Wayne Chrebet began his professional football career in the
spring of 1995 by walking the few hundred feet that separated Colonial Square,
his dormitory at Hofstra, from the Jets’ facility located just beyond the
Physical Fitness Center.
But it didn’t take Chrebet nor his former Hofstra teammates
long to realize he might be walking his way right into the NFL.
“I think it was spring festival (weekend) and we were all
hanging out,” former Hofstra linebacker Jim Shannon said recently, referring to
the annual massive weekend-long party that went on at the intramural fields
across from the dormitory towers. “The Jets had their minicamp and of course
they did coach (Joe Gardi) a favor by letting Wayne come over.
“He’s just walking up. He walks up and he’s like ‘Hey.’
Because he was just Wayne back then. Wayne Chrebet and we all loved him. We
thought he was a great dude. Did we seriously think that he was going to make
an NFL team? Hoping for it, but nobody really knows.”
Yet Chrebet was already, in the parlance of Gardi, running
with the big dogs.
“He walks up and we’re like ‘How’d you do?’” Shannon said.
“He said ‘I did really good. I don’t know what it was, but Aaron Glenn [the
Jets’ first-round pick in 1994] just can’t cover me. He didn’t cover me one
time.’ He was like ‘I was just roasting him.’ And we’re like ‘Really?’
“Then it was the next day, more of the same stuff. Then camp
ends and he gets an invite to training camp.”
Chrebet parlayed that invite into an 11-year career that
ranks as one of the finest in Jets history. Chrebet, one of only 18 players to
spend at least 11 seasons with the Jets, ranks second in the franchise record
book in receptions (580) and third in receiving yards (7,365) and touchdowns
(41).
Chrebet will take his place with the Jets’ all-time greats
tonight, when he and former owner Leon Hess are inducted into the Ring of Honor
at halftime of the game against the Dolphins.
“Still hasn’t sunk in,” Chrebet said last month during an
autograph signing at Victory Sports Bar in East Rutherford. “People are like
‘They should retire your jersey, no one’s worn it.’ That’d be cool, but this
is—I’m starting to really get blown away by it. When I’m up there and I see
it—yeah, I’m not gonna be able to talk. I can barely talk about it right now.”
An career in the NFL wasn’t even a remote consideration for
Chrebet during his first two seasons at Hofstra, during which he caught just 36
passes for 309 yards and six touchdowns for a non-scholarship program transitioning
from Division III to Division I-AA.
He established himself as the Dutchmen’s no. 1 receiver in
1993, when he caught 57 passes for 788 yards and nine touchdowns in just nine
games. His breakout senior season might never have happened, though, if not for
the arrival of innovative offensive coordinator Mike McCarty, who installed the
spread offense that is so commonly seen today.
“The moved me from inside to the outside and that was the
big difference,” Chrebet said. “I had more one-on-one coverage.
“They had a play called ‘Z Heads.’ And I was the Z, which
meant we’re throwing it to you, no matter what. If you’re covered? No matter
what happens, we’re throwing you the ball. And we’re going to do that once a
quarter, just to keep them honest. And we just hit it all the time.”
Chrebet opened the season Sept. 3 by catching two
passes—touchdowns of 70 yards and 25 yards—in a 41-0 rout of Butler. On Sept.
17, he caught five passes for 206 yards and a school-record four touchdowns in
a 30-20 win over Fordham.
Two weeks later, as the unbeaten yet unranked Flying
Dutchmen prepared for their Homecoming game against Yankee Conference power New
Hampshire, ex-Jets star Marty Lyons—who was the analyst for Hofstra football
telecasts on SportsChannel—suggested to a scout who was planning to attend the
game to check out New Hampshire players to keep an eye on Chrebet instead.
Chrebet ended up with five receptions for 125 yards,
including a spectacular diving catch in the end zone for Hofstra’s second
touchdown in a 28-6 upset win.
“There was a scout that came and saw the guys from New
Hampshire,” Chrebet said. “Marty was just like ‘Well, what about Chrebet? You
need to take a look at him.’ I had the Fordham game and these [other] games and
people are saying, hey, maybe you have a chance. And then I was like, hey,
maybe.”
Chrebet ended his Hofstra career in unbelievable fashion
Nov. 12, 1994, when he caught 14 passes for a school-record 245 yards and five
touchdowns in a 41-41 tie against Delaware. The five touchdowns tied the I-AA
record at the time, which was shared by Lehigh’s Rennie Benn and a guy from
Mississippi Valley State by the name of Jerry Rice.
He finished 1994 with Hofstra’s single-season records for
receiving yards (1,200) and touchdowns (16) as well as the career record for receiving
touchdowns (31).
“Whoever they put him against was outmatched—in that last
game and the whole season,” Hofstra quarterback Carlos Garay said.
Shortly thereafter, Chrebet’s parents told him they’d financially
support him following graduation as he tried to pursue his pro football dream.
“I started getting some offers to do some workouts—not the
combine—and I talked to my parents and we got an agent,” Chrebet said. “They
said “Listen. You get your degree, we’ll give you two years to maybe get into
the Canadian league or some league.’”
And if it didn’t work out?
“‘You’ve got to get a job,’” Chrebet said.
By the spring, Chrebet had three serious suitors willing to
sign him to a free agent contract: The Saints, Bengals and the Jets. Nobody
could match the opportunity offered by the Jets, whose top two receivers from
1994, Rob Moore and Art Monk, were traded and allowed to leave s a free agent,
respectively.
