Finally, an underprivileged member of Chicago’s labor force lashes out at the rotten working conditions here. While others have failed or been afraid to speak, Curtis Conway steps forward.
“The cold weather is just not for me,” Conway tells a San Diego newspaper. “I’m a West Coast boy, and I always will be.”
But life is not always fair, so the Bears make Conway their first-round draft choice last spring. A wide receiver out of USC, he signs a three-year contract for $3.3 million. With that money, you can buy a lot of handwarmers, but you can’t buy happiness, which is why Conway indicates he’ll leave the Bears as soon as possible, probably with a headache. Often, this is how he departs practice.
“It’s the pressure,” Conway continues, unbuttoning his shirt until his heart falls out for Brian Petterson of the San Diego Union. “There’s a lot of it on this team to win and, I guess, for me to do well. At USC, I loved football. But now it’s a job. It’s 9 to 5 and then you go home.”
There is another problem for Curtis Conway, and it is trees.
“The people who live here spend their whole day raking leaves,” he says. “Me, I just let them blow into my neighbor’s yard.”
We hesitate to point out that, in due time, the people who live here will be spending the whole day shoveling snow instead of raking leaves. It will become cold, very cold, maybe even so cold that Conway’s black Mercedes-Benz 300 convertible won’t turn over. Not likely, because that’s a fairly reliable machine, even if you have to drive from Halas Hall to a four-bedroom house with a headache.
Then again, Conway could use his car phone to call for a tow truck. There are a lot of those around here, too. We don’t have earthquakes, fires that engulf entire suburbs, mud slides or the perfect wave. But tow trucks we’ve got. Just like leaves and snow and unhappy draft choices.
Now, Curtis Conway is neither a bad guy nor a wasted pick. He is merely the typical sports child of the 1990s-pampered, a little immature and more than a little homesick. Nothing that can’t be cured, if he’ll allow it. In fact, after a difficult start during which coach Dave Wannstedt hinted that Conway wasn’t tough enough, the No. 1 draft choice has come on a bit. He caught a touchdown pass in the Bears’ 16-13 victory Sunday night at San Diego, of all places. Conway wasn’t shivering, but it still counts.
Conway is correct about the pressure of being a highly touted rookie in the NFL. This is big business, and that’s one reason why he could command $1.1 million a year without ever putting on a Bears helmet. With that kind of dough at age 22, Conway could hire a lot of people to rake a lot of leaves. Some of those people might even be among the thousands who can’t find work and would kill for a 9-to-5 job, talk about pressure.
If Conway still can’t handle the expectations or the temperatures in Chicago, he could demand a trade, say, to the Los Angeles Rams. That’s if the Rams don’t move to Baltimore for lack of interest. Or the Raiders, where perhaps Conway could fill a few of those empty seats in the Coliseum. Or San Diego, which has nice beaches but not much football tradition. That would be fun. They’d all be fun.
Of course, so is making money, and if Conway can cuddle up to the fireplace on a winter night, he might check the all-time Bears roster. It’s full of players who came from California and Florida and Texas, suffered through leaves and snow, and made fortunes here because the Bears own the town because their fans love football. You can sell everything from soup to nuts here, and you can do so without getting frostbite. Chicago does have indoor heating. The banks are warm, too.
We could give Curtis Conway a lollipop and an electric blanket to survive until he bolts for a sand dune. Or he could stick around and try the most passionate sports city in America. If he does, if he ever sees the forest through the trees, then he’ll need a rake. But not for leaves.