LUBBOCK – Look for Johnny Manziel’s name and just below the mandatory link to his Wikipedia page, Google shows him a list of questions “people ask too.”
One of those questions is: “Where is Johnny Manziel now, 2020?”
Last weekend the answer was at Hillcrest Golf & Country Club. And by all appearances, I was happy to be here. Putting it to the test at the Hillcrest Swinger seems like a quirky place for the 2012 Heisman Trophy winner at Texas A&M, insofar as he knows the world of sports from what he did at College Station, not Lubbock, and not what he can to do with a golf club in your hands, but with a soccer ball.
Ask Manziel where he considers his football career right now, and you’ll get a refreshing and heartfelt answer.
“In the past, that’s probably how I would characterize it,” Manziel said, leaning forward without hesitation for a moment. “I finally got to a point where I try to achieve happiness in life, not happiness on the soccer field.
“I know a lot of people probably want me to come back and play and give them another chance, but I don’t know, in terms of being a person and discovering life as a young adult, trying to achieve and solve it. outside if I’ve ever been in a better place than I am now. I can honestly say that I am happy and doing the right things to try to smile at myself every day, and that means more to me than going out and playing on a soccer field. ”
If one were to write Manziel’s legacy right now, with him at age 27, the story would be about one of the most exciting and electric players college football has ever seen and one of the most spectacular attacks in professional football – being the first of the Cleveland Browns. Round pick to be released after two seasons, to rebound from the CFL to the American Football Alliance. Since that league retired last spring, it has been out of the game.
Like a character in a Dan Jenkins novel, Manziel is known for his life off the field almost as much as he did.
Even he wouldn’t deny it, probably.
“During that time when I was drafted, I didn’t put in the time I needed to be a great player and I don’t think my heart was on it,” said Manziel. “And I think when I went back to Canada, it was the same way. I really believed and really thought that was what I wanted to do, and my heart was not in it, and it worked the way it did. ”
You notice that it sounds strange to hear “Johnny Football” say that his heart was never in the game. All that time at A&M, when he was dazzling college football fans, he seemed to have a lot of fun, and he caught it from the people he watched.
“I had a great time,” said Manziel. “Every time I got between the lines, I had a great time. I gave him everything I had. I think it’s fair, the work you do when you have free time and when you do things on your own, which coincides with what happens in the field.
“And when you think that you are too good or that you are better than the game, it will humiliate you. And that’s what happened. I humbled myself Thank God I had the opportunity to be humble, because when you think you are on top of the world, it is a dangerous place. “
But brooding Johnny, it isn’t. Quite the contrary, in fact.
A few minutes earlier, amid the hustle and bustle of dozens of golfers in the Hillcrest yard, he was laughing, rolling around, and talking loudly to guys who are generally new acquaintances. His cap turned back, he had a bounce in his step wherever he went.
He had met some of the other golfers a few weeks earlier at a tournament in Midland.
The friendliest guy you’ve ever met. It’s amazing, ”said Michael Pruitt, one of the defending champions of the association tournament. “He’s very nice. Obviously, some of the kids out here want to get his autograph, and he’s a good guy to give autographs. So I’m glad he’s safe here.
Winn Galyean is friends with the Manziel family in Tyler.
Galyean lives in Tahoka now, so last weekend he and Manziel traveled from Tahoka to Lubbock. On Friday, they shot 6-to-66 to lead the first flight. They ended up winning their flight on Sunday by six strokes.
Is there something Johnny Football doesn’t do well?
Golf is one of those things that, as Manziel says, smiles these days. He loves life and lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.
“I’m probably playing six days a week,” he says. “Scottsdale is the mecca of golf, so there is nothing better than that.”
Your disability?
“I’m probably a 2 right now, but I’ve dropped it from an 8, so I feel like I’m getting better every day.”
Living in Scottsdale, Manziel and Arizona Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury could also be neighbors. Manziel loves his former A&M quarterback coach. He is grateful to Kingsbury for trusting a freshman quarterback to turn freely, that’s hard for a coach, Manziel acknowledges. He says he is even more grateful for Kingsbury who helped him get off the field in recent years.
“He’s a guy that I admire very, very much,” Manziel said. “I can’t respect another person on the face of the earth as much as Kliff.”
Manziel says he and Kingsbury communicate “all the time.” But recreate what they had at A&M? Go back a minute. For one thing, Kingsburgy has Kyler Murray, the last dynamic double-threat quarterback and first choice in the draft.
And furthermore, Manziel’s attitude towards football right now seems to have been there, done that. He never said he had retired, and if someone calls, they will listen.
But Manziel gives the impression that he no longer needs football for his performance.
When told that he seems happy, Manziel says he “couldn’t be happier” than he is now and then gives a long list of reasons. He will always be revered in Aggie’s circles, he will always have the camaraderie of his peers and friends from there. He will always go to the Heisman Trophy presentation, being a past winner. You can look at that trophy at your grandmother’s house and remember the dazzling plays he made at Kyle Field that helped him win it.
Do you want me to continue?
He has his health. Johnny Football doubts that he ever suffers from football-related dementia. He never suffered a broken bone on the soccer field. Makes sense. Who got a clean shot on him?
He loves the “Valley of the Sun”, the friends he has made, the people who loved him and never abandoned him when his star was falling.
Oh sure, if you want to make it a hit for what he didn’t do as a professional soccer player, go ahead. Manziel can handle it.
“People can call me whatever they want,” he says without animosity, “but at the end of the day, I’m proud of what I did. I’m proud of what I accomplished. I got better. I improved my family’s life. I had a chance to play a amazing college football, and it didn’t work in the NFL and that’s fine. “
He is now far from 30. And by the way, at least for now he can work or not.
“New opportunities arise,” said Manziel, “and maybe there’s something else for me along the way that I like to do and want to do and it puts a smile on my face to go to work.” But for now, I am very, very happy to be … “.
He pauses for the first time in the conversation to think about the word.
“Cold.”
A few moments later, Manziel offers a punching fist and pushes his chair back from the table. With the same confident gait he wore during his Heisman season, he returns to the bustle to play with other golfers.
If you didn’t know better, it could be taken by one of the guys, and maybe that’s what he really wants to be.
