The Old Man And The C's Confidence, competition, courage drive Testaverde By Jennifer Floyd Engel Fort Worth Star-Telegram Staff Writer 9/12/04 IRVING -- He had started to linger over his Wheaties. Spending a little extra time talking to Madeleine about whatever things dads talk to their 2-year-old daughters about. Musing about all the golf he was going to play and all the fishing he was going to do. And his wife, Mitzi, thought that maybe, just maybe, this might be the year. Not even Vinny Testaverde can play forever. He is going to retire. And why not after the 2003 season, which started with hopes of leading the New York Jets to a Super Bowl and ended with him on a bench. Again. Blamed for a season gone awry. Again. It was too much. It had to end. Why not now? Except Testaverde stopped lingering at the table and started walking past the carpeted stairs, which lead to the basement of their Long Island home, and Mitzi knew. She knew, probably before Vinny, that, sooner or later, he would walk down the stairs and into his personal gym and start training for another NFL season. "Why?" she asked. "You know why," he answered. And she did. Everybody who knows Testaverde can tell you why. After 17 seasons and 18 off-seasons and 40 birthdays, he jumped at the chance when Cowboys coach Bill Parcells offered him a job this off-season and stepped in without hesitation when Quincy Carter was waived four days into training camp. He is aching to be under center when the season kicks off today in Minnesota. They all have different theories on why Testaverde is still playing. And they are all right. And they are all wrong. There are many things that drive Vinny Testaverde. But only one thing that gets him down those steps. "I guess I am just too old to start a new job," Testaverde said and, only after being prodded a couple of days later, admitted: "And I'm not ready to give up on this one." He believes he has another season in him, another chance to take a team -- his team -- all the way. Belief, you see, is why he walks down those stairs. His biggest influence Al Testaverde was your typical New York-Italian father. Family, for him, was everything. He had four daughters and, right smack in between, was Vinny, a strong, physically fit kid who oozed athletic potential almost from Pee Wee Football on. Al constantly reminded Vinny of what was possible, if he dedicatedhimself. "He really believed in my brother," Testaverde's sister, Lisa Rossi, said of Al. "You cannot believe how much they are alike." A lot of what allows Testaverde to play into his 40s -- his rigorous off-season workouts in his basement and his diligence in throwing footballs -- is based on lessons learned watching his father spend a good portion of his life working as a cement mason. "He broke his back basically to put food on the table, and, when you go to work with him, you learn real fast to do something you enjoy and as long as you enjoy it, keep doing it," Testaverde said. "I worked with him on some high rises in New York City. I had that experience a couple of summers to make some money for college, and I didn't want to make that a full-time job. I had a lot of respect for those laborers." Testaverde marching down to the basement, just the way his father had marched off to the buildings of New York City day after day after day, is Al's legacy. Work hard. Don't complain. Nobody was prouder of Testaverde than Al. Nobody enjoyed his success as much. So when Al died unexpectedly of a heart attack Feb. 14, 1999, nobody was affected more than Testaverde, who moved back to New York to be closer to his family. "Losing my father, it was huge," Rossi said. "It was very hard the way he died. It was very sudden." Testaverde could have gone either way. Testaverde went the way Al would have expected. He dug in deeper. "When his dad passed away, it made him understand things don't last forever," said Testaverde's agent and good friend, Mike Azzarelli. "He wanted to do the things his father wanted for him. It kept him going. He easily could have gone the other way. He was at that point in his career, his mid-30's, a lot of hardship coming his way, you know the point where most guys hang it up. "He just doesn't have any give up in him, and that's the Al in him." Al is why he walks down the stairs. The 1999 Season Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days provided a soundtrack for Testaverde's magical 1998 season. What a year it was, too, for the Elmont, Long Island, native and his boyhood-favorite Jets. He had a 12-1 regular-season mark as a starter, passing for 3,256 yards with 29 touchdowns, seven interceptions and a gaudy 101.6 quarterback rating. Each of his feats greeted by Springsteen singing, "Glory Days, well, they'll pass you by ... Glory Days" and chants of "Vinny, Vinny." All that '98 lacked was a Super Bowl trip, a dream that died in Denver in the second half of the AFC Championship Game, making '99 all about unfinished business. Except '99 had another soundtrack, a sadder, subtler Springsteen tune. "Now those memories come back to haunt me. They haunt me like a curse. Is a dream a lie, if it don't come true? Or is it something worse?" Springsteen sings in Atlantic City, which aptly sums up 1999 for Testaverde. In a season he felt destined to finally play in a