Football wasn’t like basketball or baseball. We wore helmets almost all the time that people saw us, so draft day was the first time that most of these people would learn what I looked like. When I got my endorsement deals, I wouldn’t be wearing my helmet, so it was important that they started to recognize me soon as possible.
These are all things I had learned in that public relations class I took back at Cal, and from all the different brand managers and endorsement dealers that my agent’d had me meet over the last few months. Everybody wanted to be in the business of Drake Rollins. As long as that made me money I was okay with it. A rising tide lifted all boats, and I was the biggest rising tide in town.
“Sorry, Mr. Rollins, we can’t let you in.” The two security guards said in unison. If they had said anything else, I would’ve laughed, the way they were so well coordinated.
“Excuse me? Let me in. I’m on the list.” Drake Rollins was always on the list. No matter what list, if you wanted to be on it, I was on it.
“That is not the information were getting, sir. You’ll have to move along.”
What the fuck was going on here? I had been invited to the green room at the draft this year. There was no way the league was keep the leading receiver two years running out the green room on fucking draft day. This made no sense.
“I’m going in there, fellas. This was a funny joke, but I’m going in there.” I stepped toward security guards, intending to rush by them and get inside the green room, but they form the wall in front of me, immovable, and pushed me back.
“We’re sorry, Mr. Rollins, but you can’t come in. You’ll have to move along, or we’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“What the fuck, guys?” I was starting to get mad, and my voice showed it. “I was invited to the green room. I am on the list. Check the list.”
“The list has changed.”
“Change it again. I need to fucking get inside the room. the draft is about to begin.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t help you. Please move along.”
“Move along, move along, you keep fucking saying that. Where the fuck am I supposed to go?!”
“I don’t know that, sir, but you can’t stay here. This area is for invited players and their families only.”
“And I’m telling you fuckers, I am an invited player! Why is this so hard to understand?”
“Because you no longer invited,” Adam said.
I whipped around, still livid, to see Adam Snyder, my agent, standing behind me.
“Adam! Thank fuck you’re here. These suckers won’t let me in, and the draft’s about to start. I need to get inside.”
Adam was a shark of an agent, one of the best in the business. He was old school, didn’t get with any of the new fangled technology that most people use these days, but when you had his kind a roster of talent, and his skills at negotiating, you could dictate your own rules. Adam Snyder got the job done, and there was no one I would rather have as my agent.
He put his arm on my shoulder, pulling me toward him. He was a good 4 inches shorter than me, but he carried himself like a man who was 7 feet tall, and the rest of the world treated him like it, myself included. “You haven’t checked your messages, have you?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been a little busy today. Why, what’s going on?”
Adam shook his head, exasperated. He looked like he wanted to yell at me. He’d yelled at me before, and I had taken it without firing him, because he was Adam Snyder, and even though I was going to be the hottest thing on the field since sliced bread, I still listened to him. “You idiot, you’re not supposed to be here today.”
“Adam, I got the invitation. You gave it to me.”
“Things have changed, your latest stunt last week got everyone talking, and this morning the league decided it would be best for them and everyone involved if you didn’t show up today.”
“What the fuck? I never got charged with anything.”
“Yeah, thanks to me, asshole. I had to stick my neck out for you, farther than I ever have before for anyone else.”
“And you did that because you know I’m gonna make you bank - contracts, endorsements, you know it.”
Adam looked at me and I could see the familiarity and whatever bond between us slowly disappear. “That doesn’t look likely if you don’t get drafted, now doesn’t it?”
What. The. Fuck.
Not get drafted?
“Adam…what are you saying?”
He pulled me in closer. “This is what I’m saying, try and get it through your thick skull for once. You may be smart, Drake. Fuck it, you’re not just smart, you’re brilliant. And you can play football. But all that extra shit you keep doing just got you kicked out of the draft.”
Shit.
I tried to wrap my head around this bombshell. It wasn’t easy. This was supposed to be the best day of my life until I caught my first professional touchdown, and then my first Super Bowl winning touchdown. “But…I’m still gonna get drafted, right?” I didn’t really need to be here as long as a team took me on.