Romo adjusts fine to life after football
GLENCOE, Ill. – Tony Romo was in a familiar place, standing in front of a microphone and addressing the media during the early stages of NFL training camp. Except that while Romo’s former Dallas Cowboys teammates were going through drills in Frisco, Texas, he was on a golf course 900 miles away, preparing to play in the 115th Western Amateur Championship at Skokie Country Club.
For the first time in 14 years, the retired quarterback and native of Burlington, Wis., isn’t readying his mind and body for the rigors of an NFL season. For the first time in 14 years, he’s not dreaming of playing in a Super Bowl.
Does he miss it?
“Not yet,” he said Monday. “I think it’ll hit me as it gets a little farther along.”
Many players leave the NFL in their 20s or early 30s – the timing is rarely their choice – poorly prepared for life after football. Romo, 37, is an exception. He’s financially secure but just as important he has other passions and pursuits.
He has been in a different sort of training camp, preparing for his role as a game analyst at CBS Sports, where he’ll be paired with announcer Jim Nantz and sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson on the network’s No. 1 NFL team.
“We’ve had a little bit of a boot camp, per se,” Romo said. “Operationally, I had no idea how to do it. Like, what do you look at? Do you look at the field? Do you look at the monitor? You don’t really know how to do anything when you start off.
“Now I feel a lot more comfortable. It’s been three months of just grinding and working and evaluating yourself and trying to figure it out. I feel good.”
Romo, who threw for 34,183 yards and 248 touchdowns in his 13year career, also has an outlet for his competitive side.
He’s talented enough at golf to have received an invitation to play in the Western Amateur, which counts Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Jack Nicklaus among its champions and is considered second in stature only to the U.S. Amateur for non-professionals.
Romo advanced out of U.S. Open local qualifying a couple of years ago, has played in several Wisconsin State Golf Association events and is a regular at the Ray Fischer Amateur Championship in Janesville. He tied for 16th last month in the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe, Nev.
“I’ve been putting up some pretty good scores back home (in Dallas),” he said. “I’ve played plenty of tournament golf over the years, I just haven’t played much over the last four or five years so I’m trying to get back into it and feel comfortable. There’s golf and then there’s tournament golf and I think we all understand it’s a little bit different.”
He has been working with Dallas-based sports chiropractor Troy Van Biezen to get his body in shape for golf. That sounds funny until you stop and think about Romo’s football injuries, which included a ruptured disk, a compression fracture of the L1 vertebra and multiple breaks of his left collarbone.
Van Biezen also works with several PGA Tour stars, including Rickie Fowler, Jason Dufner and Romo’s buddy Jordan Spieth.
“He’s really been fantastic,” Romo said. “I’ve been able to put together multiple rounds. Going into this year, I hadn’t played more than a couple rounds a year the last two or three years.”
The Western Amateur format is a grind, with 36 holes of stroke play for the 156-player field, followed by a cut to the low 44 and ties for two more rounds of stroke play, followed by a cut to the low 16 for match play. The marathon tournament got underway Tuesday and concludes Saturday.
The top 10-ranked amateurs in the world all are in the field, so Romo would do well just to make the first strokeplay cut.
“I think the goal is to win,” he said, only halfjoking. “If I finish second I’ll be a little disappointed.”
Once a competitor, always a competitor.