Life after 'THE CATCH'
Odell Beckham Jr. has been living a dream ever since the grab seen ’round the world
ODELL BECKHAM JR., the ubiquitous Giant, emerges through double glass doors at K1 Speed, an indoor racing center that features electric go-karting at the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Galleria. Hands stuffed in his Coco Chanel pants pockets, ear lobes studded with diamonds, he strolls to a back office as two Poughkeepsie Police officers — one in a bullet-proof vest — clear a path for him. He sports a black T-shirt emblazoned with a crown on it and a black hat turned backward over his blond dye job. One friend with him wears a hat marked “POPULAR.” Security scrambles while go-kart tires screech on the track. The back room is filled with memorabilia — minihelmets, flat footballs and framed photos of his three-fingered, falling backward catch — to be signed. Fans press forward. Security unrolls tape to keep them at bay.
“Really? We need a rope?” says Margaret Hitzel, a fan. “He’s an hour late.”
Christmas is in 10 days. Eighteen children stand in line for the mall’s Santa Claus around the corner. More than 230 fans line up to meet Beckham Jr. in the Cinema Hallway. Sixteen men — each dressed in blue T-shirts with “Bend It Like Beckham” in white lettering across the front and his No. 13 on the back — run around like working elves. Beckham Jr., fresh off a three-touchdown, 143-yard game against Washington the day before, is in the white-hot stretch of his rookie season. He holds a chicken wing in his left hand, while inking his name in silver marker with his right hand. He looks up. A New York State Policeman stands before him. It is Lenny Caruso Jr. of the community narcotics enforcement team. He approaches in plainclothes with his son, Cal, a Cowboys fan. He carries the back of a red plastic seat from old Giants Stadium, a building razed five years earlier. “Oh,” Beckham Jr. says. “A seatback.” “As big as you can in the middle,” Caruso Jr. says. “I’m not gonna put anybody else on it.”
Beckham Jr. abides. Caruso Jr. examines the 22-year-old’s scribbling. He approves. It will go next to separate seatbacks with signatures from Hall of Famers Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson that he keeps at his house, but Beckham Jr., a singular talent, owns the stage for the moment.
He is the latest, greatest attraction to move through the Meadowlands with gypsy grace, a millennial capable of changing games in milliseconds. He is a meme machine with the range to go from Vine posts to Vogue, his pelvic veins bulging and pubic hairs visible in a pose he dubs “towel series.”
He is the uniformed figure on a Times Square billboard decorated with LSU’s “Born on the Bayou” boast, the cover boy for
the Madden video game and the mannequin in the window by Billy Cannon’s Heisman Trophy at LSU’s football complex. The radio call of “The Catch” — his onehanded, fallback haul against Dallas that left fans goose pimpled and open-mouthed with amazement — plays on endless loop during call waiting at Giants headquarters. Children ask barbers for peroxide in their hair to go blond like him; parents worry whether the kids are too young to do so. He is dressed as Raphael, the Ninja Turtle, at a children’s hospital one day, and in the maw of the American marketing machine the next.
He is ready for his encore season to commence against the Cowboys with Sunday Night Football in the Lone Star State.
“It’s crazy to see where it’s all going now,” he says. “I guess it’s a movement.”
No one’s motions are more difficult to track than the NFL’s reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year. Consider: A request for his services is pinned to a corkboard inside his locker. It is an invitation from the Rockland Boulders, a minor-league baseball team, to join their roster for spring training in 2016. General manager Shawn Reilly was impressed by a video of Beckham Jr. pitching a softball overhand off a mound covered by a tarp at their ballpark in June.
In the letter, he tells Beckham Jr. he can “join history’s very short list of two-sport players, such as Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson.” The team followed up that mailing by posting a billboard on Route 80. It reads: “Well, Odell?”
Beckham Jr. is booked for the next four months. The Giants employ GPS technology to track players’ hydration and fatigue levels on the field, and, in the summer of mindfulness at Camp Coughlin, where the mantra is “Be Where Your Feet Are,” Beckham Jr. is forever on the move. He is out wide, then in the slot. He strides fluidly downfield with subtle, serpentine route running. He stops short and stutters, hesitating before spinning around for a spiral thrown his way. General Manager Jerry Reese calls his hands “arrogant.” Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin considers him “freakishly gifted.” Five-time MVP Peyton Manning marvels at him.
