Former UM star Bibla looking for an opportunity

Martin Bibla stood out among the football players auditioning for NFL scouts at the University of Miami on Friday. Not just because he is the size of an armoire but because he is older than the rest.

Wiser, too. As a former employee of the Atlanta Falcons and Denver Broncos, Bibla, 29, has no illusions about the NFL.

''You are a piece of meat,'' he said. ``You are a bit of data.''

Yet Bibla still dreams, as do the UM seniors who ran forward and backward and sideways for the scouts who watched dispassionately, clicked stopwatches and jotted notes.

This wasn't your typical interview, given the abundance of sweat and lack of neckties, but then playing football isn't your typical job. Timing Day at UM is a predraft measurement of athletes' speed. It's strictly about numbers, and not those clichés about character and determination.

AN OPPORTUNITY
''This is for all the marbles,'' Bibla said. ``You don't get a second look.''

Yet he's hoping for a second chance. Cut by Denver in 2006, Bibla starred two years for the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League -- Jon Bon Jovi's team. Then the ''football in a phone booth'' league ran out of money and suspended the 2009 season. Bibla, an offensive lineman, isn't ready to hang up his helmet.

''I'm here to let the NFL know I still exist,'' he said. ``I want my name on their lips. With me, they get great value, great depth on the O-line.''

Bibla, who is 6-3 and 325 pounds, ran the 40-yard dash (5.5 seconds), the short shuttle and the L drill. He did the same things on the same field in 2002, when he was a UM senior coming off a national championship season and a stellar college career during which he did not allow a sack. He was part of a great line (Bryant McKinnie, Brett Romberg, Joaquin Gonzalez, Sherko Haji-Rasouli) and a great team. Eleven Hurricanes were drafted that spring, five in the first round, Bibla in the fourth. It's lean times for UM now, with only Bruce Johnson expected to be drafted, and not early.

Bibla was back where he started, and he could almost hear former coaches Art Kehoe, Butch Davis and Larry Coker yelling. He didn't want to trample the green optimism of the seniors, but if he could give them a few words of advice, it would be: ``They don't call it the Not For Long league for nothing.''

Although Friday was about split seconds, the NFL is not always a meritocracy. It also is an old-boys' club. It's a cruel way to make a living. And a euphoric way to make a lot of money. Those are the conflicting lessons Bibla learned. He's jaded but mesmerized by the NFL. He's giving it one more shot.

''As an NFL player, you feel you have the world in the palm of your hand. Guys let that go to their heads,'' Bibla said. ``You are treated like royalty. That's what I miss.

``When you're out you realize how stressful it was. Your job is on the line every time you step on the field. Put together a string of mediocre plays and you have a bad day. Do that more than once and you're off the team. Word floats around and all of a sudden you're a has-been.''
Bibla was a starter by his second season in Atlanta, but a new coach was hired and changed the depth chart. Then Bibla broke his ankle on kickoff coverage. In Denver, he got cut because of a salary-cap decision.

''It's 50 percent talent, 50 percent luck, placement, politics, who you know,'' he said.

Each play was graded at UM; Kehoe had a WTF grade, which translates to What The (expletive) for a botched assignment. The critiques in the NFL were more detailed and brutal.

In Bibla's first game as a starter, he had to protect Michael Vick from Warren Sapp. Bibla shut Sapp down. Praise from the coach?
'He said, `I hope that wasn't a fluke,' '' Bibla said.

The pressure to perform daily was so intense that Bibla used to watch cartoons on the DVD player in his truck on the way to work, ``just to empty my mind.''

ENJOYING THE GAME
The nice thing about the Arena league and its pro wrestling flavor was that ''you could enjoy playing again,'' Bibla said. ``We flew coach, but we didn't have to worry about being replaced.''

Bibla didn't entertain NFL fantasies as a child in Mountaintop, Pa., where his Russian father Stanley and Polish mother Barbara ran the 20-unit Crestwood Motel and Bar. Bibla, who speaks his parents' languages fluently, was a fat kid who could be found in front of the TV eating a cheeseburger. When he was in 10th grade, his dad forced him to play football. Forced him as in ''he beat me,'' Bibla said. ``And when I tried to quit, my brother beat me.''

He played for an 0-10 team but got a scholarship to UM. He still lives in Mountaintop, with wife Anna, an occupational therapist, and sons Magnus, Lincoln and Mariusz.

Bibla felt fast Friday, back under the Miami sun. He can bench press 500 pounds, power clean 385 -- he's stronger than ever.
He's hoping an NFL team will contact him, but if not, he's thinking about the World's Strongest Man competition or becoming a police officer or firefighter.

''I'm more realistic than I was seven years ago,'' he said. ``It's a cattle call. But it's still the NFL.''

(miamiherald.com)