This story appears in the July 27th issue of ESPN The Magazine.
I admit, it's not the ultimate test. Not close, really. Whether or not Kellen Winslow Jr. can improve his image -- as he aspires to -- won't be determined in this moment. But how he handles a joke could provide a hint of what's to come.
On a peach of a San Diego morning this past May, Winslow and I were supposed to play golf. Instead I was hunched over a toilet, losing the previous night's dinner. "It's the best," Winslow had said before we ate at his favorite Mexican place. And it was good -- going down. But 14 hours later, it was up. So I bailed on golf. The next day Winslow says to me, "Oh man, I'm so sorry. Can I do anything? Do you need a doctor? Anything you need, let me know."
"No, thanks," I say. Pause. "After all, I'm a f--ing soldier."
The rip was calculated. So are most that Winslow hears about his infamous 46-second rant six years ago. You know, the one in which the then-Miami Hurricane railed against the game's violence ("They're out there to kill you. I'm a kill them.") and those who profit from that violence ("You write that. You make money off that.") before letting fly: "I'm a f--ing soldier!" Every coach has used a war analogy to motivate his players, so in the Canes' locker room, nobody cared what he said. But outside it, with actual American soldiers fighting two real wars, it came to define him as angry and unaware. That's why Ray Lewis once tackled Winslow and yelled, "Who's the soldier now?" Bucs coach Raheem Morris, upon meeting the TE he acquired from the Browns in February, said, "I want you to come in and be a soldier!" Alfredo Roberts, Winslow's position coach in Tampa and a member of the 1986 Canes squad that dressed in army camouflage, said, "Hey dude, you talk about being a f--ing soldier. I actually wore the fatigues!"
Such taunts, mine included, are meant to mess with Winslow, to get in his head, to see how he reacts. And guess what? He actually laughs at my joke -- well, if a sharp, short, nasal blast that belies annoyance and wounded defiance is a laugh. He may not really think it's funny. Probably doesn't, actually. But hell, he pretends. It's a start.
I've seen this stuff before. Disgraced jocks, trying to rehab their image, always follow a template: they claim they're misunderstood, show themselves to be family men and -- always -- lecture children to learn from their mistakes. Now it's Winslow's turn. This spring, his publicist pitched me about a guy who's "grown up" since the soldier blast and the motorcycle accident in 2005 and the staph infection last year that swelled his testicles and led to a nasty dispute with the Browns. When we meet a few weeks later, Winslow tells me: "People think I'm arrogant, immature, always causing problems. I want to show I'm nothing like that."
Winslow looks delicate for a 25-year-old professional football player, with long eyelashes that curl like a flexed arm and a lopsided smile, pregnant on the right cheek. He's also unmistakably intense, arms thoroughly tattooed, forehead permanently furrowed, with thick eyebrows that drop like beams when he's concentrating or ticked off. This is a guy who loves testing limits. It's what drives him to want to surpass the play of his Hall of Fame father, Kellen Sr. It's also what lifted him to the Pro Bowl in 2007, two years after his Suzuki cartwheel shredded his right ACL. That aspect of him will never diminish, so while Winslow sounds earnest about wanting to improve his image, he also says he's still the same f---ing soldier who ruined it in the first place. "Same guy," he says. "Just a lot younger then."
The Browns didn't want that guy. Could have been his salary demands. Could have been his complicated history in Cleveland. Could have been the 36 games (out of a possible 80) that he missed because of various injuries. But in trading Winslow to the Bucs for second and fifth-round picks, new GM George Kokinis and new coach Eric Mangini cleansed their locker room of a guy who didn't have many friends. "He was emotionally unstable," says one former Brown. "As a teammate, you loved him but didn't know if you could trust him. When your priorities are video games and testosterone-filled activities, how do you have room left to control your emotions in the areas that really matter?"
Winslow thinks he's learned how: by mastering "the Game." Not football -- that game he's still trying to improve. Since being drafted sixth overall in 2004, Winslow has evolved from competitive and combative to competitive and prepared -- especially in the X's and O's sense. The friends he does have are mostly QBs and DBs, because he often picks their brains. He programs his playbook into Madden so he can understand the schematic concepts behind each call, not just his routes. In Tampa, everyone from coaches to fantasy GMs expects him to be a ball hawk. He'll line up at TE, split wide, even in the backfield. So long as he's well-behaved and healthy. "He doesn't appear to be high-maintenance," says Morris. "We'll just have to cross our fingers and see." If not, the Bucs, who signed him to a six-year, $36.1 million deal, can release him after two years without taking a cap hit.
