A Son, a Chance, a Dream

Arman Shields, right, with his father, Bertie, played wide receiver at Gonzaga and the University of Richmond, and has overcome a major knee injury. (By Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)
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A 3.96 in the 20-yard shuttle -- the fastest time of anyone at the combine.

A 10.87 in the 60-yard shuttle -- also the fastest time at the combine.

The third-best time of all in the three-cone drill.

And in the most important test of all, the 40-yard dash, the player with the torn knee, who missed almost all of last season, had a 4.44 total average but ran a 4.38 on one of his attempts, ranking him among the fastest players on the field. Scott smiled as he saw the number pop up on his screen. He called Arman and delivered the news.

Players are not told their times inside the stadium, so Arman had no idea how he had done. He felt good, but it wasn't until the phone rang and Scott was on the other end with his results that Arman stopped. He was standing outside the RCA Dome, alone on the sidewalk in downtown Indianapolis. He threw back his head and began to shout at the buildings all around him.

"I was screaming at the excitement," he said the other day during a break from his team visits. "I understood: 'Man, this is like a dream. This is something I waited my whole life for, and now it's coming true.' The 40 is so big in the NFL, and I had worked my [butt] off to get back. I feel I ran really fast. Then when I heard the times I thought, 'Oh my goodness, did I really?' "

He laughed as he recalled the other wide receivers from all the big schools looking at him quizzically.

"Everybody is like, 'Who the hell is this guy from Richmond?' " he said.

If only they had seen him last fall, pushing at those weight machines, willing the ligaments to heal. If they had watched him trying to rush back only to re-injure the knee, forcing him to start over, and then seen him in the training center in New Jersey, where he ultimately went to build the strength. Maybe then they would have understood.

Then again, perhaps all they needed to do was meet Bertie. So much of the son comes from the father.

When his sons came along, Bertie, a runner in Guyana, began training them to be athletes. He set up workouts for them, established a regular program to follow and urged them to challenge themselves.

"Never let anyone tell you that you are the best," Bertie always would tell them. "You can always get better. And the only way to get better is to work harder."