Speed cannot be taught. I am not fast. This is a bad combination. So bad that before I even arrive at the D1 Sports Training facility for a preliminary recording of my time in all the combine drills, I insist my wife accompany me to the Vanderbilt practice football field with a stopwatch so we can see what my 40 time will be. This is the same practice field where Tardio and I attempted the punt, pass and kick challenge.
It is late in summer and hot. So hot I'm sweating by the time I even arrive at the field. In doing so we've brushed right past a sign that says, "Fields are for varsity athletes only." I am not a varsity athlete. Not close to one. But I have allayed my wife's fears by pointing out that Will Bartholomew, the owner of D1 Sports Training, has told me I could pass for a D-3 receiver.
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| No one taught Devin Hester how to be fast. (Getty Images) |
At the end zone line I do a few "stretches." I have not sprinted 40 yards (or any distance for that matter) since law school intramurals at least four years before. My wife lines up at the 40-yard-line with her stopwatch. In the distance an actual Vanderbilt football player, a large black man, practices swim moves on a tackling dummy. Idly, I raise my hand in athletic acknowledgment, a sign of mutual respect. After all, we are football players, he and I, honing our skills in the heat of summer's late evening. The football player does not return my gesture. "Go," my wife calls out and I go.
My legs are pumping, my tennis shoes fairly skimming across the next-turf field. I am running, running faster than I ever remember running before. The warm summer air spreads before my powerful torso, my arms pump like the powerful pistons they are, my legs spring me forward like a latter-day Greek Olympian brought to life. I cross the 40. "6.4," says my wife, "we'll just call that one a warm-up." I'm out of breath. My legs are trembling beneath me. "There's no way," I say, breathing heavily, "that was a 6.4."
So once more we run through the sprints. This time I'm sure I'm setting the turf afire. That somewhere Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson is going to hear about the fleet old white man who is tearing up his field. That my football career is about to be born. "6.07," my wife says, "better."
Once more I go into the 40-yard breach. I fling myself and all my energy into the sprint. I'm flying, until, about the 30-yard-line I stride too far and lose my balance. Careening sideways, I finish the final 10 yards without managing to fall. "6.7," says my wife, "but you were going really fast at first." Twice more I sprint. Neither time do I break six seconds. My breath is ragged. My thighs, front and back, are locked up and already I can tell I'm going to be sore in the morning.
Sadly, this time is roughly accurate when I'm tested again before combine training begins. My trainer, Wil Santi, a former NFL Europe and arena football league player times me at a 6.16 on my baseline 40 of record. When Santi sees the time he sort of shakes the stopwatch as if, perhaps, one of the numbers doesn't actually belong. Nothing changes. "OK," he says, "you had to get loose. Go again."
I walk back to the other end of D1's indoor football field. There are few people in the gym -- it's the middle of the week and the middle of the day -- but I'm nervous about Santi calling out my time too loudly. As if people are going to recoil in terror when they hear my numbers.
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| Is Clay Travis related to the Slowskys? (Getty Images) |
"What's the time?" I ask.
"I got you at a 5.4 but I messed up hitting the button. No way you ran a 5.4." I believe this marks the first time in 40 history that the phrase, "No way you ran a 5.4," has ever been uttered because it's way too fast. So, winded and with my hamstrings tightening, I throw myself once more into the forty. And my baseline time is once again a 6.16. I'm nothing if not consistently slow.
Now my 40 time provides endless entertainment to the college players training alongside me for the NFL Combine. Often, one of them will pull me aside and say, "Bookman (this is my nickname adopted by all the players because I'm a man who wrote a book) what'd you run the 40 in again?" Whenever I answer howls of laughter follow. It's awesome. Really.
