The Lady is a Champ Ch. 01

Bracing myself up to my most confident mood, I made a vague effort to chat-up the lovely young lady but she shot me down fast and cold, with a dismissive sniff that would have better suited a college lesbian lady from Smith College, instead of one of the loveliest coeds to ever grace LSU. She pointedly ignored me for the rest of the weekend, which was too bad since we were the only two young folks around under the age of thirty. We ought to have been dancing the night away somewhere, or at least enjoying a pizza together… but it was not to be. She smoldered in my dreams for the next year or two.

Now that I was a full General Manager and quite resplendent with tyrannical powers and chock-full of manly authority, one of my first phone calls was to the Coyotes and no one was more surprised than I was to find that Margot answering the phone instead of their own GM. Since her graduation from LSU she had mostly worked over in the sales and marketing side of things, but she was apparently now doing a rotation over at the player development side so that she could learn every part of the business. She was acting as the assistant GM that summer, to nearly everyone else's amusement. This provided my first hint that our lovely Margot, albeit smart as a whip, was just a tad bit lacking in her communication and interpersonal relations skills.

"Hello Margot! This is Jeff Leeds of the Toro's, I was wanting to talk to Frank about a minor trade deal. Can you speak for him or do I need to call him back later? I'd like to get this deal done fairly fast and get my roster finalized before training camp starts up in three weeks."

"Oh. Well I don't think we are interesting in doing any trades." Her voice was so bland that I'm not sure she hadn't stifled a yawn. Besides, everyone was always looking to do a trade or two this time of year!

"What? Nonsense, of course you are. It's right there in the Assistant GM job description in the handbook I'm sure they gave you. You're supposed to find under-evaluated talent on other teams, jewels in the rough waiting to be plucked, and finding ways to steal them to make your own team better. If you're not already plotting one of twenty different ways to rob my team blind, then you're sleeping on the job and you'll never make a good GM!"

"I don't want to make GM. I'm going to be the next Executive Vice President of the club in a couple of years."

"That's nice. Today, and we are talking about today, you're dipping your big toe into the wide and deep world of player development. Yes, I know… it's dark and scary and it's a lot easier to shut your eyes and just say no. But sometimes, when you say yes, and the right sort of yes, good things can happen… for both of us."

"Meah." She mumbled while trying to get her thoughts organized. "Jeff Leeds… didn't you just become GM of the Toro's? Awful young for that sort of job." She muttered, more to herself than to me, as if she was thinking out loud.

"You should talk! I'm a full three years older than you are, and I was offered my job out of ability and as the result of over a hundred thousand hours of hard work when I should have been sleeping, or annoying pretty young women… not as a graduation gift from PawPaw. Shall we discuss players now or would you rather that we continue to discuss each others inadequacies?"

"Ok, I'll play. What players did you have in mind?" She sounded confused and off of her script… now I had her!

"Great. The deal I have in mind is trading your Tight End Eric Rogers in return for my Offensive Guard Adam Winstead. It's actually a good deal for both of us if you think about it. Both players are fairly low on our own depth chart, but fill in for weaknesses on each others rosters. I need a Tight End that can come in from off of the bench and you need at least one more offensive lineman for your rotation to replace injuries. I predict that when you open the binder with your latest depth chart you'll see that Rogers is ranked at least third for his position, and he might later drop to fourth if Lenny Lewis, your 6th round draft pick has a good training camp. In other words, your boss Frank probably has a written comment in ink or highlighter mark notation written next to Rogers name to remind him to get rid of him, ASAP. So this is your lucky day, what do you say?"

"Well… I don't know. I'll have to get back to you."

"I thought you were the 'go-to' woman, ready and able to make an instant decision? Ok, you drive a hard bargain… how about Henri LaCross instead of Winstead? As an extra added bonus, he's from LSU too, so he has some of that homegrown Cajun flavor Frank is always looking for marketing games in your Louisiana network affiliates."

"Well… maybe. Let me think about it for awhile."

"That means no, sweetheart. You know you're getting the better of this deal, robbing me blind in my weakness to get a backup player that might not even touch the field this season, except during garbage time, so put on your big-girl panties and make an executive decision! Make Frank proud of you!"

"Well… ok, I guess."

"Nicely done! You'll become the terror of the ownership meetings yet! I'll fax the paperwork right away! And I still think we should have nipped out from the league meeting a few years ago for that pizza."

So much for my first professional dealing with Margot. I didn't quite rob her blind, but in my evaluation Winstead was a better player than LaCross. Eric Rogers was exactly what I needed, a veteran guy who was an above average blocker and who ran exact precise pass routes and had good hands. Despite less than stellar speed he was wily, and often managed to find a way to get open and catch the ball. Last season the Coyotes used him nearly exclusively for run-blocking, but I was pretty sure that he'd be an asset in our more pass heavy offense. He wasn't a starter for us that season but he performed a very valuable role off of the front of the bench, backing up our more talented, but young and inexperienced starting Tight End. LaCross got some playing time for the Coyotes too, but only due to several injuries to better linemen. Frank cut him from the roster at the end of the season.

I'd like to think that Margot learned a lesson about player evaluation, the give and take of good old-fashioned horse trading, but she probably didn't. The next year she was back in charge of sales and marketing, and doing an outstanding job by all of the accounts that I heard. Still word slowly spread through the league grapevine that she was 'very challenging' to work with and that she didn't manage people very well or make any friends with her counterparts at the main league office or the other thirty-one teams. Still two years later she got that expected promotion to Executive Vice-President, managing all non-football operations for the team. She was now virtually the owner of the club in all but name.

Time Magazine ran a cover story on her, discussing her youth, business and management strategies, her youth, and her love of color-coded notes in her monstrous sized daily schedule organizer book. Oh, and they discussed her youth some more. Aged twenty-seven and the world (or at least the Coyotes) was her oyster. The news story also made it rather clear that the lovely and talented Ms. Margot was a serial first dater, rarely if ever giving a man a second chance with her. Her philosophy was clear; work came first in her life and romance fell somewhere around 29th place.

I felt a bit left out that the Time article had made no mention of me whatsoever, but then again I had just turned thirty, so I guess that meant that I wasn't a wonder-kid anymore.

Sigh.

Still this was a bit of a wakeup call for me as well. I started to hit the player's gym everyday to work out until I was nearly as buff as they were. I also made a mental note to start doing some more dating myself and found a few worthy of regular attention, but none of them were quite Ms. Right. At least I was now having some fun for a change.

*******

This fourth season was my make-or-break year. We had been awful my first season (as expected) and used our plethora of nice high draft picks at the next draft to start loading up on skill positions, including our quarterback of the future. We kept him on the bench all of the next season so that he could slowly learn the faster pro-style game without being tossed to the wolves right off the bat. Besides, I still hadn't forged an offensive line skilled and tough enough to keep him alive and healthy yet. Our owner had a few white knuckled moments, but he kept his word and his hands off.

We only mostly sucked that next year, but I could tell that most of the main pieces were now assembled, we just needed time, training and experience. Now it was up to coaching. The players hated my disciplinarian slave-driver, but they either learned to execute the system or else their folder appeared on top of my desk to be traded off… usually for someone at least as good and talented.

Last season we nearly made the playoffs, but our inexperience hurt us in several ways. Too many penalties and dumb rookie mistakes, but at least these were only mental mistakes that coaching can eventually correct. After yet another promising draft of youngsters to provide more bench depth and plug a few last remaining weaknesses, I felt that we were about ready to contend, and be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.

This was my final promised fourth season to rebuild the team and it was going to be playoffs or bust this time around!