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By R. E. Graswich
(Published July 14, 1996)
Jerry Rice is on the driving range, head down, elbow locked. He began playing golf two years ago and is determined to wrestle it to the ground and pin it, because he's one of those people -- competitive, motivated, egotistical -- who believes he can make himself good at anything.
So it might not be a good idea to disturb him, not while he leans over the ball and concentrates. Nonetheless, an older guy with a gut and cigarette and leathery tan won't wait. He comes over and says, "Excuse me, Jerry. I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm John Brodie."
Rice looks up. A glaze of wonderment spreads across his face. He smiles and says, "Hey, it's great to meet you." They stare at each other for a moment, and Brodie says, "Well, good luck." Rice replies, "Same to you. But I guess you don't need any luck."
It took the Isuzu Celebrity Golf Championship this weekend at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course to bring together these two brothers of 49ers lore, the great quarterback and great receiver, one long retired and the other still chronically active.
The fact that Brodie and Rice had to meet on a driving range is more evidence that golf is a miraculous game, with values and benefits beyond the cardiovascular, beyond the spiritual.
Golf has come along at the perfect time for Rice. He has established himself as the premier receiver in football, but at age 33 he realizes the pads and helmets and bone-rattling tackles and touchdowns won't always be there to stimulate his life.
He's still recovering from the shock of having seen his wife almost die during the birth of their third child in May. The baby is fine, and Jackie Rice is recovering from complications that her husband won't discuss.
"We'll get through this," Jerry Rice said Friday. "Jackie is a fighter. That's all I'm going to say."
Jackie isn't the only fighter in the family. Jerry Rice will fight anyone, anytime, anyplace, maybe not with bare knuckles but with a nuclear-powered obligation to make himself the best, to come out on top.
"As an athlete, I feel I can do the impossible," Rice said.
The country bumpkin from Crawford, Miss., hammered, scraped, sanded and polished himself into a sophisticated champion, a millionaire, a man with a big house in the lush hills of Atherton, whose closets are stuffed with custom-made shoes and shirts and fine Italian suits.
The intensity that drives Jerry Rice, the relentless force of energy, can make him a miserable person. Rice can be surly and short-tempered after football games, as impatient and peevish as a gifted and spoiled child.
But he's not that way on the golf course. Rice knows he's not good enough to swing with big boys -- "If I had to make a $200,000 putt, I couldn't do it," he said -- and so he allows the game to expose his softer, amiable side.
Roaming the Edgewood track, chasing badly hooked balls in the woods, leaving no doubt as to the legitimacy of his 13 handicap, he was delightful to see, spirited and competitive but friendly and at ease, with everything to prove and nothing to lose.
Rice has an excellent coach this weekend, a calm and world-weary veteran golfer named Andy Miller of Los Altos. Miller is carrying Rice's bags at Edgewood and patiently working on Rice's game. The student-teacher relationship is oblivious to the fact that Miller is red-haired boy of 16.
"Slow it down, you're coming over the top," Miller tells Rice. Moving closer to his student, Miller taps Rice on the knee and whispers something about the top of his swing.
"When he gets to his middle irons, he's unstoppable," said Miller, who in poise and attitude could pass for 45. "If he keeps at it, he's got a real shot at this game."
Rice used to find golf boring. Now he has embraced it, expanding his wardrobe to include classy country club fashions, organizing his own charity tournament. Obsessed with physical perfection, he has discovered golf's mental challenges.
"Football is easy compared to golf," Rice said, wiping his brow and taking another step toward mortality.
R.E. GRASWICH'S column appears four times a week. Write him at P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento, 95852, or call (916) 326-5521.
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