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The drive within

Sporting News, The, July 29, 1996 by Dennis Dillon

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It's time for his morning workout. Spielman leaves a tip, walks out to the parking lot and climbs into his black Dodge Ram 4x4. As he has done so many times in the past eight years, he makes a right turn out of Klancy's and pulls up to the first intersection. Straight ahead, about half a mile down the road, is the Silverdome. But Spielman changes his direction, this time, he turns right.

"There is one thing I can control. I will never be outworked."

On "Chris, Words of Motivation," a list of inspirational principles Spielman wrote before spring practice of his senior season at Ohio State and now is hanging on a wall in his basement that is No. 1. Among the others "Before one believes in others, he must believe in himself" and "There are no losers; only winners who quit too soon" and "Those who work the hardest are the last to surrender."

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If there is a common root in Spielnan's success, it is diligence. He takes pride in his work ethic. That's why he spends all those hours running and lifting weights, studying film and walking around his house in quirky gaits. "If he thought sleeping in his uniform would make him better, he would do it," says Don Clemons, a Lions linebackers coach who be friended Spielman in 1988, the player's rookie season. It is why on the first day of the Bills' minicamp, Spielman's ankles were taped be fore breakfast and he was dressed for practice and sitting at his locker, studying his new playbook, before the rest of the players arrived.

"I'm one of those paranoid guys who thinks, Am I doing enough? Am I doing enough?'" he says. "If I find somebody doing something more than me, or better than me, then I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it better than he is. I used to read about (former Bears linebackery Mike Singletary about how much film he watched. So I said, 'If I have to watch film six hours a day, I'm going to watch more.' Like if I see a guy at practice running extra sprints, then I'm going to keep on running until he leaves the field.

"I feel what I need to get done, what I need to do to get ready to be the best player on Sunday - I have to do that Ifs just my way. I don't miss a workout. And if I do miss, which happens very rarely, then I will be like a guilty son of a gun. So then I'll do it at night, or in the middle of the night, or whatever."

When Spielman isn't in the weight room working out, he's in a meeting room studying film. "If I could give any advice to young kids in high school or college, I'd say, Watch that film, watch that film, watch that film.'" He takes pride in knowing he watches more film than perhaps any other player in the league, and that has been a big source of his success.

"I really think he believes that gives him a little bit more of an edge," Clemons says. "And it does; I don't think there's any doubt about that You can see him instinctively understand what the other team is trying to do and recognize the play (merely) by alignment by maybe a tip he picked up along the way. He'd study it so much to the point where we'd be in practice - and I run the scout team - and the offense would run a play from a certain formation and Chris would be where he's really not supposed to be, but he'd make the play. And (the offensive players) would say, 'What - do you show him the cards?

The drive within

Sporting News, The, July 29, 1996 by Dennis Dillon

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