Or he does, but she lacks the prodigious energy or the organizational wizardry of Lori Warhop or Chanel Smith. Sometimes the coach or player doesn’t have a wife. A five-hour flight with a baby is no fun I won’t be making too many trips home. I enjoyed having people over for the weekend, taking T.J. So we waited an extra week and got a three-bedroom townhouse.'įor Chanel, caring for the baby has been the hardest part of the transition. And, coming from a house, I feel claustrophobic in an apartment. But for the monthly payments on its mortgage the Smiths could get only a small apartment in San Jose. “ ‘I’m just going to stay here, and we’ll come visit you.’ Typical overreacting response.” The Smiths’ house outside Baltimore was 4,800 square feet, with five bedrooms, a large playroom for T.J. “I knew nothing about this area,” Chanel says.įor two weeks after his signing, Torrey, 26, searched for a place in San Jose, just southeast of Santa Clara, while Chanel hung back in Baltimore with their one-year-old son, T.J. What Chanel didn’t know was that Torrey’s new team was based roughly 45 miles south of San Francisco, in Santa Clara. Her husband, Torrey, who led the Ravens in almost every receiving category each of the past two seasons, signed a five-year, $40 million free-agent contract with the San Francisco 49ers in March. For the, it’s the girlfriends, the wives.”Ĭhanel Smith thought she was moving to San Francisco. For the team, it’s the coaches, the equipment guys, the trainers. “But there are people in the trenches who do a lot of the hard work. “Everybody thinks the football life is so glamorous,” says Lori. The Warhops’ harrowing story is not typical of NFL families, but parts of it are all too familiar.

George, while coaching two-a-days, went to his daughter’s room at night and slept in a chair by her bed. The summer Olivia was in the hospital, Lori spent every day with her. But her leg didn’t need to be amputated, and after a six-hour tibia resection, followed by a six-day hospital stay, followed by wheelchairs, crutches, rehab, three bone grafts, two plates along her tibia and 13 screws, she was declared cancer-free one year after the initial diagnosis. Trainers and team doctors from the Browns connected Olivia with the Cleveland Clinic where Olivia received an eventual diagnosis of MyroFibrosarcoma, an extremely rare form of bone cancer. You’ll be lucky if we don’t have to amputate.”īut Lori knew what was best for her family: She moved the kids to Ohio. “You can’t move to Cleveland,” he told Lori. The pathology report indicated a benign growth, so the Warhops were stunned when, 10 days later, Olivia’s doctor rushed into the examining room as her stitches were being checked and announced that he had diagnosed a potentially fatal bone cancer.

They’re the ones whose work every day allows Sundays to remain paramount for the pros. The teams help, but inevitably much of the burden falls to the wives and girlfriends and significant others.

In other cities across the NFL, the demanding rituals of relocation are well-known to the families of players and coaches: contact the realtors, study the school systems, pick a community, find the new doctors, handle the kids’ emotions, shed an old life and start afresh. As the season goes on, their days will stretch deeper and deeper into the night. 10 of the team’s 14 coaches are also new. In a league where the average lifespan is 3.5 years, the threat of a career-ending injury is constant and few contracts are guaranteed, they’re under searing pressure to focus and perform. Next to the field, near the weight room, the players’ and coaches’ wives and children sit on white folding chairs and watch in the shadows.Īlmost a third of the players are new to the Niners. The midsummer sun shines on the red 49ers jerseys as the players practice at preseason camp in Santa Clara, Calif.

Ashlee whatson real estate