“Odell did some dunks in offseason workouts at Duke that probably could have, you know — I don’t want to insult the dunk competition of the NBA — but they were pretty impressive,” Manning says. “I probably would have given him a 10.”
Reviews of Beckham Jr.’s debut season read like Broadway show plaudits. “Startling!” says Giants owner John Mara. “Best catch I’ve ever seen!” raves Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis. “I mean, Odell Beckham, he’s an icon,” says Giants rookie Geremy Davis, looking at Beckham Jr.’s locker across from his one recent afternoon.
On and on, the applause grows, just like it does back in Poughkeepsie, where the Wappinger Falls (N.Y.) youth Giants shout his name in rhythm. One cop snaps a selfie with Beckham Jr. in the background; the other officer slips a signed Beckham Jr. jersey into a plastic bag he brought. Beckham Jr. poses amidst the kids and stops by a poster that reads “100% electric.” There is a warning sign — “Race At Your Own Risk.”
Another path is cleared as he passes Karen Maneri, the mother of a boy who attended Beckham Jr.’s first game as a Giant. She wears a neck brace, having broken her C5 vertebrae recently. She is first in line. Her son Owen shakes his hand. “I’m not going to wash it,” Owen says. Two printers set up next to the stage produce images of Beckham Jr. and his fans. Certificates of Authenticity are given to each one. He looks for a lens to smile into. He yawns. He surveys the scene, dancing in between handshakes. Across the aisle are black-andwhite photographs of Derek Jeter as a rookie. They go for $27. The line gets longer. He lip syncs lyrics to a song blasting from the speakers. I don’t know your name, but you’ve heard my name I know why you came . . .
“What catch?” says Jamal Liggin, a 30-year-old sports performance coach specializing in speed enhancement. He stands in a doorway some 2,800 miles from the Meadowlands, just off the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. His clientele on this July day includes Giants lineman Justin Pugh and former Giants linebacker Spencer Paysinger. They work inside Unbreakable Performance, a gym built halfway up a steep hill, atop Pink Taco, a restaurant. There are boxing gloves stacked on a shelf and heavy bags hanging from the ceiling. The cagedin stage is where Will Ferrell’s “A Night at the Roxbury” was shot. Beckham Jr. is not on site on this day, but Liggin reflects on recent workouts there. “I tell him, ‘You can’t catch. Who are you, again?’ ”
Star Line Tour buses stream past. A strip club is across Sunset. There is a billboard for “Ballers,” the HBO series on fictional NFL players where Beckham Jr.’s silhouette is seen in the opening credits as he chops his feet up a speed ladder on the darkened gym’s field turf. Liggin’s routine includes a series of hill exercises with pulling sleds. He demands explosiveness and agility from the flamboyant receiver with flypaper hands. They work on first steps and fighting off cornerbacks with hand-to-hand combat at the line of scrimmage to maximize his catch radius. Liggin likes to test Beckham Jr. with tennis balls, gauging the wideout’s lateral speed and hand-eye coordination by rapidly throwing them at him. He calls for Beckham Jr. to turn his hips, contort his body. There are resistance bands and medicine balls on the floor. Liggin, a childhood friend of Seahawks tailback Marshawn
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Lynch, maintains that Beckham Jr. adapts quickly, but there is one limit with Beckham Jr. They stay off the local beaches due to Beckham Jr.’s sensitive hamstrings, one of which kept him out of minicamp in New Jersey a month earlier. Liggin smiles wide.
“I’m into training,” Liggin says, “not straining.”
Stars line up to train under Liggin and Fox broadcaster Jay Glazer at the gym. They count Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, Sean (Kettle Bell) Combs and Jaleel (Urkel) White as clients. Beckham Jr. is in their constellation, walking behind Combs — dressed in a fur coat — at the NBA All-Star Game at the Garden in February and listening to Liggin’s commands. On Beckham Jr.’s first day, Glazer shouted for him to punch his counterpart’s forearms. Glazer wanted solid strikes, but Beckham Jr.’s initial hits were weak. Glazer shouted, “More violence! More violence! More violence!” Beckham Jr. punched harder. He targeted nerves that control grip.
“Do that all f------ game long, keep knocking on him, a lot of guys are going to p--- out, too,” Glazer says. “They’ll say, ‘F---, I’m not gonna put my hands on you.”
