Meet Joe • Recent Press

2007

October 4

Press Box: The Rainmaker

Ex-NFL Player Joe Ehrmann Coaches Up Character

By Paul McMullen

The rectangular conference room, 50 feet deep and four times as wide, was not the most ideal setting in which to catch and hold the attention of an audience.

Those seated to the side craned to hear and see the speaker. The vast majority were women, many in their 20s and 30s, with little knowledge of the Baltimore Colts or the speaker, a big, burly man old enough to be their father.

He was not selling a tech gadget, get-rich-quick scheme or diet of the month. Joe Ehrmann, among the core that had Baltimore regularly dreaming of the Super Bowl in the mid-1970s but now firmly established in a second career as a motivational speaker, had been contracted to address health-care professionals who deal with at-risk youth.

In Ehrmann’s mind, their clientele encompasses just about every kid in America.

“How,” he asked rhetorically, “can the richest country in the world report 3 million cases of child abuse a year?”

His PowerPoint presentation centered on what he describes as the three great myths of masculinity, in brief: conquest on the ballfield, in the bedroom or the billfold. A crusader in the cultural war, Ehrmann dropped references from his own Baby Boomer generation, and more contemporary lures of the thug life.

A funny thing happened on the way to the digital revolution. Thanks to word of mouth and a tidy, 177-page book about Ehrmann as seen through the 2001 prep football season at the Gilman School, he finds himself with the power to influence thousands of coaches and educators, and in turn their charges, literally millions of lives.

He uses clinical language, of cognitive dissonance and the physiology of the brain, but Ehrmann dwells more on matters of the heart, like empathy.

The Rev. Joe Ehrmann is an ordained minister, a disciple of Christ, but his source material goes way beyond the New Testament. Aristotle, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and the “Wizard of Oz” get as many props as Apostle Paul. With Ehrmann, “Are You Ready For Some Football?” has given way to “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” the anthem written decades ago by a fellow 58-year-old, Nick Lowe.

There’s also a little of the lunatic linchpin anchorman in “Network,” a cinematic satire about media excess that resonates even more today than it did when it hit the big screen in 1976.

“Oh yeah,” Ehrmann said, “Howard Beale, the ‘mad prophet of the airwaves.’

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore.”

***

What makes “Hoosiers” one of the most beloved sports films is its verisimilitude, from the referees’ long-sleeved shirts to the locations, ancient high school gyms and Butler University’s Hinkle Fieldhouse. It all feels so authentic -- until the pep talk before the climactic state final.

The players express their longing, a town preacher quotes scripture about David smiting Goliath and the coach, played by Gene Hackman, draws his boys into a huddle. Their hands join, and he sends them into battle with this:

“I love you guys.”

“Hoosiers” was inspired by events that occurred in 1954, when the only time a man uttered that sentiment was on his third pitcher of beer, in a barroom.

Ehrmann was 5 when Milan High won the Indiana basketball championship for all the little schools. Around that same time, his father inflicted psychological damage upon him -- “nurture wounds” in Ehrmann-speak -- that took years to identify, and then heal.

Seldom seen at their home in Buffalo, Ehrmann’s father was a stevedore on the Great Lakes. He used a boxing lesson to teach his oldest son what it took to be a man. When a frightened little Joe began to tear up because he was unable to snap a jab, his old man went ballistic and bellowed that real men don’t cry.

The Greatest Generation wasn’t much for talking about feelings, and Ehrmann got more of the same from football coach Ben Schwarzwalder at Syracuse University, where his potential as a defensive tackle made him the 10th selection in the 1973 NFL draft.

He was part of a bumper crop for the Baltimore Colts that included quarterback Bert Jones, the No. 2 pick after John Matuszak, the poster boy of a chaotic age. The “Tooz” won two Super Bowls with the Oakland Raiders as a defensive end, but never saw his 39th birthday. Steroid abuse was a likely contributor to his death. Ditto for the Pittsburgh Steelers of that era, who are paying for their four Super Bowls with an alarmingly high mortality rate. A cocaine epidemic, meanwhile, had the NBA on life support.

Off the field, Ehrmann kept the Colts’ party going. On it, he anchored the “Sack Pack.” In 1975, Baltimore was beaten in the playoffs by the eventual Super Bowl champion Steelers. In 1977, the Colts lost a double-overtime playoff to the Raiders, who went on to the Super Bowl. In December 1978, with the Colts’ magic gone and the franchise eventually to follow, Ehrmann’s life changed dramatically.

His younger brother Billy, who had planned to play football at Towson University, took ill and was diagnosed with cancer. Death came quickly, as did Joe’s embrace of a more contemplative life.

***

F. Scott Fitzgerald, no stranger to Baltimore, observed that, “There are no second acts in American lives.”

The author of “The Great Gatsby” never met Ehrmann, who got his divinity degree and co-founded both a mission in East Baltimore, The Door, and the city’s branch of the Ronald McDonald House, a haven for families of children with cancer.

Along the way, Ehrmann drew on unexpected inspiration, like his one season of lacrosse at Syracuse, where road trips included museum stops and the coach unwound in his art studio. Two decades later, Roy Simmons had his own preconceptions knocked over. In Baltimore for a coaches’ convention and packing no small amount of skepticism, he skulked into a 7 a.m. assembly of Athletes in Action to hear Ehrmann.

“This was 15 years ago, and I hadn’t seen Joe in a long time,” Simmons said. “His charisma always demanded attention, but I had remembered him as a tough guy, aggressive almost to a fault. I never envisioned Joe becoming a man of the cloth, so the transformation he had undergone was remarkable. He poured his heart out, about the errors of his youth and how he had come to find higher truths.

