The QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks (18 page)

“The data is real,” Whitfield said, “and I quit worrying about people calling these drills ‘hokey.’ ”

DEALING WITH CELEBRITY CAN
be a tricky thing, especially when a person becomes a big deal quite suddenly. It’s not just a risky proposition for twenty-year-old quarterbacks but also for a thirty-something private QB coach, too. As Trent Dilfer said, his buddy George Whitfield was “a rock star in the QB space.” Being in the quarterback-builder business often means getting deeply invested in each player you coach. Whitfield wasn’t shy about defending Newton or Luck whenever someone doubted their abilities, and he tweaked some of Newton’s old skeptics after the Carolina Panther won NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2011.

After former NFL QB Phil Simms remarked how he just didn’t see “big-time NFL throws” from Luck, Whitfield invited the CBS announcer to Stanford for Pro Day. Days later, Whitfield made more headlines when he was asked by an
Indianapolis Star
writer about the
possibility of the Colts not using the first pick on Luck, as it appeared that Robert Griffin III’s draft stock was soaring, possibly at the Stanford star’s expense.

“If they overthink this, they’re going to make a mistake they’ll regret for years,” Whitfield was quoted as saying. When
USA Today
picked up the story, it ran with the headline:
Luck’s coach: “If Colts pick Griffin, ‘They’ll regret it for years.’ ”

Whitfield said it bothered him how Robert Griffin III or his family might take that. “I wouldn’t take a single quote back, but the headlines made it sound like I was taking a swing at him, and I wasn’t. I was just saying that Andrew Luck is a special player. That he is going to continue to get better. I never meant to say anything [bad] about Griffin.

“And it was the same with Cam. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to stay on the sidelines, but you read things, and [you] see [that] people said things like, ‘Cam’s lazy.’ It did get personal. Cam’s there, and you’ve seen him put in long days, but then you hear these guys go on TV and say, ‘I just think he’s a self-serving guy.’ And before you know it, you’re off the sidelines.”

The more high-profile Whitfield got, the more careful he realized he needed to be. Powerful people in the football world knew who he was and that he was a mentor and confidant to many top young football prospects. In many cases, Whitfield also acted as a media liaison for those college players, in a way that their often buttoned-up schools did not.

In addition, Whitfield became a target for some of his competitors, especially those who’d made it further in their playing careers. Former NFL backup Sean Salisbury used his @SeanUnfiltered Twitter account to take a not-so-veiled shot at Whitfield in the spring of 2013:

“Just saw Johnny Football on ESPN being QB trained. Someone tell Manziel that a NEXT level QB trainer awaits his call #dontsettle.”

Jeff Garcia, another former NFL quarterback who had jumped into the QB coaching business, echoed a similar tone on Twitter:

“Why would U go to a QB coach who’s never played at the highest of levels, who’s never exceeded expectations, who’s never been a true leader?”

Whitfield just shrugged when others took shots at him. His buddy, Trent Dilfer, got asked a lot by some of his old NFL buddies why he works with “the Broom Guy.”

“This guy I was golfing with was very cynical about, ‘Why do you have this guy as one of your coaches?’ ” Dilfer said. “I said, ‘That’s a great question. Let me give you my three-year history with George Whitfield,’ and over a round of golf I explained what I’ve seen and what is important to me. ‘Here’s what I’ve seen this guy do with young people and with people in the NFL,’ and by the end of my explanation, the guy said, ‘OK, I’m in.’

“I think people see George as self-promoting. I emphasize with my staff, if you’re good, you don’t have to do the self-promoting. I understand the social networking part of it, where you gotta do Twitter. But to me, George Whitfield might be the most gifted communicator I’ve ever been around as a coach. He can, on the fly, metaphorically, in a way, get the kid to understand the why [of something]. He changes his metaphors all the time. I once asked him, ‘Where do you come up with these things?’ He said, ‘Honestly, I go to bed thinking about them.’ He’ll watch the Discovery Channel, or he’ll watch a boxing match or watch a sitcom. His mind will get stimulated by something culturally relevant, and then he spends tireless hours thinking of ways he can apply that in a quarterback-building sense. I just think that’s brilliant. He’s brilliant. Some stuff, I’ve seen him inadvertently convey the wrong information, but he’ll communicate it in such a way that the kid gets that he has to change something, and so the kid naturally changes it, because the message was so crystal clear. It’s not the application that changed the kid; it was the communication that allowed the kid to change.”

