Six years ago, the sports world was abuzz with the name of the next John Elway: Drew Henson. After his junior year as starting quarterback for the University of Michigan, Henson left school and followed the green to America’s big money sport, baseball, where he signed with America’s big money team, the Yankees. The stage was set: in a few years, Henson would become the Yanks’ starting third basemen, and it would be impossible to walk through the Bronx without a Henson jersey on your back.
Things on the diamond failed to work out for Drew, though, and after a few years the once-in-a-generation talent of our time was sacrificing the remaining millions on his contract to head to the NFL, where he would surely finally be lighting up scoreboards while little kids run around with his name on the back of their shirts.
But last week, after spending this season as the Cowboys’ emergency QB, Drew was reassigned to NFL Europe, football’s minor league, in hopes that he might finally get some playing time and revive his career.
Drew was one of the lucky ones—he made his millions before his career fizzled. His plight reminds me of another, a name that fewer diehards remember. This time, I’m talking about diehards of a suburban Philadelphia high school.
Friday nights in Doylestown are consumed, for many, by high school football. And in the late 1990’s, there was no better place in the state to watch it than Central Bucks West—state champions three times in a row from 1997-1999. One player who came through the program was Dave Armstrong, C.B. West’s bulky fullback, who broke every school rushing record and made his way to—of all schools—Michigan.
Dave spent a couple of years with the storied football program in Ann Arbor, but it just failed to work out for him. He transferred to Bloomsburg, a small college in Pennsylvania, in hopes of seeing some more playing time, and his local celebrity among football-types back in Doylestown faded. I’m not sure what became of him, but I sincerely hope it was something good. What I do know is that it had nothing to do with football, at least not on any recognizable level.
The stories of these two Wolverines—Drew and Dave—demonstrate the fragile nature of success in sports. At one point, both were stars in their areas. Now the only news either of them makes is the short blurb about Henson’s career being on life support.
Yet these two were still top-notch athletes. Now everywhere I look, I see parents undertaking some crazy stunt to try and get their semi-talented kid on to a high school team, a middle school team or an AAU team for ten-year-olds. There are personal trainers, one-on-one workouts, 5 a.m. practices, heavy lifting sessions, creatine and parental politics.
Above all, there are wrecked bodies too young for the strain, social lives taken away from kids and real learning falling by the wayside for a pipe dream. Athletics takes very few kids to the level of college scholarship, an even smaller number to a professional career. It is wonderful that opportunities open up for the great ones, but even the “great” ones, as we’ve seen, often fail.
Drew Henson’s lost career may be a minor blip in the sports radar now. But it should be a startling reminder that most of life—for almost everyone—will take place off of the field.
