He’s Upset It’s Such a Big Deal

Weight. Nate Newton shook his head. Weight. Weight. Weight. Nate Fat This. Nate Fat That.

“Big joke,” the 325-pound Dallas Cowboy said. “Big funny joke. I show up. They say, ‘Here he is, the answer to the Fridge.’ They don’t say how Nate did in practice. They don’t say how Nate did in the game. They say Nate Fat This. They say Nate Fat That. They say, ‘What you weigh today, Nate?’ They say, ‘Oh, look, there’s Nate, hitchin’ up his pants to keep ‘em up.’ Nate has a bad game and they say Nate’s gettin’ too fat to play.”

Nate looked around. He saw a bald guy. He saw a shaggy guy.

“How would you like it?” Nate asked. “How would you like it if I said: ‘This boy here’s losin’ his hair.’ Or, you. How about if I said: ‘This boy here stepped right out of the 1960s. Get your hair cut, boy. It’s the ‘90s.’ How would you know that it was all a big joke? How would you know that I didn’t mean nothing personal by it?”

It might hurt.

“It does hurt,” Nate said. “My wife and I, we keep a scrapbook. We keep all the articles that say Nate Fat This and say Nate Fat That. And periodically we take it out and read it together, just to remind ourselves of who’s been sayin’ what. Or others come over to our house and they pick up the scrapbook and they say, ‘Man, for a good man, you got all this negative stuff written here about you!’ Instead of, you know, stories about how I made the Pro Bowl, or how I was one of the top people on the Cowboys. They say, ‘Man, Nate, you’re the scapegoat.’ ”

Large body. Long memory.

“You got that right,” Nate said. “You know what I got? I got what I call the Head Vulture Award. That’s the award that goes to the writer who circles around pickin’ up the most garbage. So, let’s hear your question. Fire away. What you want to talk about?”

Uh, weight, Nate.

“Naturally.”

It’s hard, though. Hard not to talk about what Nate ate. Yes, he is a fine offensive tackle. Yes, he was a real find for the Dallas Cowboys after he got through laboring for two years for the USFL Tampa Bay Bandits. He blocks Reggie White. He blocks Charles Mann. He blocks William Fuller. He makes All-Pro. He makes All-Madden.

“But that doesn’t stop John Madden from tellin’ everybody when he sees me out there hitchin’ up my pants, does it?” speculates Nate. “ ‘Uh, oh. Ol’ Nate must be puttin’ on weight again. He can’t keep his pants up.’ ”

Nate’s big and Nate’s a big kidder. He takes some of this stuff seriously. He shrugs some of this stuff off. He’s a good athlete and a good sport. And he certainly isn’t oblivious to the fact that any man whose weight fluctuates from 390 to 292 in a single year might, yes, be spoken about as somebody with some body .

What was it Refrigerator Perry once said? “I was big when I was little.”

Not Nate.

“I wasn’t always that big. Once upon a time growin’ up in Orlando, I was actually what you might call slight.

“Then I got to high school and started playing football. I even played a little fullback. And by then I was so much bigger than the other kids. So the other kids would punch me, kick me, grab me, tug me, smash me, bash me, do anything they pleased. And I’d look at the referee and the referee’d look back at me, like, ‘What?’

“And I’d say, ‘Yo, ref. Lookie here. I don’t much care how hard these boys hit. It just shouldn’t be after the whistle.’

“And the referee, he’d say, ‘Oh, it’s all right, big fella. You can take it.’

“See? No respect again. Old fat Nate can take it. Don’t have to worry about old Nate’s feelings. So anyway, we come out for the second half, and some same little kid who’s been after me in the first half comes around and he spears me again. Well, I figure, that’s enough. I just grabbed this little kid by the collar and picked him up and shook him up. And that’s when the referee tried to break it up, so I picked him up and shook him up.

“It was right after that that the coach told me, ‘Nate, I figure that’s the end of your fullback career.’ ”

So, a lineman was born. Nathaniel Newton, Jr., who went off to Florida A&M; and was made captain and played both offense and defense. He was good enough that the Washington Redskins signed him up. He was not good enough to avoid being dumped by the Redskins on the final cut.

Back to Florida he went to play for the USFL Tampa Bay Bandits. Burt Reynolds was one of the owners and one of Nate’s everlasting memories is of Burt on “Meet the Bandits Night” riding into the arena on a stagecoach. It was fun being back by the bay. Nate’s younger brother, Tim, ended up playing for the NFL Buccaneers. Both sons made their daddy proud.

“What’s your dad do?” Nate was asked.

“Owns a grocery store,” he said.