The Human Grenade

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."

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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.

His play won him an offer at the next level -- the Arena Football League, birthplace of former NFL MVP Kurt Warner and former Steelers quarterback Tommy Maddox. But it was his gunning at Eastern Michigan that landed Short his real break. After the Arena 2 season, a Detroit Lions scout forwarded Short's college tape to former Browns coach Sam Rutigliano.

Rutigliano was coaching for NFL Europe's Barcelona Dragons. He needed extra bodies. While most players are allocated by NFL teams, European squads pick up a few free agents for their Florida training camp. "Very rarely do they make it," says Rutigliano, now retired. Short's shot was so long that when he first arrived, his position coach told him he might get a chance -- if someone got hurt.

"I about shit myself," Short says. "I wanted to fucking punch him. It kind of bugged me, for someone to tell you something like that. It kind of lit my fire."

From then on, Short "was like a kamikaze all of training camp," recalls Arizona Cardinals receiver Sean Morey, who tried out alongside him. The two were fast friends, bonded by nonstop competition. They were fighting for their dream jobs, but after practice they found themselves skimming the bottom of the hotel pool, battling for the title of Guy Who Can Hold His Breath Longer.

Short made the team and started at defensive end -- a position he'd never played. He still suffered from collision withdrawals, but he was getting better. "He would sometimes take himself out of a play just to kick someone's ass," Morey says. But Short was starting to learn that "it's not just about putting the guy in front of him on his back."

He racked up 27 tackles in half a season in Europe before being sent home with a shoulder injury. But it was kickoffs where he shined. He only played on two, he says -- the coaches were trying to protect his shoulder -- but he believes those two plays opened the eyes of the NFL.

He was assigned to bust the wedge. "I messed him up the first time," he says. "The second time I went down . . . I knocked him out cold . . . After that, it was just a big selling point, for someone who would run down there, completely fearless, to hit a wedge."

As the 2003 season approached, Short found himself doing the dance he'd awaited since boyhood: auditioning for NFL teams. He found a match in Philadelphia. The blue-collar town has an affection for rub-some-dirt-on-it hit men. Plus, the Eagles gave him the biggest signing bonus. In the NFL, where careers are short and contracts aren't guaranteed, the biggest signing bonus has a way of buying devotion.