“People must have thought, ‘What’s wrong with this old coach?’ because he had me crying. Before I greeted Joe, I had to compose myself, wait for the tears to dry. I didn’t want him to see that.”

Had Ehrmann seen the tears, he would have told Simmons how proud he was of his old coach, that he could display his vulnerability.

***

Ehrmann’s outreach came to include an assistant coaching job with the Gilman football program, which remains his lab. It also became a platform, courtesy of a one-time Colts’ ballboy.

Jeffrey Marx had spent a few summers of his youth helping at Colts’ training camp. Spurred by the planned demolition of Memorial Stadium, Marx went in search of the Colts of his era in 2001 and located a brighter side of sports than the one he had uncovered during a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of a basketball recruiting scandal at the University of Kentucky.

Marx spent that fall with Ehrmann, head coach Biff Poggi and a Gilman team that included Victor Abiamiri, Ambrose Wooden and Stan White Jr. He penned a book about the experience, “Season of Life,” which included dialogue not associated with the practice field.

What is our job as coaches?

To love us.

What is your job?

To love each other.

Unable to secure a publisher, Marx paid for the initial paperback run of 14,000 copies. Simon & Schuster acquired the title, and “Season of Life” is now in its 26th printing, including one in Mandarin. The screen rights have been sold.

How about John Goodman or Mandy Patinkin as Ehrmann?

“If I pretend to think that I had seen this coming, I’d be an absolute liar,” Marx said from his home in Baton Rouge. “If you had told me that the U.S. Naval Academy and the Dallas Cowboys and an allgirls high school in Baton Rouge were using “Season of Life” to promote change … the way this somehow crossed over, it’s absolutely insane.

“Joe is such a wonderful messenger. He has both the life story and the passion to make this sing for people. If he had played flute in the high school band, people wouldn’t gravitate to him. Because he did this on the football field, it hits people differently. That says something about our culture.”

An Ehrmann presentation includes themes found in “Season of Life.”

My father’s concept of masculinity was that men don’t cry, men don’t feel, men don’t need, men don’t touch -- that if you really want to be a man, you learn how to dominate and control.

Ehrmann in the days after 9/11: What breeds terrorism? It’s relationally driven. It’s hatred. It’s prejudice. It’s religious intolerance. It’s racism. We live in a world that just breeds this stuff.

On materialism: Look at all the media and marketing messages. We get all sorts of stuff about the whole mentality of always wanting bigger, better, more -- the power of possessions -- but that’s only for ourselves. Where do we ever get media or marketing about wanting to do something for someone else, about having a cause beyond our own selfish needs, wants and desires?

More on acquiring social consciousness: Whenever we can show up, stand up, and speak up, that’s when we start changing the world … and all of us need to do that.

***

Always a voracious reader, Ehrmann brings research, a commanding presence and a unique perspective to 90-minute presentations that include proclamations like this: “The No. 1 common denominator in the NFL is father-son dysfunction. The boy says to himself, ‘I’m going to prove to him how tough I am.’ You acquire a nature that wasn’t yours to begin with.”

Last month’s listeners included the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts and administrators and coaches at the University of Virginia, where the lacrosse coach was familiar with Ehrmann’s work.

Dom Starsia had recruited the Carroll twins, Brian and Kevin, out of Gilman, where their football and lacrosse teammates included Barney Ehrmann, Joe’s oldest son, now a sophomore defenseman at Georgetown.

“They don’t really do all this ‘love you’ crap at Gilman, do they?” Starsia jokingly asked the Carrolls when they got to Charlottesville. “I had read the book, so I knew the answer. Joe encourages you to be more open, which has never been one of my strengths. Joe references John Wayne. One of my idols was Clint Eastwood, another strong, silent type. Joe reminds us of what’s really important, relationships. As coaches, we don’t have to be autocratic, power-driven jerks to have an impact.”

To that end, Ehrmann and his wife Paula, a psychotherapist, run Building Men and Women for Others Inc. They want to take their philosophy beyond NFL players and major colleges, and at least one Maryland educator is sold.

“I begin every year with a presentation in which I ask our people why they are coaching,” said Lynn Carr, the supervisor of athletics for the Frederick County Public Schools. “After spending four years with you, what are your kids going to value?

“In ‘Season of Life,’ I found that Joe’s philosophy was in line with what we want our teachers and coaches to embrace, so I had him address all of our coaches. In person, Joe’s sincerity and commitment to his message are powerful stuff.”

Who best to counter a culture that exposes the impressionable to Britney Spears, Ultimate Fighting and travel teams that recruit 7-year-olds?

“To bring about change in society, there isn’t a better platform than sport, which has become the secular religion,” Ehrmann said. “There is no more powerful person in America than the coach, whether it’s pro, college, high school or Little League.

“If every 6-year-old went on the field and got messages that boosted their selfesteem and were made to understand that their worth and value and potential transcends physical performance, you would have this incredible capacity to bring about change. With a coherent, consistent message, all you would need is about 12 years to bring about change in this country.”

Ehrmann would be 70 by then, but he’s just warming up, convincing one audience at a time that the ballfield, bedroom and billfold do not make the man.

“You can take every social problem in this city, and trace it back to one of those three lies,” Ehrmann told that mostly female group of health care professionals.

For one older listener, his urging had the feel of a revival.

“Amen,” she answered.

Issue 2.39: Sept. 27, 2007