New York Jets punter Steve Weatherford not missing a beat after heart scare, offseason surgery
Steve Weatherford ripped off the electrodes and IV line attached to his body and burst out of the room in the basement of Paul Brown Stadium. He ran toward the exit, past security, refusing to accept his fate. Doctors and trainers chased him. He made a left out of the tunnel to the Jets sideline.
Minutes before the Jets' 24-14 wild-card win over the Bengals last season, Weatherford's heart had begun to race. He couldn't catch his breath during warmups, prompting medical personnel to hook him up to an electrocardiograph machine that revealed an elevated heart rate of nearly 200 beats per minute. His teammates wondered what had happened to the punter. His wife, Laura, watched from her parents' living room in Chicago, confused.
"I knew something wasn't right,"
she said.
Weatherford was trapped in a nightmare, watching his teammates on television in Cincinnati. When his emergency replacement, kicker Jay Feely, punted it just 33 yards on his first attempt less than five minutes into the game, Weatherford's instincts took over.
"I felt like I was letting everyone down,"
Weatherford said of ripping off the electrodes and IV and racing back on the field. "It wasn't fair to Jay. It wasn't fair to anyone."
So he approached special teams coach Mike Westhoff on the sidelines.
"Please let me do my job,"
he begged. "I'm ready to go in."
Weatherford suggested that he walk on to the field, punt and walk off to ensure his heart rate wouldn't jump again; the doctors and general manager Mike Tannenbaum disagreed.
The trainers took him back inside.
"Why?"
Weatherford thought. "Why is this happening to me again?"
* * *
"Kicking Nights"
started promptly at 5:30 p.m. inside an empty Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois campus in Champagne. For years, the college sweethearts went through the same routine. Weatherford took throws from Laura and tried to punt it inside the 20-yard line. If Weatherford drilled all five of his punts inside the 20, he'd pick the movie and restaurant. If not, Laura called the shots.
A couple months before Weatherford started training camp with the New Orleans Saints in 2006, Laura raised the ante. "If you don't kick five out of five,"
she said, "I want the ring."
It looked like Laura didn't stand a chance to win the bet. Weatherford - an elite athlete who turned down a Nike sponsorship offer to become a pro decathlete - drilled the first four punts before an uncharacteristic shank. So, he pulled an engagement ring out of his sock and proposed.
The couple had already been through some scary moments over Weatherford's bouts with an abnormal heartbeat. His heart inexplicably raced for the first time during a basketball game in his senior year of high school in Terre Haute, Ind.
