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The Human Grenade

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But Short's biggest plays came on special teams -- especially kickoffs. "There were many times when we would watch [film of] him on kickoff -- replay after replay, just watching him," says Anderson. On one such play, "He took on three guys, his helmet popped off, and he still made the tackle. That's just the way we went after it. He came over to the sideline, and I don't even think he realized he didn't have his helmet until someone handed it to him."

One day in 1998, at a meeting for the Eastern Michigan University football team, a coach made an odd announcement: "I don't know if any of you are aware of this," he told the team, "but one of your teammates has been sleeping in his truck."

It was Short's freshman year of college. He was lucky to be at Eastern at all. He may have started the Riverside chess club, but he hadn't done much homework. A miserly grade-point average made him ineligible to play.

Eastern gave him a scholarship anyway, but NCAA rules forced him to sit out his freshman year to prove he could get the grades. He was working on it -- dividing his time between studying, heated Madden duels, and lifting weights. But suddenly he found himself homeless -- kicked out of the dorms for beating up a suitemate. "A guy wanted to test him and lost," says Short's roommate, Tim Camarco.

Short moved in with some older players, who quickly discovered his short fuse -- even when playing an uncontentious game like chess. Nobody could beat Short -- he'd won plenty of tournaments in high school -- but the smallest amount of smack could get him uncontrollably riled. Says roommate Matt Driscoll: "He was like a cartoon character" -- pacing, fists clenched, veins lighting up his neck.

Short and his friends tend to talk around his off-the-field altercations. They chalk them up to his "strong sense of justice." But there were many. Head Coach Rick Rasnick recalls having a lawyer friend on speed dial and remains thankful for the generosity of a Ypsilanti judge. "We had a lot of scrapes that we had to make sure were taken care of," he says.

Short managed to get on the field his sophomore year, sometimes to the dismay of teammates. If other players tried to cruise during practice, Short punished them. "There were several practices when we were like, 'Goddamn, the same boring drills again,' and we would go through the motions," recalls Driscoll, a linebacker. "The next thing you know, you get ear-holed by Short. Goddamn!"

His obsession with contact sometimes kept him off the field. He'd been recruited to play linebacker, but the position requires control, precision, an analyst's assessment of complex offensive schemes. When Short went into the game, "His instincts would just take over," Driscoll says. "He would see a lineman going at him, and want to go heads-up and hit him."

Even if it meant abandoning his assignment.

"Shorty playing the game was like turning on a blender," says former Eastern assistant coach Chuck Martin. "Our thing was trying to find a balance between his ultra-ultra personality of being overly aggressive and the best interest on the football field. At some point, you've gotta get under control and make the play."

Such concerns weren't as prevalent on special teams, but even this proved difficult, thanks to Short's mom. "She called my college coach and told him I wasn't allowed to do kickoffs," he says. His mom hates watching him play, but she's seen enough football to know that kickoffs were where he'd most likely re-injure his neck. "It was awful," he says. "My coach is telling everyone, 'Short's mom says he can't do kickoffs.' And they wouldn't let me be on kickoffs for a while! Then I was like, 'Screw that -- she's not going to know.'"

Short started seven games his sophomore season, racking up 55 tackles and three fumble recoveries. As a junior, he started all 11 games and finished fourth in tackles. But kickoffs were where he made his greatest impression. "That was probably the scariest part of the game -- running him down on kickoffs," says Martin. "You feared for him. You feared for the other people."

"If you could have 11 Jason Shorts on your kickoff team, they'd average about minus two yards a return," adds Rasnick. "I never saw anybody who could play at that rate down after down. Basically, you have to pull him off the field and ice him down."

Short continued to work on control and technique, and in the spring of 2000, before his third season, he was named the team's most improved player and a captain. He finished that season third on the team with 78 tackles.

But Eastern struggled, and Rasnick was fired. The new head coach wasn't as forgiving. Before Short's final season, he got into yet another fight -- with three linemen from his own team. His history of skirmishes was piling up. He was promptly kicked out of college.

"I just pounded them," he says softly, sounding both embarrassed of the fight and proud of his performance. "They slammed a door on my boy's hand, and that set me off."

Growing up, when the Short brothers weren't testing the durability of each other's body, they were usually helping their dad, raking pavement for Short Concrete.

After getting booted from college, Jason joined the family trade. But pouring cement turned out to be only a three-month sabbatical, a way to afford his football habit.

Short saved up enough money to play on pro football's lowest rung: Arena Football League 2. (Yes, there are two arena leagues.) The Peoria Pirates paid but $170 a week.

He piled into an apartment with some buddies from Eastern. They played before crowds in the hundreds and traveled to some of America's most forgettable places, like the Quad Cities and Fort Wayne. But with obscurity came opportunity: Short had no trouble getting playing time at linebacker and even got a crack at running back. He scored a touchdown in the Arena 2 title game, which the Pirates won. It was Short's first championship.

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