Rough play is nothing new to Beckham Jr. His eyes alight recalling a few lessons he learned in The Swamp against Florida as a junior with LSU. He details the plays with a pointillist’s precision. Everywhere Beckham went on the day, it seemed Florida safety Matt Elam followed. They met early after a punt. Beckham Jr. — a renowned returner — fielded the ball inside the 10-yard line before charging ahead. He beat one defender, then another before heading toward the sideline. Before Beckham Jr. went out of bounds, Elam laid his shoulder into him and crashed his helmet into Beckham Jr.’s helmet. Beckham Jr. bounced up and slapped Elam’s helmet. Elam motioned to Beckham Jr., holding his palms pressed together as if lying on a pillow.
“He told me, ‘You should be sleeping,’ ” Beckham Jr. says.
The second act in their SEC drama came seven game minutes later. Beckham Jr. started his route with his arms crossed on his left knee, and beat the Florida coverage with a slant-and-go. Quarterback Zach Mettenberger located him free along the sideline. Elam sped over, got a hand on Beckham Jr.’s collar and attempted to wrestle him to the ground. Beckham Jr. tried stiff-arming Elam, who continued to fight and knocked the ball loose. It was ruled a 56-yard catch at first, but officials reviewed it and overturned the call, ruling that Beckham Jr. lost control of the ball before his knee hit the ground. Florida took possession and later won.
“That play still lives in my mind all the time,” Beckham Jr. says. “The next time I saw Matt Elam, it was at the draft. I was like, ‘Man, I just want to thank you.’ I had been through so much that year already. That was just the icing on the cake. Either I could take it or just build up from there. It made me absolutely stronger.”
Challenges will come from all corners this season. During the first week of training camp, referee John Parry paid a visit to the Giants. He showed a 15-minute video with new rules changes. There were explanations regarding proper levels of inflation regarding game balls and what constitutes a catch. Beckham Jr.’s star turn came when explaining regulations that the league would enforce in light of fighting on the field and sidelines. A highlight displayed Beckham Jr. catching a ball against the Rams and his subsequent run along the sideline. Rams linebacker Alec Ogletree drove him into the ground late out of bounds. Beckham Jr. took exception and kicked at Ogletree. Two Giants and one Ram were ejected following a melee. Beckham Jr. was fined $10,000 for his kick, but insists his competitive edge is no duller today. The words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talking about the ultimate measure of a man being “where he stands at times of challenge” are tattooed on his left biceps.
“There’s always that boiling point that you get to, and it’s like what do you do when you get there?” Beckham Jr. says. “Do you react a certain way, or do you do this? Finding your true self, not finding what’s right to do, but finding your true self in whatever way works best for you, is really what I’m working on.”
Mettle tests abound. Revis, the white-shoed island dweller, notes Beckham Jr. will be a “target for coaches to game plan” against in the coming season. The Jets, preparing for a preseason game against the Giants, slipped white jerseys with No. 13 in red on two of their wideouts for the week leading up to the game. Starting receiver Brandon Marshall shouted, “Odell! Odell!” when he saw them rotate running scout team routes. Walt Powell, a reserve, was dubbed, “Whoa-dell” for his mimicry.
“They want us to make every catch,” says wideout Saalim Hakim, the other mimic. “Guys are yelling at us, ‘Odell woulda caught that!’ ”
Beckham Jr.’s devil-may-care approach is difficult to duplicate. He is irrepressible on the field, bouncing up after absorbing blows, slamming his helmet following a late hit and high stepping backward the last 10 yards into the end zone against the Eagles last season. He spins the ball on the ground after scores, motioning as if warming his hands around a campfire. Other celebrations include snapping a selfie with teammates and performing The Whip dance. His inspiration remains the four games he missed last year due to hamstring issues. He knows his career line — 91 catches, 1,305 yards, 12 TDs in 12 games — is the new benchmark.
“The toughest challenge he has and we had a chance to kind of talk about a little bit of this is really outliving that catch,” Irvin says. “How do you continue to feed that monster that you’re building up playing the way you’re playing?”
Beckham Jr. strides forward with a confident gait. Wyatt Harris, a former wideout and now a trainer in Jefferson, La., helped teach him how to get free at the line of scrimmage. Beckham Jr. sent Harris a text message around 4 a.m. after LSU lost the title game to Alabama, 21-0, in 2012, and Harris told Beckham Jr. to go to bed then. They worked together that offseason. The title loss was a wake-up call.
