PHOENIX — As players and coaches celebrated in the New York locker room last Sunday night — when the Giants advanced to the Super Bowl with a victory in overtime over the Packers at Lambeau Field in Green Bay — one stoic man sat quietly off to the side, soaking in the electric scene.
Lt. Colonel Greg Gadson, relegated to a wheelchair because he lost both his legs in Iraq, was the team’s honorary captain for the game. Gadson is a source of inspiration, a reality check and a reminder of grace for young men at the peak of their lives both physically and professionally.
As players filed out of the locker room to the team buses, they invariably would stop, lean down and hug Gadson or shake his hand — congratulating him on the victory just as they had congratulated each other in the locker room earlier in the evening.
It was only natural. Gadson is a part of the team now.
“I am just trying to enjoy this moment,” Gadson said, glancing around the locker room to appreciate the festive atmosphere.
So many things go into an accomplishment of this magnitude, such as advancing to the Super Bowl. So it is virtually impossible to identify the defining reason for the overwhelming success of an entire organization.
But Gadson unquestionably is one thread of the web of prosperity currently appreciated by the Giants. New York is the only NFC team in NFL history to win three road playoff games and advance to the Super Bowl, to be played Sunday night against the New England Patriots at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
From the speech he issued to the team in Week 3 of the NFL season, to the insights he has provided New York wide receiver Plaxico Burress, to the sort of good luck charm quality he has engendered, Gadson has become a Giant. He almost certainly will receive a Super Bowl ring if the Giants are fortunate enough to hand the Patriots their first loss of the season.
Gadson is a former college roommate of Giants wide receivers coach Mike Sullivan. Gadson, an outside linebacker at Army, and Sullivan, a defensive back, played in the 1988 Sun Bowl, where Army lost 29-28 to heavily favored Alabama.
Both then moved on to other things in life.
While Sullivan served the needs of Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, Gadson served the needs of his country, fighting in Iraq.
On May 7, 2007, Gadson lost both his legs when an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded on a street in Baghdad. Gadson also suffered other injuries, including one to his elbow that prevented him from touching his nose or eating with his right hand for eight months.
Gadson was sent home from Iraq and rehabilitated at Walter Reed Medical Center in the Washington, D.C. area. Sullivan drove down from New York to see his old friend in June, inviting Gadson to attend the Giants’ game against the Redskins in Washington in September.
Sullivan, however, was so moved by the determination and spirit Gadson possessed, despite his world being completely ruptured, that he asked Coughlin as the game approached if Gadson could address the Giants.
New York’s players, who started the season 0-2 with losses to Dallas and Green Bay and were being vilified by the New York media, could urgently use some direction, Sullivan thought.
Sullivan brought Gadson to the team’s hotel the night before the game to give a speech.
Gadson talked for 15 minutes — about ignoring outside influences and fighting and playing for one another; about appreciating the experience and opportunities they had been provided; about living in the moment because life can change quickly.
“He didn’t draw any cliches or parallels to combat,” Sullivan said. “He talked about what it would take to pull together as a team.”
When he finished, the soldier was given a standing ovation by the Giants.
“His speech was so passionate and from the heart, it was amazing,” Sullivan said. “You could hear a pin drop. Who he is and how he said it was very powerful.”
It seemed to have little initial effect the next day. The Giants fell behind 17-3 and the season, still in its infancy, appeared to be slipping away. But New York rallied in the second half, winning 24-17. When Burress scored the game-winning touchdown in the fourth quarter, he gave the ball to Gadson, sitting on the sideline.
It was a win that reversed New York’s fortunes. The Giants won seven consecutive road games en route to a playoff berth. New York then won three playoff games on the road to earn a berth in the Super Bowl against the 18-0 Patriots.
“His message and the lessons that he spoke of in terms of team — the seriousness of his team and how he prepared his team and the thoughts that he had about the people that served under him in Iraq, were just tremendous lessons,” Coughlin told the New York media. “I told our players that it’s not often … that we meet an individual who can have a profound influence on our lives just simply by the value of the character of the man and what he stands for. This guy is something very special.”
The story could have ended there, of course. But it didn’t.
Burress was so moved by Gadson and what he stood for that he has developed a lasting friendship with the soldier. Gadson has helped guide the talented receiver, who like Gadson, is a native of the Tidewater area of Virginia.
“Greg is a very special guy to me,” said Burress, who had 11 receptions for 154 yards against the Packers in the NFC championship game. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a finer individual, especially with some of the stuff that he has gone through. We sit down at dinner or at breakfast and talk about stuff outside of football .. and he’ll say stuff and I’ll be like, ‘Wow, I’m 30 years old and nobody has ever said anything like that to me before in my life.’”
Sullivan and Coughlin surprised the Giants’ players by having Gadson greet the team at the hotel in Tampa Bay for the playoff opener. He had gotten leg prosthetics but was not yet accustomed to them. Still, he got out of his wheelchair with tremendous effort to say hello.
“It was so great to see the players excited to see him,” Sullivan said.
Gadson could not make it to Dallas for the divisional playoff victory because he had to have another surgery. But he was there in the arctic cold of Green Bay with his 13-year-old son Jaelen by his side.
When Giants defensive back Corey Webster intercepted Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre on the third play of overtime — setting up the game-winning field goal — the young cornerback without hesitation gave the ball to Gadson.
“He’s kind of meant a lot to our team,” Webster said.
Team executives had already told Gadson he would accompany the team to Phoenix for the Super Bowl if the Giants won, and Gadson was making arrangements as soon as he left Green Bay.
He has mixed feelings about his inclusion in this process, however. The sounds and smells of the locker room take him back to his playing days, to the bonds he formed and the relationships he established, to the very things that were the basis of his speech to the team in September.
But he also remembers that he is a part of another team, one for which he holds equal if not greater endearment, one that does far greater things with much less acclaim.
“About a year ago this time I was preparing to take my battalion to Iraq, and I got hurt three months later,” Gadson said. “They are still deployed. I am ready for them to come home.
“At the same time, I never thought I could be part of something like this. It is never something I dreamed of or thought of, and I thank God that I have a chance to be a part of this after May 7 of last year.”
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