Excerpt from No Bed of Roses: My Sideline View of the Badgers’ Return to Greatness
As I had done the previous summer, I worked at my Uncle Dave’s appliance store as a delivery driver and appliance installer. My usual hours were 7 to 4; however, the summer conditioning program consisted of 6 a.m. workouts, four days a week. The football workouts usually took an hour or so, and I knew I’d be reporting late for work nearly everyday. Uncle Dave was a fair but tough boss, and our family, while disposed toward nepotism (my grandpa and a handful of his siblings worked for Dave at some point), also didn’t play favorites.
In fact, my family was often harder on each other than they would be on others. Case in point, my grandfather, Bernard Kennedy, was the Waunakee town chairman, an elected position. In the winter, when snow needed to be plowed from the streets, he would instruct the drivers to clear his street last.
I was reticent to ask for special treatment on the schedule, but I also knew that Dave was a huge football booster, a season ticket holder, and an athlete himself. I told him of my predicament, that I needed to make money but working out with the team this summer would get me in shape and possibly ingratiate me with the coaching staff. He and the delivery foreman, Rick, worked out an amended schedule for me. I was trying to play for the Badgers, for gosh sakes, and these guys wanted to help.
Instead of the others in the warehouse being jealous of my accommodated schedule, I became admired. They’d drill me with questions about the team, the speed and strength of the players, and my own progress. I couldn’t have asked to work for better people. No matter how solitary your goals may be and how much of the work you have to do on your own, you cannot avoid how much you need others’ help in pursuit of your dreams.
So my summer schedule consisted of rising at 5:30 a.m. to attend the conditioning workouts, then reporting to work in the warehouse and doing extraneous deliveries the early teams didn’t have room for or that came in late. I’d usually punch out around 5:30 p.m. every day.
The summer workouts were held at Camp Randall Stadium. My commute was only about fifteen minutes, and I’d park my car in the empty lot beside the stadium. Most of the players had scooters or rode bikes. I couldn’t believe those little scooters could support such big guys. Imagine an elephant on a bicycle.
I also couldn’t believe how many different kinds of Wisconsin football shorts, shirts, and shoes the current players had. You could easily spot the newbies, soon-to-be freshmen, and transfers: we were the ones with no Wisconsin football paraphernalia. I knew no one at the workouts and stayed mostly to myself. These guys were all veterans and I was not even a rookie yet. A few players introduced themselves to me. They all looked like they were about forty years old to me at the time. I’d never seen so many big guys in one place before. They all moved so well, too. They were fast. It was scary to see a guy 230 pounds sprinting almost even with me. Dangerous, really.
I recognized most of their names, if not their faces. I’d only attended one game the season prior. I guess I’d just been busy and they’d just been struggling so much, the games just weren’t that fun. And at that game, I must admit I hadn’t really imagined myself playing at UW.
A lot of the veterans were friendly to me but also seemed to watch me a bit closely, wondering what kind of crop this new coach Alvarez was bringing in. Even though I wasn’t a recruit, I sensed some of this understandable curiosity from these guys. I’m sure they didn’t feel threatened by me; but the new staff made it known that nothing from the old regime was sacred, and everyone would be reevaluated. This likely explained the high attendance at these voluntary workouts. This, and the excitement that’s intrinsic in new hope.
A few of us newbies soon bonded. A couple of black guys from Los Angeles had been in town for the summer to take some classes and one of them, Donny Gray, was a fellow receiver. We were instantly connected: we were rookies, overwhelmed, and not morning people.