No, the "Game" Winslow refers to concerns his reputation overhaul this season. His first goal is to stay calm, even when he's pissed. He hopes that will snuff any future soldier rants. His other goal is to feign modesty. "Instead of saying, 'I'm the best tight end,'" he says, "now I'll be like, 'Well, I think Tony Gonzalez is the best, because he's been doing it for so long. And I have a long way to go.' That's how I'd answer it, because it's showing respect, and it's humble. That might not be the way I really feel, but that's the way to play the Game."
There are two problems with his plan, of course: he's undermined it by admitting it. And who's going to buy it in the first place? It's a little late for the humble shtick from a guy who once said he was better at 90 percent capacity than every other TE when healthy. In reality, he's at his best -- and truest -- when he's mouthing off. Even if it doesn't play well, it plays well.
After one subpar practice this past June, Winslow was in the Bucs' locker room. Roberts, the position coach, approached. "Hey Kellen," he said. "You sucked today. I wouldn't trade you. I love you. But you sucked today."
Winslow breathed deep. "Yeah, you're right," he said. "I wasn't too good."
Pause.
"But f--k you too!"
Everyone laughed.
Janelle Wilson wants me to know her husband. Specifically, she wants me to know about the moments when Kellen is "unbelievable."
On April 1, Janelle's father, Enrique Guzman, who has Alzheimer's, gassed up his car in Anaheim, drove south and disappeared. Janelle was terrified. Kellen stayed with her, cried with her, prayed with her and was there to retrieve Eugene when he was found safe three days later at the Mexico-US border. Kellen and Janelle met Enrique at a police station. As soon as the 67-year-old saw them, he walked over. He didn't recognize his daughter, but immediately wanted to talk football with Kellen.
Janelle and Kellen first met at 13, when she was the scorekeeper at one of his basketball games. They went to the movies a few weeks later, and years later she followed him to Miami, attending crosstown Florida International, then to Cleveland, where they married in 2006. "She's my rock," Kellen says. And more, really. She steers him around San Diego, as he gets lost easily. Twice a day, she prepares the machine that ices his right knee. She closes all the drawers and doors in their bedroom, because Kellen can't sleep if they're open. During the off-season, she lives alone or with her folks for months while Kellen trains in Miami or San Diego. During the season, she is understanding when game mode overrules conversation. Her career -- she didn't graduate from FIU -- is being there for Kellen. "I want it to be that when he's done playing, there are no regrets," she says.
On this May afternoon, they're carrying golf clubs onto a driving range a little south of the Chargers' facility. Winslow and his father practiced here years ago. "I used to hate this place," he says. "My dad would critique my swing. I'd just have attitude, not really wanting to listen to him. I had to learn how to take his criticism."
Now Janelle wants to learn golf because their new Tampa house is on a course. Problem is, she's a beginner. And he's a Winslow.
"Let your right arm go," says Kellen, standing behind her.
She swings, misfires. "No," Kellen says. "You're letting the club take you back."
Janelle doesn't look up. Swing. Shank. She's flustered. These are the times when Janelle wants to yell, "Just let me hit!" But she doesn't; she knows her husband means well. Kellen lays a club on the ground at her feet to help her aim. Following his tips, she starts connecting.
"Booyah!" Kellen says. "Look at that!"
Another swing, another straight drive.
"Booyah!"
They hug. But a few hours later, Winslow feels guilty. "I probably sounded too critical," he says. "But it's the only way I know."
If the story about his testicles doesn't get Winslow any appreciation, he doesn't know what will. He's in the kitchen of his San Diego home, remembering an October morning in Ohio last year when he woke up and was sore -- down there. "I thought it was nothing, it'll go away," he says. "Next morning my testicles were enlarged, to the point where it hurt to walk."
Winslow rushed to the Cleveland Clinic and was immediately admitted. Becuase the Browns decided not to release any information about his condition until there was an official diagnosis, rumors spread that Winslow had an STD. His publicist texted the Browns' PR staff: "Because of speculation (sic) and rumors we are letting the media know that Kellen was treated for a 'staph infection' resulted (sic) from a cut he acquired from a car door -- stretching the truth a bit, but it will dispell (sic) the rumors and inuendos (sic)."