MOST OF WHITFIELD
’
S DISCIPLES
came to him in San Diego, the laid-back Southern California metropolis he’s dubbed “Dime City.” Whitfield came up with the nickname because he wanted his home turf to be known for quarterbacks who throw perfect passes—“dimes.” Dime City also meshed with Whitfield’s view that great quarterbacks have a superhero quality to them. Superheroes are born out of adversity,
Whitfield said, noting that Aaron Rodgers had no scholarship offers out of high school and was once sent a letter by a Big Ten coach telling him that he wasn’t D1 material; Tom Brady was the skinny 199th pick of the NFL Draft, and undersized Drew Brees grew up down the street in Austin from Texas and was passed over by the local Longhorns. Dime City sounded like a place where superhero-QBs trained. Whitfield’s visiting protégés also noted the double entendre of “Dime City.” “Dime” also referred to the stunning women (perfect “10s”) who seemed to be everywhere in San Diego.

Whitfield’s June road trip to Bryan, Texas, had been in the works for months. Johnny Manziel’s late arrival to the session already had Whitfield on edge. After all, these June workouts were supposed to take place at SMU, before Manziel had Whitfield, Chase Griffin, his dad, and the other three college QBs reroute three hours south. Manziel only got his coach more frustrated as Whitfield sensed that his star pupil was just going through the motions. Was Manziel distracted by having two of his buddies there? Was he hungover from the night before? Was he sick? Whatever the reason, Whitfield cut the session off after forty-five lackluster minutes, telling Manziel to get his head right for their afternoon session scheduled for 5:00 p.m. Whitfield’s next group was three lower-profile QBs: two transfers, Jacob Karam at Memphis by way of Texas Tech, and Drew Allen at Syracuse by way of Oklahoma, along with Montana State freshman Dakota Prukop.

Manziel and his two buddies headed to a golf course a mile down the road, bringing young Chase with them to get brunch. They were the only diners in the posh country club, in a scene that felt as if it was right out of
Entourage.
The group hung on every breath and move Manziel made. He was in a prickly mood but loosened up a little listening to the precocious twelve-year-old Griffin tell the story of how his father grew up in a single-parent home and made it to Harvard Law.

Whitfield seemed more annoyed still after Manziel left the high school field to get lunch after the morning sessions. Driving around College Station, Whitfield ended up at a Texas A&M bookstore. He walked in to see that seemingly half the store was hawking Johnny
Football gear—hats, jerseys, T-shirts, all with Manziel’s number, 2, or with the Heisman outline.

“The strongest man-love there is is to wear someone else’s jersey,” Whitfield said, marveling at the collection of colors and styles of Aggie #2 jerseys. “It is admiration more than just respect.”

Whitfield had been around star QBs before, but he had never seen anything quite like this or seen it happen so fast. Less than a year ago at that point, almost nobody in the store would’ve known who Johnny Manziel was if he walked in. Now he was the biggest celeb in their world. Whitfield likened the evolving situation to the movie
Rocky III
, where Rocky Balboa was no longer the gritty underdog out to prove people wrong. Now the hero was surrounded by excess and enablers, and his vision was clouded. His hunger had been satisfied.

“It’s like, Rocky’s not going as hard, because there’s a circus around him,” Whitfield said. “Now there’s a piano right by the ring. [Rocky’s brother-in-law] Paulie’s selling commemorative pens. Meanwhile, Clubber Lang’s training in someplace with exposed pipes, trying to catch him.”

Whitfield’s world, too, had changed. In the car leaving the bookstore, he took a call from an unrecognized number. It was the head coach of an FBS program asking if Whitfield had some time to work with his new quarterback. Whitfield tried to say politely that he didn’t. Five minutes later, he got a call from the uncle of Brandon Harris, asking if he had time to train the talented Louisiana high school quarterback. Whitfield said if Harris was up for making the five-hour drive over, he’d work him in the next day.