Nor could anyone else match the convenience of going to camp
with the Jets.
“I was like, well, the Jets have nobody [and] I don’t have
to leave the dorms,” Chrebet said.
On Apr. 24, 1995, Chrebet made the walk between Colonial
Square and the Jets facility for a tryout. Wide receivers coach Richard Mann
threw between 50 and 60 balls to Chrebet, who dropped just three passes.
“It was a ‘wow’ kind of a workout,” Jets head scout John
Griffin said afterward.
The Jets immediately offered Chrebet a contract.
“I guess I feel like a king for a day or something,” Chrebet
said while attending a Hofstra lacrosse game on Apr. 25. “This is definitely a
shock for me. I never planned on it. Whatever happens from here on out is just
icing on the cake.
“I’m going full force from here, and if I don’t make it,
it’s not because I didn’t try.”
By the end of the summer, Chrebet had vaulted from the very
bottom of the 11-man wide receiver depth chart to the top. Reporters from
around the country flocked to Hempstead to chronicle the feel-good story of the
kid from Hofstra now starring for the NFL team that was headquartered at
Hofstra.
The attention often seemed to bemuse the soft-spoken
Chrebet, who relied on and reinforced his familiar Hofstra ties throughout his
NFL career. As a rookie, he continued to live with friends just west of campus
in Hempstead and often attended Hofstra home football games, which were played
on Friday nights.
Chrebet married his college girlfriend, Amy, in 2001. A few
months earlier, Chrebet was among those standing on the court at Hofstra Arena,
smiling and taking in the scene, when the Flying Dutchmen basketball team beat
Delaware to win the America East title and the program’s first NCAA Tournament
berth in 23 years.
On the field, Chrebet continued to cement his status as one
of the greatest undrafted free agent signings of all-time. He outlasted nine
wide receivers who were drafted by the Jets from 1995 through 2003—including
Keyshawn Johnson, the mouthy wideout who authored a book following his rookie
season in which he dubbed Chrebet the “team mascot.”
From 1996 through 2003, the Jets signed at least eight free
agent receivers, all of whom were gone by the team Chrebet began his final NFL
season.
“That was a kid who got the chance and made the most of it,”
Shannon said.
His reliability, especially on third down catches over the
middle, made Chrebet a favorite target of 13 different passers—including
running back Curtis Martin, whose two career completions were both touchdowns
to Chrebet.
Perhaps most impressively, Chrebet played under four
different head coaches—five, if you count Bill Belichick’s one-day reign.
“The whole [senior] season is really how he played his whole
career with the Jets,” Garay said. “Just a notch above the rest. I’m glad he
did so well. I knew he was going to do well. As long as they threw the ball
near him, he’s going to catch it.”
Through it all, Chrebet remained the most popular player
with Jets fans, who made his number 80 jersey one of the NFL’s steadiest
sellers.
“Go to the Jets game every weekend,” Garay said. “There’s
more [people in] his jersey walking around than current players.”
Chrebet’s seemingly storybook career, of course, came with
dark consequences. He suffered at least eight documented concussions, including
two at Hofstra—one of which forced him to miss a game during the 1993 season
and the second of which left him inactive for the spring game in 1994.
“We were genuinely concerned about Wayne and whether or not
he would be healthy enough so that we could count on him this season,” Gardi
said following the 1994 season.
With the Jets, Chrebet missed a game in 2001 due to a
post-concussion headaches and the final eight games of the 2003 season after he
was knocked out against the Giants on Nov. 2. He also missed a playoff game due
to a concussion following the 2004 season.
His final reception on Nov. 5, 2005 symbolized his career,
the fearlessness with which he played and the toll it exacted. With the Jets
facing a 3rd-and-5 and trying to complete a furious fourth-quarter
comeback against the Chargers, Brooks Bollinger found Chrebet for a six-yard
gain and the 379th catch for a first down of Chrebet’s career.
But the back of Chrebet’s head bounced off the Giants
Stadium turf as he was tackled. He remained motionless, staring at the sky,
before he was helped off the field. After the game, Chrebet was unable to take off his uniform without assistance from a trainer.
Chrebet battled depression in the first few years following
his retirement and admits to battling headaches and memory loss. During
interviews, he acknowledges, with a poignant casualness, that his memory is not
what it used to be.
But he said last week at the Jets’ facility that he has more
good days than bad days and no regrets over the career path he chose.
“Yeah, it’s been a long journey,” Chrebet said at Victory
Sports Bar. “But getting to play and doing what I did, making the Ring of Honor
and knowing that my name’s up there forever?”
Hofstra will be well-represented when Chrebet’s name takes
its permanent place along the third deck at MetLife Stadium. Garay, with whom
Chrebet has remained best friends for the past two decades, will be in
attendance along with numerous other college friends from on and off the field
that Chrebet will host during a private pre-game barbeque.
Chrebet doesn’t know what he’ll say or how he’ll respond
once the cheers begin. But at some point he knows he’ll think of Hofstra, and
the beginning of a path that took him a few hundred feet down the road and
farther than anyone could have imagined.
“They’re a part of it—people that I knew from way back
[that] say ‘I remember watching you,’” Chrebet said. “This journey started
there. And everybody has bits and pieces of the story.”
(All quotes from 1994-95 first appeared in The Chronicle,
Hofstra’s student newspaper)
Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com
or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.
