This article originally appeared in the Sept. 7 issue of Sportsnet magazine.
If you ever doubted the star power of Odell Beckham Jr., here’s a story for you. It was the first practice of the 2015 New York Giants training camp, one of only a handful open to the public, and several players were making their way over to the bleachers to sign autographs and pose for pictures with fans. It was an entirely uneventful day until Beckham Jr. made his way over and, as the mass scrambled from their seats to get close to the star wide receiver with the caramel-blond-dyed fro-hawk, the bleachers gave way underneath them, sending the mob of Giants fans flying in all directions.
“I’m signing a football and I see the stands collapse and I see legs in between the bleachers,” Beckham Jr. said after the incident. “It was just crazy.”
This is Beckham Jr.’s life now. Crazy. Everywhere he goes, the 22-year-old causes quite a commotion, and for good reason. Relatively unknown before the 2014 NFL season, Beckham Jr. became a household name just weeks into his career as he waged an assault on the NFL record book with astounding play after astounding play, making defensive backs with years in the league look foolish and 100-yard days look easy. He went 11 catches for 156 yards in his fourth-ever NFL game and nine for 108 just six days later.
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In his seventh game, against Dallas, he made a leaping, three-fingered, in-spite-of-blatant-pass-interference catch that was instantly hailed as one of the best of the season, if not ever, and earned him a nod from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where the jersey he was wearing at the time is now prominently displayed. He toppled numerous Giants and NFL rookie records with ease and, after an insane 12-catch, 185-yard day in the Giants’ season finale, he finished the season with an NFL record for most receptions and receiving yards in a player’s first 12 games. And he became one of football’s most marketable, popular and exciting attractions in the process.
Then, this winter, he began the off-season of Odell. Having been so thoroughly engrossed in being the NFL’s next big thing, Beckham Jr. had enjoyed precious little time to himself. So, with the woeful Giants eliminated from the post-season, he decided to bask in the spoils of his sudden fame. His Instagram account looked like promotional materials for a season of Entourage. There he was, hosting a fashion show and taking turns on the runway in loud plaid pants. Here he is, partying it up and rubbing shoulders with celebrities at the Super Bowl. There he went, hanging out with David Beckham, the soccer star he looked up to as a youngster. Here he goes, hosting a party with rapper Young Jeezy at the NBA All-Star Game.
And, hey, look, it’s Odell riding a water-based jet pack, sitting in the front row at a New York fashion show with Anna Wintour, giving Chris Paul a hug at a Clippers game, posing with “Johnny Football” at a Cavs game, hobnobbing with Drake, having dinner with LeBron and, naturally, reuniting with Wintour in London and sending a “special thank you to this woman and friend for everything she’s done for me” in the picture’s description. Rob Gronkowski doesn’t have anything on this kind of off-season living.
And you can make a strong case that Beckham Jr. deserves it. With innate talent and charisma like his, he could be the most transcendent NFL athlete of his generation. In a time when the discourse surrounding the league is markedly negative due to very legitimate concerns regarding the long-term health of its players, Beckham Jr. has loudly demonstrated what everyone loved about the sport in the first place, pushing the limits of what the human body—especially his, which, at five-foot-eleven, 200 lb., is noticeably undersized among NFL receivers—is capable of, and just how quickly the American dream can become real.
Of course, that’s all this life was to Beckham Jr.—a dream—not long ago, when he was a four-year-old running around in a Baton Rouge, La., backyard, throwing a football sky high and laying out for spectacular catches. His mother, Heather Van Norman, would see the ball going up and down, up and down, from her kitchen window and go outside to ask her son what he was doing.
“I’m practising for Sundays,” he’d say.
Beckham Jr. can thank Van Norman, as well as his father, Odell Beckham Sr., for much of his inherent athleticism. Van Norman was an accomplished track athlete who became a six-time NCAA All-American by the end of her time at Louisiana State University and competed at the 1992 U.S. Olympic trials. During her senior year, she became pregnant with Beckham Jr. and gave birth to him in November 1992, while Beckham Sr. was in his junior season as LSU’s starting running back. Van Norman went on to coach track at Rice, Georgia Tech, Tulane, Tennessee and Nicholls State, while Beckham Sr., who was roommates with Shaquille O’Neal at LSU (Beckham Jr. considers the NBA legend an uncle), played arena-league football, ensuring his son spent virtually all his time in an athletic environment. Then there’s Beckham Jr.’s stepfather, Derek Mills, a 1996 Olympic gold medallist in the 4×400-metre relay, who played a major role in his life from the time he was five. It’s hard to imagine Beckham Jr. becoming anything but a high-performance athlete.