“Odell couldn’t even get off the ball before he met me!” Harris says.
When he scored his first touchdown in the NFL, on a route he had never run in practice, Beckham Jr. did The Whip. The next night, while at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Weehawken, he texted Harris. Harris didn’t recognize the number, but a photo of Beckham Jr. grabbing a ball in the air came through. The text read:
Look what u created…
“This arm is my home,” Beckham Jr. says, leaning against a wall outside the players lounge at the Giants’ facility. He wears a white Mickey Mouse T-shirt and points to his right arm, the one he fully extended backward to catch the ball against the Cowboys. Tattoos are entangled on his skin, but the theme is uniquely New Orleans. Inked images include Harrah’s, a casino for riverboat gamblers in the Crescent City, and Rue Bourbon, a bon vivant haven. There is a jazzman playing a saxophone and a streetcar riding on rails. The St. Louis Cathedral and Superdome are represented, too. “Hurricane Katrina changed everything. It tore our city down.”
Beckham Jr. was 12 then. The Category 3 winds re-routed him 1,100 miles north to Washington, D.C. for the seventh grade, where he attended St. Albans School, while he stayed with his stepfather’s parents. It was a steep learning curve at the elite school, and he button-hooked back to New Orleans in time to watch the Saints unite the city with their 2009 Super Bowl run. He enrolled at Isidore Newman School, known in football circles as the tony alma mater of the Manning Bros. Beckham Jr. bounded around the field with dreadlocks and athleticism rarely seen on the Uptown campus. He threw the ball with either hand, leapt higher than others and grabbed balls high and low. During a seven-on-seven showcase down Interstate 10 at Tiger Stadium, Beckham Jr. got set. LSU coach Les Miles stood over his shoulder.
“You’re going to look great in purple and gold,” Miles said.
Beckham Jr. looked over to Newman coach Nelson Stewart. He smiled.
“Coach, let me just call the play,” Beckham Jr. said.
He committed to the Tigers on national television and signed his letter of intent at the Reynolds Ryan Art Gallery at Newman. In doing so, he followed his father, Odell Sr., a former LSU tailback, and mother, Heather Van Norman, an All-American sprinter at LSU. The Bayou Bengals brotherhood took the reins thereon. Tyrann Mathieu, a cornerback known as “The Honey Badger,” overwhelmed Beckham Jr. in his first seven-on-seven battle on a muggy night down by the railroad tracks outside Tiger Stadium. Mathieu ripped his own shirt off and roared. Beckham Jr. demanded a rematch and stayed late to run extra routes afterward. They battled daily in the Big Cat drill — one-on-one challenges to outmuscle each other — before practice. Respect came in time as Mathieu watched Beckham Jr. “work his tail off” with the JUGS machine. Mathieu also took note of his dedication to footwork.
“I was somewhat of the top dog. He was the newcomer,” Mathieu says. “He drew out the best in me, and I taught him all that he knows about style. I remember him coming to my room, asking me what to wear before going out, before heading to games. He’s come a long way now. He don’t even call me anymore.”
Russell Shepard, a wideout alongside Beckham Jr., recalls a green freshman. “I was talking with my wife, remembering how Odell used to be scared of girls when we met,” he says. “Now Odell’s supposed to be the ultimate sex symbol!”
Few claim they saw this coming for Beckham Jr. His was a fast seduction of the New York scene. Fame and fortune, the twin sirens of celebrity, found him quickly. His first big purchase was a Mercedes Benz CLS63 AMG wrapped in black chrome fiber. (The license plates are marked “YAHHH.”) He was just getting started then. His initial tour of Gotham included dinner with LeBron James at Carbone in the Village and visiting the 9/11 Museum with teammates. He compared congestion in Manhattan to “Mardi Gras traffic,” and his mother ran those streets in the NYC Marathon. He counts Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor, and her daughter, Bee Shaffer, as friends. He wears a $1,375 denim jacket and $1,055 jeans in September’s issue.
“Being able to go and meet someone like that, who is so powerful, has had so much success at what they’ve done, I just love it,” Beckham Jr. says. “That’s the best part, to me. You don’t have to be somebody, but if you love what you’re doing, and you’ve had success doing it, it brings joy to me. They’ve kind of welcomed me in.”
