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The man is waiting quietly for his autumn red Lincoln Navigator to come out of the car wash. He's standing alone in the shade, less than five miles from Arrowhead Stadium. It's the morning after the Kansas City Chiefs' sold-out home opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars. His black designer sunglasses hide his deep brown eyes, but the white T-shirt stretched tightly over the ripped torso and the bright red Chiefs logo on the shorts are a dead giveaway for how this guy makes his living. There are a dozen people waiting nearby for their cars, yet after 15 minutes, only one person approaches with any interest in what the hunk does or who he is. It's the dude from the car wash, walking right at him, smelling like air freshener and twirling a damp, dirty rag in his pruney hands. "You an athlete?" he asks.
"That what they call you, or is that your name?" "Aw, c'mon man," pleads someone in the customer waiting area. "That's Priest Holmes. Priest Holmes! He gained more yards than anyone in the NFL last year." "Get out. You're BS-ing me. Are you BS-ing me?" "No, seriously," the customer says. "Priest Holmes, huh? Hey, nice to meet you. You did all that for the Chiefs? For real?" "Yeah," the customer adds. "For real." Holmes never says a word in his own defense. "This," he says with a shrug when he's back in his SUV heading to practice, "is my life." And he wouldn't change it for anything. He likes being anonymous. It doesn't matter to Holmes if anyone knows he's the first undrafted player to finish a season tops in rushing (1,555 yards) and total yards (2,169) since San Francisco's Joe "The Jet" Perry did it in 1954. "Priest Holmes inspires me the way Kurt Warner inspired me in St. Louis," says Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil. "But with the way he's ignored, I always feel like I have to apologize for the fact he led the NFL in rushing." Looks like Vermeil will have some more explaining to do this season. While facing the league's sixth-toughest schedule, and without the benefit of a strong passing attack to prevent defenses from loading up the line of scrimmage, Holmes has rushed undaunted. Through Week 4, he led the NFL in TDs (8) and was third in rushing yards (438). He's a ricochet runner, turning three-yard stuffs into six-yard gains, eight-yard bursts into 11-yard first downs. "I put little slashes on my belt for YAC [yards after contact]," he says. "If you aren't breaking tackles, you aren't doing anything." That's how in Week 3 he almost beat the world champs single-handedly, baffling defensive genius Bill Belichick and gashing the Pats for 180 yards and 3 TDs in a 41-38 loss. Members of the Patriots defense, which had held Jerome Bettis and Curtis Martin to a combined 40 yards in Weeks 1 and 2, compared him to Barry Sanders. "He is," says Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren, who faced Holmes twice last season, "the entire package."
Call him soft-spoken, but don't call him soft. Last season the Chiefs were 3–8 and headed for a tailspin when, moments before facing the Raiders on Dec. 9, Holmes asked Vermeil if he could address the team. He had never done this, preferring to wait until he first established himself by his actions. Standing in front of his locker, over the din coming from the Network Associates Coliseum crazies, Holmes quoted Ecclesiastes, explaining to his teammates there was a time for everything: A time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance. "This is our time to feast," he screamed. Holmes was first in line. He gorged himself with 277 yards from scrimmage, including 168 yards rushing, and 2 TDs against the eventual AFC West champs. It was the biggest single-game output in 2001 and it completed a three-game, 643-yard tear, the most by a player since Walter Payton ran for 746 yards in 1977. The Chiefs lost in the last two minutes to the Raiders, but went on to win three of their last four games to end the season. "We knew Priest could run," says Chiefs guard Will Shields. "We just weren't sure he could talk." Furthering his rep as the antistar, Holmes didn't treat his first Pro Bowl like a megalomaniac's getaway. He invited the entire team to Hawaii -- on his dime. Luckily only a dozen Chiefs took the offer, and Shields, who owns a travel agency, split the cost with him. "I can pass the glory to someone else in a second," says Holmes. "I'd much rather someone else have it anyway." The Saturday after finishing his prep career in San Antonio with 4,080 yards rushing, Holmes put off recruiters from Texas because he had chores to finish, including cleaning every inch of the baseboards in his family's home. "Nobody ever looked at the baseboards," Holmes says. "No one would ever know if I cleaned them or not. Except for me." In other words, work hard and do well for the person that counts -- yourself. It's a mantra that has served Holmes well.
Before his would-be breakout junior season with the Longhorns, Holmes blew out his left knee and was replaced by a dreadlocked frosh named ... Ricky Williams. He made it back for his senior season in 1996 and rushed for 120 yards and 3 TDs in the Big 12 Championship Game upset over third-ranked Nebraska, a game Vermeil watched from the TV booth and Chiefs GM Carl Peterson scouted. His performance still wasn't good enough to get him drafted. But Holmes made the Ravens roster as a free agent in 1997, ran for 1,008 yards in 1998, then took one for the team during their Super Bowl season by not protesting when the coaches promoted first-round pick Jamal Lewis over him.
With Holmes living closer to his family in Kansas City, De'Andre moved back with Stephanie and Jekovan in San Antonio so the boys could attend school together. Holmes flies to see them each Monday afternoon and takes them to school on Tuesday morning, before jetting back to Kansas City for Wednesday practices. With the serenity and focus that comes from a life in order, Holmes has been able to concentrate fully on football, and his career has blossomed. Long after the Chiefs finish their final practice of the week each Saturday, you can find Holmes alone in an empty Arrowhead Stadium, running through his own private walk-through. On this Saturday, shadows from the scoreboard look like crop circles on the turf. An unlocked gate opens and closes, clanking in the wind. Using a dozen or so plays from the Chiefs game plan, Holmes works his way up the field and back. In what looks like an NFL version of air guitar, he mimics taking a handoff up the gut, chips an imaginary defensive end, then flares out for a screen pass up the sideline. He actually squares his body to the middle of the field, puts his hands up and thumb-to-thumb catches the invisible pass. After simulating a play-action fake, he pancakes a blitzing safety. Holmes finishes the first imaginary drive by plowing up the middle for a score, bouncing off invisible defenders much like he did in Foxboro to send the game against the Pats into overtime. He doesn't spike the ball. He doesn't even stop to chat up an imaginary Melissa Stark. He just turns around and heads toward the other end zone in a way that seems to perfectly capture who he is. He is disciplined and cerebral. Strong and silent. Full of purpose. A man performing at the top of his game. Even when nobody's watching.
This article appears in the October 14 issue of ESPN The Magazine. |
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Fleming: The Pederson principle
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