For Kramers, a Good Ending to Bad Episode

The doctor told Marshawn Kramer that her first baby would be a large one, maybe as heavy as 12 pounds. So, two weeks prematurely, her child was delivered by Caesarean section. Erik Kramer was right there by his wife’s side. Their son checked in on June 24, 1993, four days after Father’s Day, at slightly under 10 pounds, safe and sound.

Two weeks later, Griffen Kramer became colicky, unusually so. Back and forth trudged his parents to the pediatricians. A puffiness had developed near the baby’s navel. The doctor suspected it might be a cyst. Erik Kramer was reluctant to leave home. He was due to report to training camp with the Detroit Lions, for whom he then played quarterback. Back home in Agoura Hills, though, all he knew was that his baby was “screaming bloody murder.” And his wife was getting practically no sleep. And the infection Griffen had on his stomach was growing worse.

Erik was fearful. Far more so than he had ever been on a football field. He says now: “I thought people have babies, they grow up, no problem. Then they live happily ever after. What did I know?”

A staph infection was attacking his infant’s internal organs, right through his bellybutton. The doctors put Griffen on antibiotics. While they anticipated no radical surgery, they did remove some dead tissue. But the child developed one complication after another, until over a period of at least five weeks, Erik recalls, “It was day to day for our baby at best.”

Griffen was on a respirator. The doctor kept using the expression that the baby was in a holding pattern, which Marshawn and Erik couldn’t be positive meant good news or bad. At the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, meantime, the other parents who came into contact with the Kramers in neo-natal care reminded them of how delicate and uncertain childbirth can be. Everyone in the hospital was having an ordeal of his or her own.

“They handle only the extreme cases,” Erik says. “It’s the saddest thing in the world. They don’t expect a lot of those kids in there to go home.” Griffen Kramer did.

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And eventually life went on for the Kramers. Erik had a long season with the Lions--in the lineup one week, out the next. When the last whistle blew, he and his wife, still exhausted from six months of sleepless nights, took off for a much-needed vacation. While they were gone, they turned on a TV set. A report on the news was coming from Canoga Park, the town where Erik grew up. It seemed there had been an earthquake. A taste of what Mother Nature can do, to use Erik’s own words.

Kramer, 29, has never known a year of such upheaval. He was a free agent, unsure where he would play football next. And nature was a mother that had thrown more than one curve at his family.

“Our world was turned upside down,” he says.

All in all, however, Kramer counted his blessings. He got a call from the Chicago Bears, who wanted to make him their starting quarterback. He eagerly agreed. He and his wife took an apartment there and found a home in Lake Bluff, near the Bears’ training camp, that caught their eye. And Griffen? Well, Griffen was in another holding pattern, this time a good holding pattern. He was 10 months old and getting so huge, his 6-foot-1 daddy kept wondering how come a quarterback’s kid was growing into a defensive tackle. Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear were fine.

And an idea occurred to the Kramers. For the last two years, the quarterback had been sponsoring the Erik Kramer Celebrity Pro-Am golf tournament back in California. The proceeds for this tournament had gone to the football program at L.A. Valley College in Van Nuys, where the coach was Jim Fenwick, who had been Kramer’s first coach in college, back when he was running a program at Pierce JC.

Fenwick was appreciative. Still is. He says: “You get a lot of kids who come through your life, and you don’t always know how they’re going to turn out. Sometimes you have certain perceptions of people that never pan out. But with Erik, you always felt if he just ever had an opportunity to prove himself, he could make it big. And as a human being, they just don’t come any better.”

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Kramer came out of Burbank Burroughs High not big enough, not fast enough, not even a full-time quarterback. He split time at free safety. By the time he completed his second season at Pierce, the big-time scouts were not exactly pounding on his door, but one coach from North Carolina State saw something he liked. Next thing he knew, N.C. State had the Atlantic Coast Conference’s player of the year. No pro team drafted Kramer. He kept trying. The New Orleans Saints signed him, then released him. The Atlanta Falcons brought him in during an NFL players’ strike, then let him go. Kramer made his way to Canada, spent 10 months with the Calgary Stampeders, then got released again. If there was going to be a happily-ever-after in his football future, he was getting more and more anxious.

By the end of the 1991 football season, though, through dedication and a chain reaction of circumstance, Kramer was the starting quarterback for Detroit in the NFC championship game. He came within one step of a Super Bowl. He was so much in demand, the Dallas Cowboys tendered him an offer sheet. And the Lions gladly matched it.

And now he’s a Bear. With a fat new contract. With his eye on a home that is convenient to work. Erik says: “I’d rather live in a cardboard box five miles away than in a palace 35 miles away.”

Two thousand miles away, he still has his house, still has his golf tournament. The pro-am will be played Monday at Woodland Hills Country Club, with football colleagues from Steve Beuerlein to Chris Chandler to Rodney Peete among those expected to attend. Erik sent word to athletes and celebrities that he would appreciate autographed memorabilia for an auction, designed to raise money.

He wrote: “But that doesn’t mean I will go easy on you when you play the Bears!”

This year’s event is different in one respect. The proceeds will be divided between the Valley football program and the Children’s Hospital. Donations can be made through the Los Angeles Valley Spirit Club, care of Jim Fenwick, 5800 Fulton, Van Nuys, CA. 91401. Kramer seeks to help the hospital continue with its world-class pediatric care, saying: “I think they have an incredible task in front of them. My wife and I can testify as to the kind of work they do, and it just kills you to think of how it involves all these poor, helpless kids.”

Griffen Kramer, at least--Baby Bear--is doing fine. “Now I finally know what Father’s Day is all about,” Erik Kramer says.