The NFL has become a hotbed of athletic theatre. Football is America’s most popular sport because it is highly entertaining, amazingly athletic, and elaborately strategic. Bordering on cinematic in its production, the game is an ongoing narrative that brings cities and communities together each Sunday to celebrate a victory or mourn a loss. We experience four acts (four quarters) of improvised storyline that no movie director could ever emulate – especially not Oliver Stone (see the groan-worthy Any Given Sunday). There’s no reason to make a movie about a game that’s better than a movie. The game is enough.
This year we experienced plenty of noteworthy NFL stories. Whether it was the Detroit Lions being the first team ever to achieve an 0-16 record, another edge-of-your-seat Superbowl, or Plaxico Burress accidentally shooting himself in the leg in public because he was carrying a gun in the waistband of his sweat pants, there was never a dull moment for America’s sports columnists. One player’s story, however, struck me as particularly interesting.
That story was the season of Denver Broncos running back Tatum Bell. Bell started the year as tailback for the Detroit Lions. He was traded in 2007 from the Denver Broncos, a team with whom he had a nice career, gaining over 1,000 yards rushing in 2006. He was set to be the Lion’s starting back until Rudi Johnson entered the situation and took the starting position away from Bell. Bell was let go and asked to pack his bags. Unfortunately, upon exiting the facilities, Tatum Bell took the wrong bags … literally.
Not only did he take the wrong bags, he took the bags and valuables of the player who replaced him – Rudi Johnson. What started as a supposedly honest mistake suddenly boiled over into a media frenzy accusing Bell of stealing $200 in cash, credit cards, and several personal items that belonged to the very person who stole Bell’s job. “Everyone’s putting it out there that I’m a thief. They’re acting like I got released, and I was mad, so I took the bags of the guy they brought in behind me. But it’s not true, and that’s what’s hurting me so much right now,” Bell said.
Looking for a story more interesting than Peyton Manning’s bursa sac, the sports media milked the Bell accusations dry. Rudi Johnson accused Bell of theft, the Lions made no comment, and we never found out if Bell was telling the truth. “I’m very, very concerned that this is my career here.”
Bell was right. He was not given due process and was labeled damaged goods, unfit for the morally upright NFL, whose players are more often accused of drunk driving and steroid use than petty theft. Bell left Detroit humiliated. His career was over. No team wanted to hire a thief.
After the melee in Detroit, Bell returned to Colorado, the place he and his wife made home before Bell got the job in Detroit. It was at this point that Bell’s story took a turn so unlikely, one would think it was the screenplay for a Saturday afternoon movie on ABC Family.
Tatum Bell was desperate for work. And, like many Americans in our current crisis, was willing to participate in a humble-pie-eating contest to get a job. So one day, Tatum Bell, who only two weeks prior was a starting running back for an NFL franchise, stepped into his local mall, and asked for a few applications.
The mall that Bell stepped in to was the Aurora Mall in Aurora, Colorado. As a proud Coloradan, I feel obligated to paint a picture of what I remember the Aurora Mall to be.
The Aurora Mall is like that weird gift shop on your drive home from your family vacation to the Grand Canyon that offers an assortment of sweatshirts with howling wolves on them, and has a strange Lakota woman sewing something in the corner next to the “Sounds of the Prairie” CDs. The Aurora Mall is your number one destination for white elephant gifts, black lights, lava lamps, and quasi-inappropriate paraphernalia that middle-schoolers keep in their lockers and show to their friends. The Aurora Mall is verging on the post-apocalyptic, with several abandoned department stores and a Santa at Christmas that smells like deer jerky. That’s the Aurora Mall. And Tatum Bell got a job there. At a kiosk, nonetheless.
His job was working as a cell phone salesman at Mobile Solutions. “I just appreciate them giving me a job,” Bell said. “I was working 9 to 5.” Bell sold “a couple” phones and said the job was “actually pretty hard.” Bell would kindly chat with Broncos fans that incredulously approached him at his kiosk. Then he’d try and sell them a phone.
When asked his reasoning for pursuing the job after coming off an NFL salary, Bell said “Just supporting my family. Doing what I can do.”
Bell worked humbly and tirelessly. He watched the Denver Broncos on TV each Sunday and tried to keep in shape, clinging to the remnants of a former dream-come-true.
After a few weeks, Bell noticed a bizarre trend in the Broncos depth chart: their running backs were dropping like flies.
A pigskin plague hit the Broncos backfield with such force that it seemed as if anyone who carried the ball was bound to be put on injured reserve – out for the season. By midseason, the Broncos were so banged up at the tailback position that they turned to their rookie fullback, Peyton Hillis, to carry the ball for every single one of their running plays. It was only a couple games before Hillis suffered a torn hamstring, falling victim to the curse and sidelining him for the rest of the season.
After five tailbacks were hit with the plague (there would be an unprecedented seven total by the end of the year), Bell’s phone rang. Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan invited Bell to practice with his former team. Bell obliged, went to practice, and proved that he was a better football player than cell phone salesman.
“I think anytime somebody’s out on the streets for a while, everybody gets humbled,” Shanahan said. “If a coach has been fired, a player that’s been cut, it’s the same thing. You look forward to those opportunities and you take advantage of those opportunities once you get them. And Tatum’s come in, worked extremely hard and he’s taken advantage of an opportunity.”
“I’m humbled,” Bell said. “I didn’t think I was going to get another chance, to be honest. I thanked coach Shanahan for giving me this chance. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll play special teams. I’ll play center. I’ll do whatever it takes to help the Denver Broncos win.”
Bell didn’t play center, but he was the Broncos starting tailback for the last four games of the season. He worked hard and did his job. Not dissimilar, I’m sure, to his position at the Aurora Mall. I’d like to tell you that he led the Broncos to a playoff berth and broke several records, but apparently, Cinderella has to return home from the ball at some point. The Broncos lost three of their last four games and crumbled in tragic fashion. But Bell persevered. His last game was his best, racking up over 100 yards of offense and two touchdowns, including one off a 37-yard run.
What is most remarkable about Bell’s story is not the cosmic irony of his rags to riches tale, but the resilience and poise he maintained through it all. His sense of altruism, despite the circumstances, was astonishing. “I had to hold my head up high,” Bell said. “That’s what I had to do to feed my family.”
The meek inherited a bit more of the earth when Tatum Bell walked into that cesspool of plastic trinkets that is the Aurora Mall. In a country in the midst of crisis, Tatum Bell is an encouraging example. If we are, in fact, in store for tougher times, then I take comfort in the resilience of a gridiron jock who won with humility.