Super Bowl, a ruptured Achilles' tendon in Week 1 ended his season. It fizzled from there. Parcells stepped down. New coaches came in. The West Coast offense came in. Testaverde struggled. And, for what seemed like the 1,000th time in his career, he was told he was done. "So, now, Vinny's age was a built-in excuse," said Keyshawn Johnson, his former Jets teammate who's reunited with him and Parcells. "Everybody wants to bail out. The boat starts to shake. It's his fault. Nobody wants to step up to the plate." And like a man on a diet, who has been deprived of French fries only to have a plate put in front of his face and yanked away, Testaverde craved it even more. Hope of another chance is one of the things that kept him going on the Jets' bench. "He got cheated in New York because we were ready to win the Super Bowl in '99 and his Achilles' cheated him. And whether it was because he was an old fart then I don't know, but it was just a freak accident," Johnson said. "He never told me this. I'm just assuming, and you know what assuming does, but he got cheated out of his opportunity to take his team all the way, and I think he believes this is his opportunity. Whether he will play to 44 to accomplish that opportunity, I don't know. But I believe he believes this is his opportunity to take a team where they can challenge for another title, and he didn't get that opportunity after '99." What wasn't to be in 1999 is why he walks down the stairs. Tampa was a bad experience Azzarelli remembers his first meeting with Testaverde. He was playing in Ray Perkins' charity golf tournament and, luck of all luck, was paired with the kid everybody in Tampa was dying to meet. Vinny Testaverde, the Heisman Trophy-winning first overall draft pick and projected Messiah of the sad-sack Buccaneers. "It wasn't long before I realized he was more nervous than we were," Azzarelli said. "They brought him to be the savior, and Vinny felt he had to live up to that." Eighteen seasons. Are you kidding me? Testaverde was not supposed to survive three. He was a bust. The people in Tampa gave up on him after about three seasons when he, by himself, was unable to resurrect their moribund franchise. The Bucs were still bad, and fans blamed Testaverde. The harder he tried, the louder they criticized. Things were not easier in Cleveland, where had to replace Bernie Kosar. By the time Testaverde ended up in New York with Parcells and the Jets, his reputation had been sufficiently sullied. What they said was Testaverde was not a winner. Too many interceptions, too many problems, which he drags behind him everywhere he goes. Including Dallas. "That's still driving him," Rossi said. "I guess he wants to prove to himself, and only to himself, that he can." Everybody who has ever said he can't is why he walks down the stairs. Boys club If walking away from sports were easy, we would have never been subjected to Emmitt Smith in an Arizona Cardinals uniform. Or Jerry Rice as an Oakland Raider. Or Tim Brown as a Buccaneer. Players are afraid to leave because, once you do, there really is no coming back. "As soon as you leave, and you come back and visit the next year, you're not a part of the fraternity anymore," said former Oilers quarterback Warren Moon, who played into his 40s. "Everybody is glad to see you and say, `How are you doing?' but you are not a part of that anymore. It's a special feeling to be a part of 53 guys that nobody else really understands. These are the guys who understand, while everybody else is outside second-guessing everything you do." Fear of missing what he has is why Parcells believes Testaverde still plays. He thinks Testaverde doesn't want to leave the boys club. He should know. The 63-year-old is in his second season, coaching his fourth NFL team after his second retirement. "That's my problem, too," Parcells admitted. "The boys club is a good club. Special things happen in the club. These bonds ... I don't even know what the word means, but I know people use it to describe a relationship, and that's what it is. That's really what the boys club is. You got your guys, and OK, we've got to play those guys." Testaverde is one of his guys, although Parcells tries to downplay it. They speak the same language. This is what was said between them the day Carter was cut. "You want the good news or do you want the bad news?" Parcells asked. "Give me the bad news," Testaverde responded. "Well, the gig is up on you," Parcells said. "You giving me the boxing gloves back?" "You want them?" "That's what I came here for." "We've got a lot in common, you know," Parcells told reporters. "We were both kind of raised the same way. I had an Italian mom, too. I know his mother. I knew his father. His father liked the horses like I do. Hey, if you grew up where I grew up and where he grew up, you speak the language pretty easily." Yes, the boys are why he walks down the stairs. The latest challenge He knows the end will come. Maybe soon. He has been driving so hard that someday he is going to decide that he just doesn't want to go anymore. It won't be that he has to talk himself into going down the stairs. It will be that he can't talk himself into it. Then he'll know. It's time to hang it up. But this was not the year. And that is why he walked down the stairs.