Dan Orlovsky’s the face of what’s good inside of us
Dan Orlovsky started it with a tweet the morning of March 14. Two weeks ago, seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?
“Anyone who knows someone who lives in the Fairfield County area or near there — kids that need meals or older folks need someone to go out and get them whatever — DM me. My family and I can make runs to whatever stores are needed!”
He didn’t do it for the publicity. He did it because of what he has become.
If there is a timeline on Dan Orlovsky, it goes something like this: Outstanding quarterback from Shelton
High who turns down Big Ten offers to play for a nascent, home-state Division I program. Becomes the playing face of UConn football, leads Huskies to a bowl game, is drafted by the Detroit Lions. Cobbles a 12-year NFL career, mostly as a backup, gains internet fame for accidently stepping out of the back of the end zone while scrambling. Retires. Post some crack analysis on Twitter, hired by ESPN and quickly skyrockets as one of football’s best studio analysts. He always was a good guy and along the way becomes a man of Christian faith, a family man with four children, including triplets, with his wife Tiffany. He settles in Westport, which essentially has beome Ground Zero for the coronavirus in Connecticut.
Which brings us to all our timelines. We don’t know what’s next.
Orlovsky tweeted what he did on March 14. The “likes” grew. The “retweets” grew. And with that came requests in various forms.
Orlovsky made good on this early on and in the process gave Connecticut a face, gave us a rallying point for what is good inside of us. He certainly isn’t the only one out there helping. He doesn’t pretend to be. Still, this is sports and sports is about celebrity, athletes and media. In the hardest hit county in our state, don’t look now, but Dan Orlovsky may be knocking on your next door neighbor’s house.
“The reality,” Orlovsky said, “is when I heard the doctors and the experts
making such a conscious effort to tell people to stay home — stay home — you cannot go out if you are at risk or, really, you could be the carrier. And, obviously, the ripple effort of that. Well, if you have some issues and you can’t go out, how can you listen to what they are telling you to do, yet also make sure you can get food?
“If the best thing is for you to stay home, we need neighbors, family members, friends and strangers to make sure we do our part so you can be alive. Same thing when they close schools and kids don’t get meals. It’s a crazy time for everybody. But kids in general. How can you tell a kid, you don’t get to eat lunch anymore because there’s a really bad sickness going around and you can’t go to school? The kids are like, ‘What?’ That was the main motivation. When they’re telling everyone to do this and we expect everybody to listen, we’ve got rally together.”
The next thing out of Orlovsky’s mouth was no surprise.
“I look at it as a competitive thing,” he said. “We know who the opponent is. We know how to beat it. To beat it, it takes ‘we.’ That was a big thing. We have to do what we can.”
People contacted Orlovsky through social media. It was, hey, I know this family. Or I know this person. Or my grandparents need some help. He went to stores and bought things. He delivered them to Stamford and Westport and Bridgeport.
Graig Vicidomino, a former kicker and teammate of Orlovsky’s at UConn, reached out to him to help. Vicidomino brought food. Orlovsky said Sherwood Diner in Westport, not wanting food to go to waste, donated to the cause.
“I’ve driven around most of Fairfield County,” Orlovsky said. “You can tell how important it is to them.”
Some know him right away. Some don’t. Some people who didn’t care.
“It has been a surprise more often than not,” Orlovsky said. “I think the main thing was, ‘I’ve got a couple days of food left and this is one less than I have to worry about.’
“The great part is how important those people felt in those moments. That is a really cool thing.”
Fairfield County has approximately a quarter of the population of Connecticut. It has some of the richest towns in the country. It also has plenty of people below the poverty line and in need. COVID-19 doesn’t give a damn if you’re rich or poor, white or black, Christian, Jew or Muslim. As of
Friday, 752 of 1,291, nearly 60 percent of the state cases were in Fairfield County. The southwest corner of Connecticut is one of the nation’s hot spots.
“This is the way I look at it,” Orlovsky said. “I’m 36 and I got a long time to live. I think it’s silly for me as a 36-year-old and think something like this is not going to show itself again. In 40 or 50 years from now, if I’m one of those people at risk, I’m hoping and praying there are people out there that will think enough of my life to help me out, so I can listen to the people who are smarter than me.”
If you do a quick Google news search on Orlovsky, you’ll find headlines like “Orlovsky says getting Foles was perfect move for Chicago.” Or, “Orlovsky is right, NFL teams should tank for Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence.’ And, “Orlovsky: Whoever wants Tua Tagovailoa will have to trade up.” He’s on ESPN virtually every day commenting from his home office on the various moves of the NFL offseason.
He loves the job. He’s eager to debate without coming off caustic. The other day, Orlovsky was on the air when his four kids surrounded him and peered into the camera. During a tough time, it was a cool moment.
I had to ask him the toughest question: “Is the kids crawling on you while you’re on TV easier or more difficult than debating Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman?”
“I feel like I can get just as good of arguments,” Orlovsky said.
He is not a man without humor.
When his time is free, he’ll get in his car and take off by himself with bags of food and necessities.
“A couple of times, I’ve FaceTimed with my kids when I’m out,” Orlovsky said. “They know where I’m going and why I’m going.”
And when he gets there, sure, thankful people want to take pictures with him.
“It’s one of those things, you’ve got to remove the selfishness and the pride of it,” Orlovsky said. “I want to make sure my heart and my thoughts are in it for the right reasons rather than pat yourself on the back, Dan.
“I come from team sports. I look at it as a team thing. I look at it as doing my part to help our team reach a final goal and win. I’m a faith-based person, faith is a big deal in our family. How can I teach my kids things, have a great opportunity to show it and then not do it?”
So he does it, because that is who Dan Orlovsky, once the kid with a big arm, has become as a man.