Professor

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excerpt:

The future was nearly preordained in rural Thomas, Mich., and the adjoining town of Oxford, known as the Gravel Capital of the World.

This was the Elvis '50s, just up the road from the center of the automobile universe. Young men from the area often attended the General Motors Institute, supported by the giant automaker to locate quality future employees for the company's plants. Or youths in the area chose the more direct pipeline to the assembly lines in nearby Pontiac or Detroit.

For $3 an hour in the mid-1960s, Jim Bates worked a few summers in the factory to raise money for college. It was enjoyable, even with the grief he would take from the plant's old-timers and the fact he'd be given the hardest jobs.

The nuts and bolts of football were more compelling.

Bates was hooked from the time he strapped on his 25-cent Sears and Roebuck helmet and played sandlot games — south siders vs. his north — at about age 10.

The physical nature of the sport was the initial draw. The kids from the local neighborhoods would paint their helmets in tribute to their favorite players. It was the only equipment they would wear.

Even when Bates' cheap headgear didn't protect him and he was knocked unconscious by striking the knee of another child who had at least 50 pounds on him in one of his earliest playing experiences at the local high school field, it didn't dampen his enthusiasm.

"Man, it was coldblooded," recalled Bates, hired in January to oversee the Broncos defense. "There were some tough kids. But it was fun."

And, according to childhood friend Dan Van Vleet, none came tougher than Bates.

"Jim is probably the overachiever of all time," he said.

Bates was country through and through.

He wore goggle glasses. He hunted at his father's side, shooting rabbits and pheasants in the fields from the time he was 5. He lived in the sticks, with a single light bulb illuminating the upper floor, until moving to his grandfather's house in town some years later.

The school Bates attended through sixth grade had two rooms. He participated in spelling bees, usually losing to Catherine Strong in the finals.

"It was a simple time," Van Vleet recalled.

Outdoor activities were a constant. Ice fishing. Pond hockey.

On rainy days, the two friends invented games to play, including basketball using a tennis ball and a shoe box for the hoop. They even chest bumped one another hard to test each other's resolve. And, yes, Bates had a stubborn streak.

As a 130-pound sophomore, in only his second year of organized ball, he marched into his coach's office and implored him to make him a starter at linebacker.

Walt Braun, one of Michigan's all-time winningest coaches by the time he retired from Marysville High School in 2000, was a young man at the time who just had started his career. He kicked several of the upperclassmen off the team for disciplinary reasons and needed players anyway.

Bates got his wish, making 14 tackles in his first game. He also played tight end.

And at the time, it was every bit a game of survival.

Braun believed in three-a-day practices to have the best-conditioned athletes. Van Vleet recalled he and Bates getting water from mud puddles simply to avoid the long walk to the drinking fountain. There were plenty of salt pills, too.

"It was pretty brutal, but we didn't know it at the time," Van Vleet remembered. "We thought everybody did it. Looking back on it, you saw the movie The Junction Boys about Bear Bryant? It was essentially that."

And to Bates, Braun might as well have been the Bear himself. He didn't shy away but became drawn to football even more.

It wasn't just the physical part of the job that excited him anymore, but the strategic side, too.

Bates walked on at the University of Tennessee at the behest of a prep algebra teacher who had done some graduate work there.

And, despite playing behind a couple of All-Americans, the determined collegian grew to about 200 pounds in his first year and eventually managed to earn a scholarship.

But Bates' real future was on the sidelines, playing the thinking man's game.

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