Death Of A Volunteer: One For The Team

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Standing still just wasn't something he did. People talk about Tillman's charisma and his instantly authoritative manner. In 1995 Mike McBride was still new to his job as an academic counselor in ASU's athletic department when Tillman, a shaggy-haired freshman, first walked into his office to ask him how many classroom hours he would need to graduate. When McBride told him, Tillman shot back that it was McBride's job to make sure he didn't do any more or any less. "I had a weird reaction," says McBride. "I almost said, 'Yes, sir'--except he had that surfer hairdo."

Tillman made a career out of turning no into yes. His college football coach Bruce Snyder told Tillman that he might have to redshirt him--hold him back--for his first year. Perhaps Snyder was expecting him to grow. "He looked me dead in the eye and said, 'Coach, I'm not going to redshirt.' I thought he didn't understand what I meant," says Snyder, "so I started to explain it. But he said, 'Coach, you don't have to play me. I'm going to graduate in four years, so as long as I'm around, use me as it comes along.'"

In 1997 Tillman helped the Sun Devils come achingly close to a national championship in that year's Rose Bowl. All the same, prior to the NFL draft the following year, the labels "too small" and "too slow" still clung to him. He came to the Cardinals as a seventh-round pick, 226th out of 241 overall. His signing bonus was meal money by NFL standards, just $21,000. Since he didn't have a car, he commuted to the Cards' training camp riding his green Schwinn bicycle. "But you couldn't tell him he couldn't make it in the NFL", recalls Kwamie Lassiter, one of Tillman's former teammates. "Tell him he can play for three years, and he'll play four just to show you he can. Whatever challenge came up, he hit it head on."

In 2000 Tillman established a team record of 224 tackles in a single season. The next year he turned down a five-year, $9 million--contract offer from the Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams out of loyalty to the eternally underachieving Cardinals. But after Sept. 11, Tillman started thinking about larger loyalties. On the day after the attack he spoke about family members who had gone to war, like his great-grandfather who was at Pearl Harbor. "I haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that," he said. "So I have a great deal of respect for those that have."

Tillman's agent Frank Bauer got the first inkling that something was brewing with his client in a phone conversation in March 2002, while he was in the midst of negotiating the $3.6 million deal with the Cardinals. "Pat said, 'Hey, Frank, do me a favor. Worry about your other clients. Don't worry about me. I'm thinking about doing something else.'" In May, after returning from a honeymoon trip to the South Pacific island of Bora Bora with his wife Marie, Tillman enlisted, along with his brother Kevin, a minor league baseball player. Determined to avoid publicity, they began the process in Denver, where Pat might not be recognized. But the inevitable news still stunned many people. Tillman was one of the very few active NFL players to volunteer for military service since World War II, in which 638 NFL players served and 19 died.