We might have looked like Laurel and Hardy together, but it was great. When he moved on to Kansas City in 1998, we made sure it didn’t change our friendship.
Chester was important to me as a friend and as someone who encouraged me spiritually. When we talked about family, football, and the temptations that face an NFL player, he knew just where I was coming from. If he heard me talking or saw me acting in a way that he felt didn’t line up with God, he let me know about it. My buddy Marcus is too nice to get in someone’s face that way, but Chester wouldn’t hesitate: “Boy, are you crazy? What is wrong with you?” He was always after me about treating my wife, kids, and extended family right. Yet I knew he wasn’t judging me, that it was for my own good. And I often gave it right back to him.
A lot of men don’t have friends like that—or if they do have them, they choose not to open the door to that kind of deep relationship. I can tell you, though, that sharing your problems and being accountable to a godly friend is a huge blessing. When you surround yourself with these kinds of people, you’ll find it a whole lot easier to live a successful life.
Entering the 2000 season, the Raiders were also on the road to success. One of the keys was the last game of the 1999 season. We were on the road against Kansas City, where we always had problems. We hadn’t won there in a decade. In terms of the postseason, the game didn’t mean a thing to us, since we were 7-8. The Chiefs, on the other hand, needed a victory to take the division and make the playoffs.
We started as if we planned to roll over, giving up a punt return for a touchdown, an interception for a touchdown, and a field goal in the first quarter. There were times in the early Gruden years where in a situation like that, players felt the pressure to make a big play and tried to do too much. I was one of them. I might drift fifteen yards downfield instead of five or block the guy I thought was the biggest threat instead of who I’d been assigned to block. The intention was always good, but by giving up on the system and playing out of position, we sometimes messed up plays and hurt the team.
We didn’t do that against Kansas City. We just kept fighting, trusted the system, and trusted each other. We came back to score three consecutive touchdowns in the second quarter, turning the game into a dogfight. With 1:39 left in the game, we were just past midfield, down by three points and facing a fourth-and-twelve. I lined up on the left side, faked as if I would cut outside, then ran hard on an angle toward the middle. Gannon’s throw was perfect, low and between two defenders. I dropped to one knee for a twenty-yard gain. With fifty seconds left, Joe Nedney kicked a thirty-eight-yard field goal to tie the game. He connected again from thirty-three yards in overtime to give us a 41–38 victory.
That game showed us that if we believed in the system in place and in the people around us, we could beat anybody. It was our battle cry going into the next year.
We opened 2000 by squeaking by the Chargers, 9–6, then faced a tough test at Indianapolis. Peyton Manning had a big day, and the Colts dominated in the first half. They led after the first two quarters, 24–7. But once again, we fought back. It helped when our middle linebacker, Greg Biekert, ran off the field at halftime yelling, “I got it! I got it!” I didn’t know what he was talking about until he met with the coaches. He’d figured out the sequence of numbers Manning was calling out before each play, at least enough to know if the play would be a run or pass. Our defense nearly shut out Manning and the Colts in the second half, forcing three turnovers, while Rich Gannon managed the offense superbly. We scored thirty-one straight points to win, 38–31.
A month later, we were 3-1 and found ourselves in another wild affair at San Francisco. It turned out to be one of my best performances as a pro. I caught a thirty-yard touchdown pass late in the third quarter and Gannon ran for a thirteen-yard score early in the fourth to give us a 28–14 lead. But the 49ers battled back with a pair of Jeff Garcia touchdown passes to tie the game at the end of regulation. In overtime, we missed a field goal, but Anthony Dorsett blocked one of theirs. On our next possession, we drove to the 49er thirty-one yard line.
I lined up in the left slot and went in motion to the right. I already had a couple of completions out of that formation by running up field three or four yards and turning for the catch. Their defender, Monty Montgomery, gave me a little less room each time. On this play, we faked the short pass and I ran long. Montgomery bit, expecting the short throw, and I was wide open for the game-winning score. I finished the game with seven catches for 172 yards and was named NFL Offensive Player of the Week.
We ended the season with a 12-4 record, easily winning the AFC West and earning a first-round bye in the playoffs. We hosted Miami in a divisional playoff. On the first Dolphin drive, Tory James intercepted a Jay Fiedler pass on our ten yard line and ran it back ninety yards for a touchdown. With our linemen controlling the game, Miami never challenged us, and we advanced with a 27–0 victory.
Our opponent in the AFC title game was the Baltimore Ravens. The winner would earn a spot in the Super Bowl. Although I’d played in one other AFC championship playoff back in 1990, we never really had a chance against Buffalo. This time we were favored to win. I was definitely excited about the chance to move on to the big game.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. Baltimore’s defense smothered our offense and temporarily knocked Rich Gannon out of the game with a crushing hit in the second quarter. We trailed 10–0 at halftime. Gannon missed more time in the second half and all we could manage was a field goal. The Ravens beat us, 16–3.
I shed tears in the locker room. I was sure we were going to win that game. It was a terrible disappointment after a great year. When I exited the locker room, I felt broken. I had a hard time speaking.
Two young fans approached me. One, obviously noticing how distraught I looked, said, “Hey Tim, you going to be all right?”
As so often happened, my good friend and unofficial bodyguard, Marcus, was right next to me. When I hesitated, unable to speak, Marcus jumped in: “Of course he’s going to be all right.”
I was feeling anything but all right. Yet when Marcus said those words, it gave me another perspective. It gave me strength. I saw that as bad as it hurt, I would get through this. Marcus was like a pillar to lean on when I really needed one.
For Marcus, that moment was no big deal. But for me, it was an important turning point. It’s just another example of what can happen when you’re around good people.