Quarterback shaped by his time in Portugal
He learned a lesson that still applies, even if it occurred in a different country far from a football field. John Beck knocked on one door after another in Lisbon, Portugal, and almost every time those visits ended the same way: with a door closing in his face.
Once in a while, one would stay open.
“Nobody listens, and then, bam, somebody does, and those 400 knocked doors are worth it because that one person said, ‘Yeah, we’d love to talk to you,’?” he said.
Beck’s two-year mission delayed his college football career and — by extension — his NFL one as well. He’s 29, but he has been in the NFL for only four seasons. That’s why, in some respects, what others did — or didn’t do — at his age doesn’t apply.
“I don’t feel 29, that’s for sure,” Beck said after the second day of a players-only minicamp at an undisclosed location.
Meanwhile, his time in Portugal in 2001 and 2002 helped shape who he is today. He went on his mission after graduating from high school and before entering Brigham Young University. Nobody was there to wake him up; nobody was there too cook or clean for him or to see him off to work. He was on his own.
“It was self-discipline,” he said. “Being driven and passionate about it, really that carried over from the way I attacked sports. That carried into my mission. You become a man, and there’s more responsibility.”
He preached a message of family, telling those who would listen that families would be together now — and in heaven. And he tried not to take it personally when those doors slammed. In some ways, it’s akin to his life in the NFL; doors have closed on him, but the Redskins might be opening one for him now by giving him a chance to become a starter.
“There’s no way I was going to stop working or slow down my working,” he said. “If anything I felt like what more can I do? That drove my wife nuts because she’d be like, ‘You have to make sure you take a break.’ But I always felt like I had to prepare myself for when that opportunity did come.”
Beck and Rex Grossman, assuming he re-signs, likely will enter into some form of competition this summer whenever training camp opens. It may also be with a yet-to-be-named quarterback.
“I like the attitude that says he wants to be the leader and the starting quarterback,” receiver Anthony Armstrong said of Beck.
It’s a confidence that he can accomplish things. He learned that in Lisbon.