He loved soccer first, and was encouraged by coaches to pursue it at the national level, but football seemed like a more realistic path to the pros. Beckham Jr. went to Isidore Newman School in New Orleans, the same school as the Manning brothers, whom he spent years catching passes from as a teenager at the annual Manning Passing Academy in Thibodaux, La. He eventually went to LSU himself—spurning offers from Miami and Oregon—where he met one of his closest friends, Jarvis Landry, who’s now a receiver for the Miami Dolphins. It was with Landry that Beckham Jr. first began his pre-game ritual of practising one-handed catches, a spectacle that has become a pre-game must-see and must-Vine for spectators at New York’s MetLife Stadium.
What fans didn’t see was he and Landry practising those catches for hours on the lawn of the house they shared at LSU, waging competitions of who could make the more ridiculous grab. While his absurd diving catch against the Cowboys seemed like a fluke of timing, it was actually the result of hours upon hours of diligent practice. Beckham Jr. had been preparing to make “the catch” for years.
Of course, the one thing Beckham Jr. could never prepare himself for is the insane attention he now commands as one of the NFL’s most sought-after athletes in America’s most intense media market. The 22-year-old is clearly still working on that part of his game, carrying on a tense, wary relationship with the media at the dawn of his his second season.
“I always thought, you’re in the NFL, you’re a football player and that’s it,” Beckham Jr. said at a press conference in August. “I never thought there was so much more to it than that.”
Generally, Beckham Jr. gets asked about the same two things wherever he goes: the catch and his hamstrings. He missed the first four games of his rookie season with a right hamstring injury he suffered during spring practices and re-aggravated at the beginning of training camp. He didn’t miss a single game after that and even played in the Pro Bowl (where he made five catches for 89 yards and hit a 45-yard field goal during warm-ups—yawn) but revealed after the season that the hamstring was never fully healthy and that he’d actually played through two separate tears. Then, as he prepared for the 2015 season at the Giants’ early practices, he felt a tweak in his left hamstring. That held him out of mini-camp and much of the Giants’ early work during official training camp.
While his 2014 injury hardly attracted much attention, his 2015 injury caused a minor seismic event in the greater New York area as media outlets scrambled to pepper him with questions about his health—a mob only made more unruly when Beckham Jr. decided to bail on his first scheduled media availability of the pre-season. Shortly thereafter, he made cryptic comments to ESPN about having trouble dealing with the jokes and barbs from teammates and media about his injuries. When he did show up for a scheduled podium availability later in camp, the questioning and camera flashing got so intense that Beckham Jr. grimaced, closed his eyes and shook his head, waiting for the noise to die down. His irritation not only at the media spotlight but also his injury status was evident.
“I had never missed any practice, never missed any game. So it’s always been frustrating having to sit out and watch people practise,” he said. “Football being what you love to do and just having to sit back and take the back seat—I’d definitely rather be out there barely able to walk off the field than having to sit there and watch every single rep.”
When Beckham Jr. was asked what was the biggest thing he’s working on right now, he said it was patience. It’s clear the Giants have been working with him on it, too. “‘Be where your feet at’ is something that we’re learning today. And right now, I’m here, so this is what I’m doing,” Beckham Jr. said. “When I step on the field, that’s what I’m doing. When I get in the tubs, that’s what I’m doing.”
It’s strange—a megastar who lives a glamorous life away from the field, yet is so uncomfortable in front of microphones and cameras. There is a very apparent vulnerability to Beckham Jr., unlike the ostentatious, flashy receivers who preceded him like Randy Moss, Michael Irvin and Terrell Owens. Who knows if that will last. Without even a full NFL season under his belt, it seems like Beckham Jr. is still trying to figure it all out. “Just try to stay out of trouble for the most part. Just stay focused on what you came here to do, which is play football,” he said of how he plans to handle the demands of his status and the New York media environment. “That’s always going to be the main focus. Other than that, yeah, [media] is part of the job. It’s what we’re required to do. So you come here, and whatever you ask, I’m going to answer to the best of my ability and as genuinely as I can.”
An awful lot could happen this year for Beckham Jr. The entire football world is waiting to see what he will do for an encore and whether he truly is the next great NFL receiver. Of course, there is also the matter of helping the New York Giants win football games, a key responsibility that is often lost in the massive hype surrounding the insanely athletic receiver. Although he tallied more than 100 yards in seven of his 12 games and averaged a touchdown per contest, the Giants still lost all but four of those games and finished well out of the playoff picture. With a healthy Victor Cruz back in the fold, along with free-agent running back Shane Vereen, much is expected of a potentially explosive Giants offence this season.
And you can be sure that for as much attention as he garners off the field, Beckham Jr. will command even more in opposing teams’ film rooms. The league will be ready for him this year and will present much more aggressive defensive challenges for him to conquer. No matter what happens, this will be a season when we learn a lot more about Beckham Jr.—a transcendent player and potentially a generational talent who’s still called a rookie by his teammates. “I’ve still got four more games. Maybe I can get rookie of the week in the first week or something like that,” he jokes. “Eli tells me I’m still a rookie all the time. So you’ve just gotta take that and keep going. Keep going every single day. Go out there and try to inspire somebody.”
