9302040162
DETROIT FREE PRESS
930920
Monday, September 20, 1993
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1993, Detroit Free Press
SWILLING PLAYS OVER PAIN OF THE INNERMOST KIND
NEW ORLEANS -- The word on Pat Swilling is that he's hard to get to know,
a tough friend to make. But Robert Porcher, the Lions' young defensive
lineman, had carved a nice friendship with Swilling in the last few months.
On Friday night, Porcher called Swilling at home and said, "You want to go
out?"
Swilling said no thanks, he was going to relax.
At Saturday morning's practice, Swilling was missing. Porcher thought he
had overslept. Strange, he thought. When Porcher got home, the phone was
ringing. It was Swilling's wife, Robin, and she sounded upset.
"Pat's father died. Pat flew to Atlanta. Will you please tell Coach
Fontes to call me. . . ."
Swilling, meanwhile, still in shock, was already on an airplane, traveling
from present to past, from the NFL to his dusty roots in tiny Toccoa, Ga.,
where his father had driven a truck and taken odd jobs to make ends meet. Pat
once talked about "eating tomato sandwiches" back in those days, the money was
so scarce. Now the wealthy football player stayed in Toccoa all day,
comforting his mother and his brothers and sister. Yearning for a piece of
that past. Crying for the sudden break.
When night fell, he drove to the airport, took a flight back to his
present. Sunday morning, he got a ride to the Louisiana Superdome.
And he went to work.
There are losses and there are losses. Long after the score of Sunday's
Lions loss is forgotten, Pat Swilling will remember Travis Swilling, his
father, whose voice was whispering in his ear much of the game, "Do your job.
. . . Be a professional. . . . Honor your obligations."
And something else.
"Don't forget me."
A weeping executioner
Isn't it strange, when life and sports cross swords? Pat Swilling is paid
to attack the opposition, tackle it, slam it, hurt it. He did this Sunday
with a greater pain inside him than that which he was inflicting. A weeping
executioner. So strange.
And yet Swilling did it, because this is what he does. He remembered all
the mornings his father rose to drive the truck, not wanting to go, but going
anyhow. This was the lesson he had passed on.
"Was the sadness hitting you out there?" someone asked Swilling after the
Lions lost, 14-3, to the Saints.
"It was hitting me all day," Swilling answered. "But I had to be
professional and do what my dad taught me to do."
He forced a small grin.
"I had a little conversation with him last night. And I think he
understood."
Had he not died of a stroke, his second in two weeks, Travis Swilling
might have in been in the stands for this game, quietly pulling for his son.
This was a big game, Swilling's return to New Orleans, where he had been a Pro
Bowl linebacker before last spring's trade. The newspapers had been writing
about the homecoming. TV stations had done features. Someone had asked Saints
coach Jim Mora what effect Pat would have on the game, and Mora had
deliberately said, "Pat Who?"
Swilling wanted to win this game, and he wanted to play well, to show the
Saints they'd made a mistake. It was very important -- until Saturday morning.
Now, he was out there, throwing his body at linemen, diving for running backs
and storming the quarterback. And all the while, his mind kept flashing to
his father. And the game did not seem important at all.
"Perspective?" he said, when asked about this. He shrugged. "Of course. It
puts it all in perspective. It has to, doesn't it?"
He honors his father by going to work
It has to. Pat and Travis Swilling shared a common tale. Laboring father
raises strong, hardworking son, who puts his muscle into sports, makes it
big, and comes home to lift the family out of poverty. Give it a new life.
Only Travis Swilling didn't want a new life. He didn't even want a new job. A
new truck would do. So his son bought him a new truck.
"A red Chevy pickup," Swilling said, softly. "He really wanted that red
Chevy pickup."
He bit his lower lip and squinted in the bright light of a TV camera. Pat
Swilling is the type of guy whose aloof silence can lead to misunderstanding.
I asked all over the New Orleans press box Sunday for reporters who knew him
-- remember, he was here for seven years -- and the response came, "None of
us knew him."
And yet, does anyone know what goes on inside the helmet? Swilling played
the whole game Sunday, and though he made several timing mistakes -- "You
could tell he was hurting out there" Porcher said later, "I don't think he's
slept in two days" -- nonetheless he helped pressure the quarterback and made
a couple of tackles. And afterward, on the day he called "the hardest of my
career," he talked softly and patiently, answering questions about his father.
There are losses and there are losses. Pat Swilling was out there Sunday
because the best way to honor his father was to act like him. And go to work.
Less than a year ago, Swilling threw a birthday party at his New Orleans
home. Saints players came. There were music, balloons, a football-shaped
cake, lots of laughter and kidding around. In the corner of the room, Travis
Swilling, whose hair had turned white over the years, sat watching his son, a
look of contentment on his face. A TV reporter came to interview him and
asked what he thought of his son's career.
"I'm proud of him," the father said. "I think he did a good job."
Somewhere, Sunday, he was saying it again.
COLUMN