There is no shortage of reminders for what hurdles lie ahead for Beckham Jr. Mathieu wound up in drug rehabilitation after reaching Heisman Trophy campaign heights. LSU then booted him. He counseled Beckham Jr. on the trappings of fame.
“Odell’s a good guy with a good heart, but those are the people who get pulled in every direction,” says Mathieu, now with the Arizona Cardinals. “I shared my experiences with him. Odell will dominate this game a long time. I know some games he might be a decoy. I know that position and guys want numbers. If they don’t get them, they get frustrated. I wish him the best mental strength.”
Beckham Jr. can be tough to reach. Harris notes, “Odell changes his number like he’s running from the police.”
Giants safety Landon Collins recalls his draft-night call from a number he did not recognize on May 1. It started with 504 — the area code for New Orleans — and Collins picked it up after the Giants selected him. It was Beckham Jr. Only Reese beat him to welcoming Collins to the team by phone.
“Odell was like, ‘By the way, this is my personal line, don’t give anyone my number,’ ” Collins says.
Collins expects more kinetic energy from Beckham Jr., but he wonders about the Madden curse. For years now, players featured on the cover have fallen prey to injury. The list includes Ray Lewis, Michael Vick and Adrian Peterson. Beckham Jr. considers the designation a “blessing.” Others worry about a jinx.
“I just hope that Madden cover thing . . . ,” Collins says, his voice trailing off. “It’s been true so far since I’ve been watching. Everybody that got on there got hurt. I thought Ray Lewis was going to beat it, but he got hurt, too. We’ll see.”
Stewart takes note of the craze from his Newman office. Members of the school community mentioned possibly selling Beckham Jr.’s old No. 3 jersey in the bookstore. He thought it was all happening too quickly. Stewart offers levity.
“If Odell wins the Super Bowl he has to get a tattoo of my face,” he says. A banner featuring a photo of former Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle looking downfield for a wideout hangs from a wall outside the fieldhouse that bears his name in Marshall, Tex., the birthplace of Boogie Woogie. Tittle wears No. 14 with “N.Y.” stamped on the sides of his helmet. The football is held in his right hand, ready to be released. He is the only Marshall High alumnus honored on the school’s building, but championship teams are commemorated on walls just off the field. Among the names from the 1988 team that won the 5A District title is Odell Beckham Sr. He is No. 33. The Mavs eventually lost to Dallas Carter in the state quarterfinals that season. Clint Harper, the current coach, eyes the honor roll.
“Fathers come and show their sons this all the time,” Harper says.
Beckham Sr. moved to Marshall in the eighth grade to live with his father. His mother lived in Temple, Tex., but Beckham Sr. excelled as a tailback in Marshall. His exploits appear in a chapter of “Friday Night Lights,” and he recalls introducing Junior to route running in the bluebonnet fields of Texas.
“Let’s go! Line up!” Beckham Sr. would say. “Corner route on two!”
Father traces his path back to glory years on Texas turf. Originally, family members believed Odell Sr. was headed to the NFL as a rusher. He was a Prop 48 student at LSU, welcomed Junior when he was a sophomore and lost his father soon after. He could have transferred following a coaching change but stayed put. Now, he works in the pre-owned car division at Crown Buick GMC in Metairie, La., and regales visitors with tales about his boys’ competitiveness. He offers an example: His youngest son, Sonny Odell Beckham — S.O.B. — weighed in at eight pounds and measured 21 inches. Junior was 6.5 pounds and 23 inches at birth. Senior informed Junior and his middle son, Kordell, that S.O.B. was a Beckham to be reckoned with.
“Sonny’s bigger than you were,” Senior said.
“Wait, wait, hold on,” Junior said. “I was still taller.”
“Boy, if you ain’t Odell Beckham Jr.!” Senior said. “Competing every chance you get!”
Beckham Jr. starts anew against Dallas Sunday night. The Cowboys’ stadium stands 200 miles west of Marshall, and Beckham Sr. laughs about the fact that a high school rival is helping his son along his new path. Jessie Armstead, a linebacker on the Dallas Carter team that topped Senior’s team in the state playoffs back in 1988, now serves as the Giants’ special assistant for player development. He offers advice to Junior, focusing on those New York nights and the energy he brings. “He needs to monitor himself,” Armstead says. “The city lights never go off.”