Schexnayder Already Earning Gruden`s Old Jersey Number
Andrew Mason
Tuesday June 11, 2002
Never mind the fact that Jay Gruden, who is as retired as Michael Jordan, announced his presence with authority once again by pop-gunning the Storm secondary for 286 yards and four touchdowns while completing 75 percent of his tosses for the Orlando Predators.
Disregard the ever-bubbling cauldron of resentment in Tampa Bay circles towards the fact that Gruden chose to enter the realm of head coaching with the arch-rivals, of all teams.
And forget that Gruden himself doesn’t give a hoot about the non-issue.
“If they want to un-retire it, that’s their business,” Gruden said. “They can’t take away my four rings that I won there, so they can do what they want. They can all wear No. 7 and (Storm head coach Tim) Marcum can stick it up his rear. I don’t care.”
No, the issue of the latest and most unlikely chapter of this rivalry – a 48-45 Storm win that saw the teams limp out of the game with a combined 6-10 record – is the fact that the Storm’s new No. 7, offensive specialist Calvin Schexnayder, is only furthering the legacy of the jersey.
Just as the number 32 became legendary at Syracuse University by being passed from perhaps the finest runner in football history to a Heisman Trophy winner in the late 1950s, the No. 7 stands to become a common thread linking arguably the Storm’s two most decorated players.
Granted, Schexnayder’s place in league annals was established in Arizona; his league single-season records for receiving yards, receptions, touchdowns and 100-yard games, as well as his standing among the stratosphere for career numbers surely guarantee him a place in the league’s hall of fame.
Yet in just two weeks, he’s galvanized the offense merely by his presence. His 12 receptions, 169 receiving yards and five touchdowns since taking over as offensive specialist helped rouse the Storm from its six-week slumber, during which it averaged 43.7 points per game.
In the two weeks with Schexnayder, the average is 51.5 points per game. But a better demonstration of Shakes’ value is the Storm’s record since he arrived: 2-0, after a 4-10 run dating back to the middle of last season.
For the first time in a year, the Storm looks like its swaggering self. And because the new No. 7 has shaken life into the Storm just as the old one did beginning in 1991, Schexnayder is already set as a perfect fit in the Storm’s No. 7.
Andrew Mason was at the Tampa Bay Storm`s first home game on June 1, 1991 and has followed the game ever since. While in college, he served as content editor and co-founder of The Storm Shelter, a Web site which covered the Tampa Bay Storm on the Internet from 1996-99. He also volunteered with the team`s media relations department in 1998 and currently contributes to ColoradoCrush.com. He's covered the NFL for various on-line outlets since 1999.