A media rep from the Browns replied, "Don't do that. Kellen needs to talk to (then head coach) Romeo Crennel and (then GM) Phil Savage first." The Browns have had a staph infection problem: at least six players have been infected since 2003. Picking that injury as a cover was not acceptable. "If it isn't staph, don't say staph," the Browns rep texted. "It will force the team to contradict him." Seventeen texts ensued, some contentious.
Eventually doctors confirmed that Winslow did have staph. And he had passed it on to Janelle, who was also hospitalized. Winslow was terrified they wouldn't be able to have kids, and that if they could, their child might be infected. In the hospital, with tubes running into one of his testicles, Winslow's treatment began: "They had to drain it. They had a scalpel. They cut into it. I had to clean it every day with a Q-Tip, for two and a half weeks. It was the most painful thing I've ever been through."
After four days in the hospital, Winslow wanted to take the field against the Redskins on October 19. Few players, if any, have had fluid drained from their testicles so that they could participate in a game, let alone practice. Winslow did.
Yet he didn't win much admiration. That's because after the game he was angry -- angry at how the news about his infection was handled, angry that Savage hadn't spoken to him since he was hospitalized and, in the Browns' opinion, angry that his contract hadn't been redone since his request earlier that year. Sensing that Winslow was ready to pop in front of the press, several Browns players asked him to think about the team first.
But he couldn't help himself. He swore at a PR staffer for standing nearby during an interview. Then he told the media that the team treated him "like a piece of meat." Two days later, Savage suspended him for a game, which cost him $235,294. During a players-only meeting a few days later, Winslow stood and asked why, when he was hospitalized and rumors were floating, no one spoke up about the staph problem. "I was real disappointed when no one came to my defense," he says. "They don't want to get suspended or have conduct detrimental to the team, but you've gotta be a man sometimes." Nobody would. Not for him.
Talking to many former Browns employees and players helps explain why. Team trainers felt that Winslow acted like he was their only patient. Management was angry that Winslow, for all the work he did during his motorcycle-wreck rehab, would jeopardize it by playing hoops in the off-season. Coaches loved him for playing hard, but the front office and some teammates considered him lewd because he often watched and talked about porn. Meanwhile, Winslow got into an altercation with a friend last summer, which the team kept private to protect him. And he wanted a raise?
I relay all of this to Winslow, not knowing how he'll take it. He's puzzled that co-workers would say such things, but he's not angry. He points out that owner Randy Lerner apologized to him after the staph drama and gave him his game check back. And touchier topics, like the excessive porn? "Locker room stuff," he says. "It's what guys talk about." He pauses. "In Cleveland, I tried to treat everyone with respect and be myself."
I realize I'm not as impressed by what he's saying as by how he says it: calmly, politely, clearheadedly. He stays cool.
Ah, the requisite youth camp. Winslow's chance to tell kids to stay in school, to refrain from saying you're a soldier -- and, of course, to look the ball into your hands. Winslow debated whether to host the three-day clinic, being new to the team and the area. But he wants the publicity -- now. He wants to be a Tampa hero, like Derrick Brooks and Warrick Dunn -- now. He's a now kind of guy. So in late June, he's at the Bucs' facility with 200 kids.
The first day of camp is almost over. Winslow is chatting with fans, young and old. He asks one, a middle-aged man named Lee Diekemper, what he does for a living. Diekemper says he's a writer.
"Who do you write for?" Winslow asks.
Oh boy. Diekemper had really hoped Winslow wouldn't go there. He has a popular local blog, which he has used to mock Winslow.
"JoeBucsFan.com," Diekemper says.
Winslow stops, knowing the site means something. He turns to Janelle. "What's this guy been calling me again?" he asks.
"Sergeant Winslow," she says.
"You're not going to say that no more, right?" Winslow says.
Kellen isn't really asking. So Lee says, "OK." Winslow implores again. And again. Finally, after Lee's third assurance, Winslow stops, smiles and the two talk football for 10 minutes.
Later, I ask Lee what he thinks of Winslow.
"Well," he says, "he's a good guy."
One down.