Whitfield still had two workout sessions set for later in the afternoon. The first session went well. Allen and Karam were both in second-chance mode, having transferred to smaller football programs, hoping for strong senior seasons to catch NFL scouts’ eyes, while Prukop was just hoping to keep up with the FBS guys. They were riveted to every move Whitfield made. That workout concluded with no sign of Manziel, who was scheduled for the second session.

A half hour later, Whitfield got the Aggies star on the phone. They bickered over what time the workout was slated for. Whitfield was hearing a mix of excuses, apathy, and angst. This was a different
side of Manziel than Whitfield had ever dealt with. It was a side he’d only heard about.

“My head’s just not into it today,” Manziel told Whitfield. “I don’t know what it is.”

Whitfield was more frustrated than angry. The only reason he’d come to South Texas in the hundred-degree heat was for Manziel. He could’ve spent more time back in Ohio with his family.

“I’ll come back,” Manziel told him.

“Nah, I’m not gonna guilt you about it,” Whitfield replied.

Twenty minutes later, Manziel arrived in an SUV with Turtle and another buddy. The Heisman Trophy winner was flustered. Whitfield didn’t have much to say to his protégé. He looked disappointed. It was hard to tell if Manziel was upset at Whitfield or himself. However, after the QB took his own iPhone and fired it into the ground, it became apparent that Manziel was more annoyed at himself, Whitfield later said.

The sound of the smartphone shattering on the concrete startled an elderly couple walking laps around the school parking lot.

“I had to take inventory,” Whitfield said later. “I never knew any of that type of stuff [what Manziel felt he had to juggle]. His family is in College Station. All his friends are in College Station. College Station is his running path. All of a sudden, I’m in
his
town. I’m in his world. Every time he’d come into San Diego, he’d get better. He didn’t golf there. There was no leisure. He was there to work.”

After Manziel’s spectacular first season, Whitfield wanted him to stay in college for more than two seasons playing in the SEC, but after this trip, he started to rethink that. “Staying meant [he’d have to] stay in [College Station] and swim through all that stuff. Everybody had a stake on his time down there. He was a pleaser, and, for the most part, he’d been great at compartmentalizing, but down there it was all colliding together.”

Manziel didn’t offer any explanation for his outburst or for his lax behavior. He only told Whitfield he’d be ready to go in the morning, before he and his friends drove off again.

Asked if he ever thought that that day might’ve been his last with Manziel, Whitfield said no. “I’m invested. He was clearly overloaded.
Instead of barking at him and lighting him up, I had to remember that he was only nineteen. His brain must have hurt from how fast he was growing. Of all the people in his world, I know that I’m going to have to have some range and flexibility and some rigidness. So you treat him [the way you would] your kid brother. That’s our relationship.

“I think he was trying to let me know how frustrated he was with himself when he smashed his phone. He’s carrying all this [emotional] stuff from his girl, his next girl, his buddies, his coaches, and then I’m down there, and I can’t be all fired up, too.”

The next morning Whitfield’s other group of college QBs was up first. Two local high school football coaches had driven over to observe the training and learn from Whitfield. One got to play broom man for the Havoc drill.

At 10:07, a truck pulled up, and Manziel got out, barefoot. He was wearing a Dallas Cowboys shirt and some basketball shorts that hung down below his knees. He wandered over to the far end zone of the field, where Whitfield was working with Allen, Karam, and Prukop. He slapped hands with the other quarterbacks and made small talk with Allen and Karam. Manziel’s mom, Michelle, drove up, as did a longtime family friend who brought his nine-year-old son, whom Whitfield was also helping to train. Manziel was in an upbeat mood. Problem was, his buddies had his cleats in their truck, and they were no longer around.

“Where are they?” Manziel asked Whitfield.

“Huh? They’re not my crew,” Whitfield replied.

A few minutes passed as Whitfield joked with the other QBs.

“How long does it take to get Taco Cabana?” Manziel muttered to himself.

Whitfield ignored Manziel until he put on his shoes.

Of the eight training sessions Whitfield had scripted for the trip, he later said, Manziel really only got one in. However, Whitfield added, “We got a nice understanding of who ‘we’ are. I think I would’ve pretty much lost him if I let him set the training or if I was just more of a fan. I didn’t want that. I came down for the progress. I told him, ‘You and I can hang out any old time.’ I think he was wandering all over the road, and you gotta be a guardrail at some point.”

 
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