by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
Bill Bates has a special feel for the upcoming Jacksonville Jaguars training camp. And, doubtless, a lot of empathy for the young players trying to make the National Football League a career.
Bates is the Jaguars’ special teams coach who has three Super Bowl rings from his 15 years in the defensive backfield of the Dallas Cowboys. But he was perilously close to not having a career at all.
“I started four years in college [Tennessee], and I was all-everything. Man, I thought I’d be drafted in the first round, and I would be on top of the world,” he said as he prepares for the start of the Jag camp on July 25.
Before the draft, NFL scouts came to the campus to test players and included was a 40-yard dash.
“I was fast,” said Bates. “I got out there and really ripped off a 40-yarder. These guys had their stopwatches. Click! They looked at the time, then they sort of drifted away.”
Apparently, as it turned out, the NFL’s definition of “fast” was not quite what Bates thought.
“Draft day came and people said I’d be a first-rounder, or a second round choice at worse,” he said. “I sat by the phone and waited. I figured the TV would call first, then the team that chose me.”
He waited . .. and waited.
“Back then, there were 12 rounds [today’s draft has seven.] Six the first day, six the next. I didn’t get drafted the first day, so I figured I’d be high the next day,” he said.
The next day: no calls. He was devastated.
The following morning, the phone rang.
“It was a guy from the Dallas Cowboys who said he wanted to sign me,” said Bates. “Dallas had been my dream! This was too good to be true! He said, ‘If there had been 13 rounds, you would have been our pick.’ So they wanted me to sign as a free agent.”
Bates’ depression disappeared. “I knew it would be a high-ranking team official who had come to get me,” he said. “I went to his hotel and signed right then.”
Training camp finally came and Bates flew to the Cowboys camp in California. When he deplaned, he was directed to a bus.
“I got on and it was full of big guys,” he recalled. “Biiiiig guys. Football players. All rookies, like me. Then I looked around, and there were seven other buses, all filled with big guys.
“Well, I was the 13th-round guy!,” he said. “I figured we were going to have a joint training camp with the California teams, the Rams and Chargers and 49ers and Raiders.”
The buses went to one place. The Cowboys camp.
“We all got off. We all were to try out. There were 185 guys who had been told that they were the ‘13th round pick,’” said Bates. “Today, you have 80 guys trying for 53 spots. Back then, at that camp, there were over where he should place his gear.
“A guy told me to see the equipment manager,” he said. “It turned out that he was the guy who came to Knoxville to sign me! The ‘high-ranking team official’ turned out to be the guy who worried about sweaty clothes!”
The training camp was a grind and slowly the ranks of rookies was depleted. Bates was still there.
“The Thursday before the last exhibition is the biggest practice,” he said. “Full pads, everything. If there’s a question about you making the team, it gets answered there.
“My defensive coach had a surprise. he said, ‘You cover Tony Dorsett.’”
Tony Dorsett! The Cowboys running back was one of the game’s fastest players and also was one of their best pass-catchers.
“I could see my career ending, being burned by Tony Dorsett,” said Bates.
The play started. Quarterback Danny White got the ball and went back. Dorsett came out of the backfield and made a quick turn toward the sideline.
“I guessed what he would do,” said Bates. “I was right with him.”
White threw to Dorsett, who jumped and made a one-handed catch.
Was Bates burned?
“I hit Dorsett as hard as I could. He went one way, the ball went another,” said Bates. “As I was falling to the ground, it hit me. Dorsett was the best player, maybe in the league, and I had just hit him hard enough to kill him. I wouldn’t get out alive, much less a member of the team!”
Dorsett lay on the ground, motionless. The offensive players gathered around their fallen star, worrying about him and glaring at the newcomer who dared to challenge their leader.
“Dorsett finally staggered up to his feet,” said Bates. “It took a few minutes, but he recovered. Then he walked over and looked squarely at me. Now, instead of me getting killed by someone else, he was going to do it himself.”
Bates spoke instinctively, he recalled. Playing for the Cowboys had been a goal since high school in Knoxville, where his team dressed in Cowboy colors and even had the star on the helmet.
“I looked straight at him and said, ‘If you have a dream, you have to live it out.’
“It kind of stopped him. He looked at me and said, ‘Man, you’re weird,’ and walked away.”
The defensive players loved it. Dorsett got all the publicity — and sought most of it — and Dallas’ defense was page 2, at best.
“The coach loved it,” said Bates. “I needed that most of all.”
So his NFL playing career started there. Now, 15 playing years and six coaching years later, he’s showing those Super Bowl rings here.