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December 5th, 2008
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Tackling the combine as season approaches

At training camp, numbers mean survival

By Dave Faries
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 5th, 2008 issue

American football coaches crave numbers.

Where you play — even whether you play — can be determined by figures representing time in the 40-yard dash, the same in a 20-yard shuttle, the weight you put up in a bench press and squat … numbers all recorded in the combine.
The NFL runs combine drills in covered, temperature-controlled facilities on smooth artificial turf. But there we stood, the prospective Prague Lions, on — well, not exactly tarmac, but a playground of once-compacted gravel.
Yet the big test day is surprisingly monotonous, broken by moments of dread when you crouch at the line, look up at cones set 40 yards away, sprint and then ask, “What’s my time?”
“5.7,” comes the response.
Geez — it took me almost six seconds to run 40 yards; cold molasses, Oliver Stone films and 1986 Yugos cover the distance faster. My “competition” for the quarterback slot hit 4.7 and 4.8. Ladislav Jenšík blazed across the line in 4.2, quicker than many NFL backs. He also sliced through the 20-yard shuttle, a test of cuts back and forth, in 4.6 (to my 5.9), carried 450 pounds in the squat (to my 300) and benched 225 pounds at least five times.
Of course, there’s another number that comes into play. At 46 years of age, knees and shoulders and other critical joints prefer to watch this game from a recliner.
But my score may be all right. “You ran under 6,” says Jan Dundáček as I stoop to pluck my sweatshirt from the wet gravel. “That’s good.”
Apparently he expected something worse.
I say playground because the team keeps its equipment locked in a gloomy, communist-era school outside the city center. It’s a tired, hulking structure, the gym floor creaky and warped by age.
Several weeks earlier we gathered in this space for a workout with backs and receivers — and linebacker Jan Šimánek, an energetic 17-year-old. Even after a huffed “that’s enough,” he runs around slam-dunking footballs. One evening during agility drills, he rushes around pulling the old “sneak up behind a teammate and yank his sweatpants to the ground” routine, cackling giddily each time.
“He’s like a kid,” says Lukáš Pelikán, shaking his head and grinning, “like a big kid.”
When coach Martin Kocián passes out the initial playbook, backup quarterback Petr Boháček glances at the passing tree, the complex diagram charting the 30 or more route options open to each receiver, so called because it resembles an overgrown thorn bush. He then nods in my direction.
“Maybe I’ll play defense,” he says. “Defense is easy.”
Training camp has not entirely been Tranquility Base. During the final weeks of agility drills leading up to combine weekend, one of the veterans erupted. Offensive lineman Lukáš Kratochvíl refused to follow the team on a few occasions, instead launching into his own routine — useful for his position but a breach of discipline, nonetheless. A couple of coach-player confrontations resulted.
But that’s the nature of a team. Forty or so different personalities come together during training. They are at different stages in life: some with young families, others growing weary and a few — such as longtime quarterback Libor Navrátil — considering this sidelight a profession, hoping for an opportunity to play in the States.
Coaching helps. But it is the desire to play football that truly holds all 40 personalities together.
It is, after all, a game of people as well as numbers.
Following George Plimpton’s legendary example, Dave Faries is trying out for quarterback of the Prague Lions. Keep up with his progress in the weeks to come. He can be reached at dfaries@praguepost.com


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