Nate Jackson - Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile

N ATE J ACKSON played six seasons in the National Football League as a wide receiver and a tight end. His writing has appeared in Deadspin , Slate , the Daily Beast , Buzzfeed , the Wall Street Journal , and the New York Times . A native of San Jose, California, he now lives in Los Angeles. This is his first book.

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T his book was brought to life by the support of many wonderful people. The athletes body is coveted. His mind is implored to stay silent. But the athletic mind is an abundant source of artistic revelation. These people encouraged me to tap it:

Mrs. Namba, my teacher in the third, fourth, and fifth grades at Grant Elementary School in San Jose, laid a foundation of compassion and confident expression. Those remain my most important school yearsthe most lasting and most complete.

At Bret Harte Middle School and Pioneer High School I was a social jock. Academia was a thing to be endured between practices and parties. But those years made a lasting impression on my heart, and everyone involved lives in the spirit of this bookgirlfriends, friends, classmates, coaches, teachers, and parents.

The summer before my sophomore year at Cal Poly, a childhood friend committed suicide. In the days that followed, my mother gave me a journal. I asked what I was supposed to do with it. She told me to write, it didnt matter whatjust write. And the words started flowing. Uncapping the pen uncorked my heart.

The next year I transferred to Menlo College and enrolled in a newspaper class, and professor DeAnna DeRosa soon gave me a column in the Menlo Oak . There were no parameters on the content or style of my articles. Menlo gave me artistic and athletic freedom that allowed me to flourish.

When the Broncos sent me to NFL Europe, I was asked to keep an online journal for their website. Again, no restrictions on content or style. I wrote for the website for the next three years. I am thankful to Pat Bowlen and the whole Broncos family for allowing my self-expression.

During training camp of 2006, a writer named Stefan Fatsis was given unrestricted access to the team in order to write a book about life in the NFL called A Few Seconds of Panic. We fell in together, a writer to a writerbouncing ideas off one another. In the years that followed, Stefan critiqued and promoted my work, made calls on my behalf, gave me advice, and motivated me to keep writing. He pushed me through the door and into the light.

During two consecutive off-seasons after meeting Stefan, I enrolled in writing classes at Denver University. My professors and classmates encouraged me to believe in the voice in my head and shed my football armor, for which I was not ready, but I thank them for trying.

I owe a special thanks to Tommy Craggs of Deadspin and Josh Levin of Slate, who, after my NFL career ended, gave me a forum to write about what I knew. Soon I was on a plane to New York to pitch my book idea in meetings arranged by my new agent, Alice Martell. Alice found me by chance, and what a lucky man I am for it. Her compassion and thoughtfulness has made the transition from athlete to writer as smooth as possible, and has given me a big picture perspective that I desperately needed.

That trip earned me a book deal with HarperCollins and an introduction to my editor, David Hirshey, and his associate editor, Barry Harbaugh. We shook hands and became partners. But what started as business has evolved into friendship. This book is a product of that evolution. David and Barry let me find my voice without telling me where to find it: a gift I will keep forever.

After a failed attempt at writing in Denver, I packed up and left for L.A., where I wrote this book in steadfast seclusion. Friends, family, lovers: I turned away from everyone to focus on my work. To all of those people, thank you for your patience and understanding.

Many thanks are also due to the west side establishments that provided me food and coffee and ignored my brooding presence: The Cows End, GTA, Abbots Habit, Intelligentsia, 212 Pier, 18th St. Coffee House, and every public library in West Los Angeles, including the always entertaining main branch downtown. The library dwellers and Venice street kids provided me endless inspiration to complete this book.

I moved in a daily loop on my beach cruiser from Washington Boulevard in Marina Del Rey through Abbot Kinney in Venice and up Main Street in Santa Monica, back up to Lincoln Boulevard and south toward home, where I checked my mailbox for brainfood from my pen pal, Vanessa. Her steady, vulnerable honesty allowed me to be honest with myself, a gift for which I can never repay her.

At night I went to my second familys home for food and more counsel. Barrick Prince and Bea Poirier fed me and listened to the daily ramblings of a madman. A few times a week I plugged in a guitar and jammed with Colin Kelly and Ged Bauer. The spirit of the jam lives in this book.

Some days I was elated with a breakthrough. Others I thought I was worthless, doing nothing, hopeless, lazy. Then one day, I looked up and Id written a book. I took a deep breath and turned back to those Id turned from, and they were still there for me.

And lastly, thank you to my eternally supportive and loving parents, Ross and Marilyn; to my brother, Tom; and to the rest of my family and friends. From childhood to manhood, the love has been constant, and has shaped my outlook on life. I was a lucky boy. I am a lucky man.

Writing this book was like pulling a huge splinter out of my body. Thank you to everyone who helped me build the tweezers.

The First Seven Years

(2002)

N ate Jackson, wide receiver, Menlo College.

I walk to the front of the stage and stop as instructed. Im in my underwear. A trickle of sweat runs down my side. One hundred men sit in folding chairs with clipboards in their laps. They look me up and down and scribble notes. Who are these sick fucks?

Out in the hall I put my clothes back on and walk past the line of dudes in their underwear who havent gone in front of the audience yet. Its January 2002. Im at the Hyatt in downtown San Francisco for the East-West Shrine Game, a college all-star game for seniors. Its a football game, yes, but it doubles as a weeklong job fair for all thirty-two NFL teams. After the Hanes runway fashion show Im ushered into the room where the New York Giants administer their four-hundred-question personality test. Because when its crunch time and the game is on the line, the front office needs to know one thing: do I prefer Jell-O or pudding? I look around the room during the test and decide that most of us prefer both.

O utside in the lobby I find my new agent, Ryan Tollner, sitting on a couch with a defensive end named Akbar and someone else and theyre arguing about who the most famous athlete in the world is: Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan.

Ryans in his midtwenties. His light brown hair is nicely combed and his sharp jawline is clean-shaven. A former backup quarterback at Cal, Berkeley, he speaks with a deliberate clarity that puts me at ease. Hes just getting into the agent business with his cousin Bruce Tollner, after working a year as a financial analyst. He doesnt have many clients yet. And I dont know any other agents. In other words, its a good fit for both of us. A month ago, after my college season was over, Ryan took me to a 49ers game so we could get to know each other. I hadnt been to a Niners game since they beat the Packers in the playoffs in early 1999, when I was nineteen years old.