Being in an NFL locker room for the first time was intimidating enough. I had been around training camps as an intern, but the feeling was far different as a first-time credentialed writer. Will my questions sound stupid? Can I approach Willis McGahee? Does anyone notice how much I’m sweating?
It was the third game of the 2005 season and the Buffalo Bills team I was covering had just fallen to the Michael Vick-led Atlanta Falcons. Waiting in the tunnel for the locker room doors to open, my mind was aflutter with looming deadlines and potential interviews.
Just when I thought I couldn’t be any more nervous, a stocky man with a flat-brimmed cowboy hat slipped out of the locker room doors.
My childhood came rushing back to me.
Standing in front of me was Bills defensive line coach Tim Krumrie.
The last time I had been this close to him was in Wilmington, OH, site of the Cincinnati Bengals training camp in 1989. I stood no taller than his waist then, which was the perfect perspective to investigate the impressive scar on his shin.
Krumrie was the nose tackle on the 1988 Bengals—a team that pretty much introduced me to the NFL. And while that year may have been his greatest, it ended in a most brutal fashion: the horrifying leg injury in the Super Bowl XXIII loss to the 49ers.
A native of Massachusetts, I moved to Cincinnati in 1987 when my dad was transferred for his job. We weren’t Bengal fans at heart, but we splurged on season tickets anyway. If nothing else, football at Riverfront Stadium was infinitely more pleasant than fighting through Route 1 traffic to get to a Patriots game.
My love of football was born the next year. Not only were the Bengals winners of their first six games that season, but the team was unusually accessible. The city and the team were inseparably in love with one another.
Wide receiver Tim McGee and safety David Fulcher lived near me. Boomer Esiason’s face spent more time on local television than anyone except Channel 5 evening anchor Jerry Springer. At a signing in Sharonville, Elbert “Icky” Woods showed me the proper way to take a football card out of its plastic casing. I even went to Montessori school with Hall of Fame Tackle Anthony Muñoz’s children.
The team produced nine All-Pros that season (Esiason, Muñoz, Fulcher, Krumrie, James Brooks, Rodney Holman, Max Montoya, Eddie Brown, and Eric Thomas) and the NFL’s MVP (Esiason).
The most popular man in Cincinnati, however, was head coach Sam Wyche.
The Bill Walsh disciple and former Bengal quarterback had orchestrated one of the most complex offenses in football. Cincinnati had ranked tops in the NFL in points, yards, and first downs. They gained nearly 3,000 yards on the ground between Woods, Brooks, Stanford Jennings, and Stanley Wilson, and Esiason finished the season as the league’s highest-rated passer.
They were nearly as proficient on defense. With coordinator (and eventual Bengal head coach) Dick LeBeau implementing his famed 3-4 defense, Cincinnati finished sixth overall in interceptions.
The defense, however, fell just short in the Super Bowl.
My parents paid slightly more than $100 per ticket to see that game at Miami’s Joe Robbie Stadium. They even made it on television moments after Krumrie broke his leg in two places while trying to tackle Roger Craig.
The mood on the Cincinnati sideline was already bleak, as Wilson had been caught with cocaine the night before. Now, with Krumrie out of the game as well, Cincinnati faced an uphill climb.
Still, the Bengals managed to go into the fourth quarter with a seven-point lead thanks to Jennings’ touchdown on a kickoff return.
The story from there got ugly for Cincinnati. Dropped interceptions and missed opportunities allowed Joe Montana to overcome a 2nd and 20 to eventually deliver the game-winning pass to John Taylor.
Krumrie ended up playing the better part of five more seasons in the NFL and showed little effects from his ghastly injury.
But as he stoically exited Ralph Wilson Stadium in Week 3 of the 2005 season, he did move with some difficulty. He reminded me of Tom Berenger’s character in Platoon. His face was leathery and he wore a slight scowl. Had he been wearing fatigues instead of jeans, nobody would have batted an eye. He was, in every sense of the word, a warrior.
The locker room door clicked behind him and I began to gather myself.
I needed focus. Tim Krumrie had been out of the league for more than a decade. Being a sports writer was supposed to be about more than bumping into boyhood heroes. I needed to move my mind away from Krumrie and towards Sam Adams. I couldn’t reminisce about Lewis Billups when Terrence McGee was waiting to be interviewed at his locker.
Finally, a locker room attendant opened the double doors and the media began to filter in. I began to feel like I belonged. I was standing in the same room with everyone else. We all had different versions of the same tape recorder. We all had our notebooks. At that moment, I felt every bit as professional as the other reporters.
That is, until I turned the corner and saw Bills’ quarterback coach Sam Wyche.
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